Shol had come expressly from her island to take leave of us, and to offer her hospitality to the caravan. Our course now lay in a tolerably straight S.S.W. direction across the western district of the extensive territory of the unsubdued Dinka. We rested occasionally in the deserted villages and amidst the empty cattle-pens belonging to the natives, who made their escape as we advanced. By their continual cattle-stealing, the Nubians have caused all the Dinka tribes to consider foreign interlopers as their bitter enemies; the intercourse, therefore, with the settlements in the Bongo and Dyoor countries, which are separated from the river by the Dinka district, can only be maintained at the expense of keeping an adequate number of armed men to protect the porters. Agriculture, although it is carried on to a certain extent, is quite a secondary consideration. The Dinka often possess large quantities of sheep and goats, but principally they are breeders of cattle. The number of cattle in the country is astounding, and seems as if it must be inexhaustible, even when it is remembered that thousands are stolen annually by the Nubians. There are tracts of grazing ground which take a whole day to cross; murahs are scattered throughout the land like villages in Germany, and many of them would contain 10,000 beasts, unless I err in my computation, which is made by reckoning the pegs to which the animals are tethered.

Before I parted from my old friend Shol I had to make one more offering of gratitude for the hospitality I had enjoyed; this consisted of an amulet which I had to compose at Kurdyook’s request. I wrote him as a testimonial a recommendation to any future visitor to the country. The Nubians and true Arabs, in a way that is not seen in Egypt, often wear round their neck and arms a number of ornamental leather sheaths, which contain passages from the Koran; on being asked what is inside they reply, “It is the name of God.” Such amulets are even bound round the necks of horses and valuable asses. It would never occur to a Nubian to ask a Frank for an amulet; they have their Faki, who make a harvest of the business. But Kurdyook was no Mohammedan; he was a pure, uncontaminated heathen, and Mohammedan prejudice had no part in his superstition; in his eyes the white man was a being of a higher order, and was accordingly in a position to exercise greater authority over the invisible powers of fate than the swarthy priest of Islam.

We now passed on through a country covered by farmsteads, repeatedly crossing fields of sorghum-stubble. The stalks, fifteen feet in length, which lay everywhere scattered on the ground, were a great impediment to our progress. The corn here cultivated is the largest form of the species; it takes nine months to ripen, and the stem in consequence becomes so hard and woody that it is no more like our European straw than their stubble-fields are like ours. At other places at this season the nature of the ground generally offered no hindrance, the clayey swamps being dry and hard as stone; the high grass of the steppe trodden down by men and cattle, the woods everywhere thin as in Southern Nubia, and consisting of isolated thickets or scattered trees of no great size.

For the purpose of geographical investigation a journey in the rainy season would be more advantageous, because it is only then that the actual limit and importance of the periodical currents are to be estimated. The term periodical, however, so frequently used in connexion with the hydrographical conditions of Africa, perhaps hardly gives a correct impression, since the brooks and streams which more or less are dried up after the rainy seasons are over, still exercise their influence on the conformation of the land, just as truly, if not so obviously, as our perpetual rivers, which are permanently limited to their proper channels. Many of the rivulets in this extensive level have no apparent bed; for in proportion as the water decreases, the bed by degrees resumes its aspect of being covered with grass; the turf rapidly grows afresh as the water recedes, and, independently of this, much of it is able to endure a flood of several months without rotting or dying away. This is a circumstance which quite easily explains the misconceptions to which various travellers in the dry season have been liable, who have gone along without recognising any river-beds at all. It is not in any way surprising that they have crossed the beds of even considerable streams without perceiving in them anything different to ordinary undulations of the ground, for there is nothing to arrest the attention but the same uniform growth of grass, the same dry stubble, the same scorched, trampled stalks. Ten miles from the Meshera we reached the first watering-place in the centre of the Lao district, an open cultivated plain, several miles in extent, diversified with numerous farms and hamlets. Two fine sycamores seemed to beckon from afar and invite us to the spot.

