Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/309

 destroyed by the Funj, stands the town of Messalamieh, in the midst of fields of durra, a strong place which the insurgents took from the Egyptians after a long and murderous siege. Before the war it had become a considerable market, precisely because it was distant from the river, so that the nomads had here to fear the passage of armies less than in towns lying on the banks of the Nile.

Below Abû-Ahraz, on the left bank of the main stream, a few ruins mark the site of Kamlin, or Kammin, where, under the protection of the Egyptian government,

some European merchants founded in 1840 large soap, indigo, sugar and distilling factories. For a long time these establishments were prosperous, thanks to the cheapness of coal and labour, but more especially thanks to the monopoly possessed by the manufacturers, whose products the officers and soldiers were obliged to take in part payment of their salaries. But the forests have been wasted, the country has been depopulated, and the monopoly has met its usual fate, poverty and ruin.