Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/306

 240 NOETH-EAST AFRICA. the wars that it was necessary to sustain against the tribes, the depopulation consequent on slave-hunting, and the surveillance of the convicts who washed the sand, cost the Viceroy much more than was covered by the product of the mines. Hence Said Pasha ordered them to be abandoned and the fortresses to be levelled, after which the to^^ls were again reoccupied by their original inhabitants. Never- theless the native gold-miners found their fortunes where the Government had met with financial ruin. The grains, called tihr, and usually collected in the quills of vultures' feathers, are used as money to purchase the merchandise brought by the jellahi, or local traders. The principal gold-washing stations are on the western side of the mountains, in the valley sloping towards the White Nile, and in the Fig. 77. — Fazool Gold Mines. Scale 1 : 600,000. 54° ^5 • 35° C « of breeowich ^ 12MilM. middle of which rises the pyramidal Jebel-Dul, in all of whose ra^nnes gold is found. The amount annually obtained is valued by Schuver at £1,600, on which the Sheikh of Gomasha raises a tax of about a fourth. The soldiers he has collected round him are mostly slave-hxmters, who have escaped from the disaster of Sulei- man in the zeriba region. The Gallas who come from the markets of Timiat prefer another medium of exchange to gold-dust, and will only receive the " salt bricks " imported from Eastern Abyssinia in exchange for their goods. According to Schuver, the inhabitants of the Tumat Valley receive yearly over 75,000 pounds of salt money. Fadasi. Even after evacuating the coimtry, the Egyptians compelled the riverain tribes of the Tumat Valley to pay them a tax of about £6,000 ; but beyond the district