The water had to be drawn from a depth of fifteen feet, from wells which contained nothing better than a stinking, impure pulp. These wells are the residue of great pools formed in the rainy season, and subsequently developing a wonderful abundance of animal life, although they produce nothing in any way adapted for culinary purposes. Large water-scorpions (Belostoma), beetles, and other creeping things that are ever at home in stinking pools, whirl about in these muddy depths. Here it is, apparently, that the Dinka cows and sheep renew annually their progeny of intestinal worms (Amphistoma) and cercariæ, of which the filthy beds are most prolific. Such was the drinking-water of Lao.

The natives had imagined that we should pass the night at the well; anxious, however, to take advantage of the coolness of the air, we resolved, by a forced night-march, to get quickly over the district, void of water, that lay before us. Marching on through the adjacent farms we noticed old and young hurrying off into the adjacent thickets, our arrival being unexpected. Many a smoking porridge-pot had been forsaken, and now fell into the hands of the greedy bearers, making them still more desirous of tarrying here for the night; but the orders were peremptory which had been given to our people to push forward without delay.

To the south the ground stretched uniformly for ten miles in sandy plains bare of grass, pleasantly broken at intervals by bushy shrubs and single trees. Onwards we went for five hours of the night over moonlit sands, the imagination giving a weird aspect to all around. The region strongly reminded me of the acacia-woods of Taka and Gedaref in South Nubia, which are seen in crossing the forests at the foot of the Abyssinian highlands. The character of the vegetation approximates to that of Kordofan. The commonest trees are the Seyal-acacia, hegelig, tamarind, Christ’s thorn, capparis, and that remarkable thorn, the randia, the branches of which serve as models for the pointed lances which the inhabitants of Central Africa employ. One of the trees of Southern Kordofan finds here its southern limit: this is the Albizzia sericocephala, a tree of moderate size, of which the finely-articulated, mimosa-like leaf consists of from 5000 to 6000 particles; the thick clusters of blossom gleamed out from the obscurity like snow, and the air was laden with their balmy fragrance. Thus we wandered on as through a cultivated garden, our path as smooth as if we were on gravelled walks. Reaching at length a considerable village, we encamped on the deserted site of a large cattle-park. A sudden storm of rain put the caravan into a commotion, and forced me to retire with my bedding into one of the wretched huts, which are not really dwellings, but are used for the nightly shelter of the cow-herds. Imbedded a foot deep in fine white ashes, and enveloped in a cloud of dust, I passed the remainder of the night, alternate coughing and sneezing making all sleep simply impossible.

On the following day we had to march for five hours without a draught of water, until a hospitable asylum was opened to us in a village of Take. We were now in the district of the Rek, a locality which formerly made a hitch in the traffic with the natives, before Petherick broke a way to the south through the Dyoor and Bongo, and opened a trade with the Niam-niam.

This Take was an old friend and ally of the Khartoomers, and had attired himself in honour of the occasion in a figured calico shirt, without regard to the prejudices of his countrymen, who despise all clothing as effeminate. Near this village in 1858 there existed a temporary establishment from in which the brothers Poncet started on their elephant hunts the Dinka territory. They called the place Mirakok, but Mirakok and its elephants are now alike unknown in this land of the past, where (transient as a shower or a tide) all the lives and deeds of men have been long forgotten. It has been a land without chalk or stone, so that no permanent buildings could be constructed; it has consequently only reared a people which have been without chiefs, without traditions, without history. Detached fan-palms (Borassus), 100 feet high, in default of anything more lasting, mark the abode of Take, a shelter which was destined to have its sad associations for the travellers.

Ghattas’s standard-bearer, a most courageous fellow and the best shot among all our Nubians, killed himself on a hunting excursion, which he had undertaken with me and my servant. I had contented myself with bagging a lot of remarkably plump wild pigeons, but he was resolved to get at some guinea-fowl; for this purpose he made his way into a thicket, where, as he was loading his piece, it accidentally went off, the charge entering his breast. This accident befell the one who was supposed to be incomparably the most skilful of our party in handling his weapons, and it may be imagined what was to be expected of the rest. Blundering accidents and wounds were of perpetual occurrence, so that I should only weary the reader by recounting them. The traveller who has to march with these so-called soldiers must be content to know that he could not anywhere more thoroughly be exposed to the danger of being killed by a chance shot; and I do not exaggerate the truth when I affirm that my life was over and over again seriously threatened.

The unfortunate Soliman, who was thus the victim of his own mischance, was the man who had saved my servant Mohammed when he had his encounter with the wild buffalo. Half the camp hastened to the ill-fated spot, to be enabled to testify to the accidental death of Soliman by his own hand. So quietly had he fallen that even my servant Osman, who was near, ascertained quite casually that he was dead; a dark mark, caused by the smoke from the powder, at the orifice of the gaping wound, showed that his gun had gone off while he was holding it. Sobbing and weeping, his friends and countrymen stood round his body, and even the stony-hearted cattle-stealers seemed as if, after all, they were not utterly devoid of all human emotion. One of them was touched with a strange remorse, the reason of which I afterwards discovered. It appeared that Soliman owed him a debt, which he declared he had paid; on the previous day, while Soliman had been emphatically persisting that the debt was discharged, his accuser, in his rage, cursed him with the heaviest imprecation he could command: “The dogs devour thee!” The disaster, therefore, was a manifest punishment from heaven; the man would indeed gladly have never uttered the curse, but yet he could not be reconciled with the dead. On the very next day, as we were about to start, another man shattered the upper part of his arm by carelessly taking his gun from a bush where he had laid it.

We left the unlucky spot, and proceeded two miles further to the village of Kudy, also an old friend of the Turks, as the Khartoomers are everywhere termed by the natives. Here we made another halt, in order to pass the day in slaughtering some cattle, in feasting on beef and goat’s flesh, and in laying in a store of corn for our large party of bearers.

Here also a kind of affidavit or protocol, strictly conformable to Mohammedan rule, was taken of the previous day’s accident, in order to be able to produce legal evidence at Khartoom, where the deceased Soliman had left a wife and child. The chief part of this important business was performed by the Faki, who accompanied the party as private slave-dealers, enacting at the same time their legal character as scribes. After the protocol was drawn up, it was sealed, according to Oriental custom, by the agents who were present. This was not done without great prolixity and circumstantial debate. The formality of the document was curious; its opening words were: “Osman the agent asks Osman the servant of the lord Musyu the question: Where is Soliman?” Osman in his turn had to give an account of the accident: “As we were hunting in the thicket, I heard a shot,” and so on. They did not expect to be cross-examined; they did not look for even such mild reproach as the king gave Hamlet when he inquired, “Where’s Polonius?” but they considered it quite as well to keep up the old-established form.

With Kudy I found a good opportunity of prosecuting my study of the Dinka, which I had already taken up in earnest during my stay in the Meshera. My relations with this strange pastoral people were, throughout the two years which I spent in the interior, but rarely discontinued. Dinka were my cow-herds, and Dinka provided me with all the requirements of my cuisine as long as I stayed in Ghattas’s Seriba; and even in the remotest limits of my wanderings I had dealings with them. I am only acquainted with the western branch of this people, whose territory altogether extends over an area of from 60,000 to 70,000 square miles, of which the length is close upon 400 miles; my knowledge, however, is accurate enough to enable me from my own observation to add much that is new to the descriptions which previous travellers have given of this people.

Although individual tribes of the Dinka, with regard to height and bodily size, stand pre-eminent in the scale of the human race, the majority of this western branch of the nation rarely exceeds a middle height. Of twenty-six representatives that were measured, the average height was about 5 ft. 7 in. According to this, the average size of the Dinka is inferior to that of the Kaffirs, but it exceeds that of Englishmen.

In their figure they are like the swamp-men, if such an expression may be allowed, presenting the same lankiness of limb which has been already noticed as characteristic of the Shillooks and Nueir. The upper part of the body appears shorter than among the less swarthy and more robust races who inhabit the rocky hills of the interior. The outline of their sinewy frame is very decidedly marked in the horizontal, angular shoulders; a long neck, slightly contracted at the base, corresponds with the head, which also gradually contracts towards the top and back, and which is generally somewhat flat and narrow. Ordinarily there is a strongly developed width of jaw. Altogether there is a general harmony pervading the whole figure, and the scientific student will hardly fail to recognise the evidence that nature has pursued a definite end in the development which here exists. The Dinka must be reckoned amongst the darkest of races, but the deep black of their complexion gives place to a manifest tint of brown when the ashes are washed off with which they delight in rubbing themselves. When they have smeared themselves with oil, or taken a bath, their skin shines like dark bronze. The dull polish of chocolate may be taken as descriptive of the brighter hue; this, however, is seldom seen even when the ashes are cleared away, because the removal of the dead scales of cuticle, which then takes place, is followed by a greyish tint which spreads over the skin.

The blue tinge which has been attributed to the negro’s skin is entirely a matter of imagination; it may be confidently asserted to be solely the reflection of the sky. This result of reflection is especially to be observed when we chance to see one of these swarthy fellows standing at the aperture of his gloomy hut, which gets no light but what enters by the door.

Any apparent uniformity of physiognomy is all an illusion: it originates more in the inexperience of the eye than in any positive resemblance of feature. The three profiles of which illustrations are given show a marked variety in form between nose and nose. Generally, however, according to our conventional æsthetic notions, the men are more comely than the women of the same age. Pleasant, not to say ordinarily human features, are rare: hideous contortions, increased by the grimaces to which the short eyebrows contribute by reducing the shallow foreheads to a mere nothing, give the majority an expression scarcely better than a baboon’s. Still there are exceptions, and with regard to these it must at times be owned that they present a regularity of feature with which no fault could be found.

The hair of the Dinka is nearly always very meagre; it is generally closely shorn, except at the crown, where a tuft is left, which they ornament with ostrich feathers, in imitation of a heron. The helmet-shaped combs of the Shillooks are never seen, but tufts of woolly locks are much in fashion. Occasionally, but not often, the hair is plaited in fine braids, which run in parallel lines across the head. The women wear their hair either closely shaven or as short as possible.

The accompanying portrait represents what might be styled a Dinka dandy, distinguished for unusually long hair. He must be classed as belonging to that finer-formed race which has been mentioned. By continual combing and stroking with hair-pins, the hair of the negro loses much of its close curliness. Such was the case here: the hair, six inches long, was trained up into points like tongues of flame, and these, standing stiffly up all round his head, gave the man a fiendish look, which was still further increased by its being dyed a foxy red.

This tint is the result of continual washing with cow-urine; a similar effect can be produced by the application for a fortnight of a mixture of dung and ashes. The beard never attains sufficient growth to be worth their attention. Their razors are of the most primitive description, consisting simply of carefully ground lance-tips.

Both sexes break off the lower incisor teeth, a custom which they practise in common with the majority of the natives of the district of the Bahr-el-Ghazal. The object of this hideous mutilation is hard to determine; its effect appears in their inarticulate language, of which I suppose we could not imitate the sound, unless we submitted to the same ordeal. Some Africans file their incisor teeth to a point; others, like the Batoka of the Upper Zambesi, break out those of the upper jaw. The former of these practices appears comprehensible as increasing their capability for defence in single combat; and the latter is perhaps an imitation of their deified ruminants; but the reason why the Dinka should absolutely disfigure their lower jaw is quite beyond my comprehension. The African races have commonly been reported as distinguished for their fine rows of teeth, and it was accordingly a matter of surprise that bad teeth were so often conspicuous. The aged on this account are little short of disgusting, for the upper teeth, from the deficiency of opposition from the lower, project far from the mouth and stick out like a finger-joint. So marked is this peculiarity that some of the people have acquired from the Nubians the soubriquet of Abu-Senoon, father jut-tooth.

Men and women alike pierce their ears in several places, and insert iron rings or little bars with iron tips. The women also bore the upper lip and fit in an iron pin, running through a bead, a custom which is common among the Nueir. Tattooing is only practised by the men, and always consists of about ten radiating strokes, which traverse forehead and temples, having for their centre the glabella, or base of the nose: it is a symbol by which the Dinka are recognised at once.

Similar conditions of life in different regions, even among dissimilar races, ever produce similar habits and tendencies. This is manifest in the numerous customs which the Dinka possess in common with the far-off Kaffirs. They have the same predilection for clubs and sticks, and use a shield of the same long oval form, cut out of buffalo hide, and which, in order to insure a firmer hold, is crossed by a stick, secured by being passed through slits cut in the thick leather. But the instruments for parrying club-blows depicted in the accompanying illustration are quite peculiar to the Dinka. As far as I know, no previous traveller has drawn attention to these strange contrivances for defence. They are of two kinds. One consists of a neatly-carved piece of wood, rather more than a yard long, with a hollow in the centre for the protection of the hand: these are called “quayre.” The other, which has been mistaken for a bow, is termed “dang,” of which the substantial fibres seem peculiarly fitted for breaking the violence of any blow.

Everywhere, beyond a question, domestic cleanliness and care in the preparation of food are signs of a higher grade of external culture, and answer to a certain degree of intellectual superiority. I have travelled much in Europe, where the diversity of the external conditions of life is greater than in any other quarter of the world; I have had much opportunity of observation, and I am sure that I do not err in the conclusion that I draw. Not the size of the houses, nor the dimensions of the windows (for these are variously influenced by climate), not the clothing (for Sards, Dalmatians, and Albanians, incontestably the least civilised of Europeans, are the most magnificently attired of all), but cleanliness and choice of food not only at once disclose a real distinction between nation and nation, but constitute a measure of the degrees of civilisation in individual provinces and districts. Now both these qualities, I aver, are found among the Dinka to a greater extent than elsewhere in Africa. First, as to the food.

In culinary matters the Dinka are certainly superior to the Nubians, and I should have little hesitation in pronouncing them even more expert than either the Arabs or the Egyptians. Their farinaceous and milk foods are in no way inferior to the most refined products of an European cuisine. The reaping, threshing, and sifting of the sorghum and penicillaria grain (the durra and dokhn of the Arabs) are brought to perfection by their female slaves, who subsequently granulate the meal like sago. In seasons of scarcity their talent for cooking has led them to the discovery of various novelties in the way of food. Like the tribes of Baghirmi, the Musgoo, and Adamawa, they make a preparation, very much in the Indian fashion, from the farinaceous germs of the Borassus palm. They extract all its native bitterness by soaking and washing, and succeed in producing a fine meal, which is purely white. The substance procured from these germinating seeds has a look very similar to the root of the Florentine iris. They treat the tubers of the Nymphæa in very much the same way, and render them quite edible.

With the choice cookery corresponds also the decorum of their behaviour at meals. They certainly, in this point, more resemble ourselves than any Orientals. They do not all dip their hands at once into the same dish, like the Turks and Arabs, but assist themselves singly. A large dish of cooked farina is placed upon the ground, around which the guests recline, each with his gourd-shell of milk, or, better still, of butter, at his side; the first pours his milk only on the part which he touches, and when he has taken enough, he passes the dish to the next, and thus they eat in succession, but quite separately. The Dinka repudiate the Oriental superstition that envious looks can turn the food to poison, and have no fear of the “evil eye.”

At times it greatly amused me to entertain Dinka ladies of rank in my tent, in order to pay them the compliment of my admiration of their perfection in the arts of cookery. On my folding table I laid out for them some European dishes, and they sat on my chairs. I was astonished at the readiness with which they fell into our mode of serving, for they handled our spoons and forks as if they were perfectly accustomed to them; but they nearly always carefully washed everything they had used, and returned it to its place.

In the interior of their dwellings, the Dinka are as clean as the Shillooks, sharing the same partiality for ashes as a bed. It ought to be mentioned that the traveller in this part of Africa is rarely troubled with vermin or fleas, which everywhere else, like desolation and slavery, seem invariably to have followed the track of Islam. In the Western Soudan the torments of the night are represented as insupportable, so that the huts of the Hottentots are not worse. Among the Dinka it is entirely different. The only disquietude to a stranger in their houses arises from the snakes, which rustle in the straw roofs, and disturb his rest. Snakes are the only creatures to which, either Dinka or Shillooks pay any sort of reverence. The Dinka call them their “brethren,” and look upon their slaughter as a crime. I was informed by witnesses which I had no cause to distrust, that the separate snakes are individually known to the householder, who calls them by name, and treats them as domestic animals. Their abundance here seemed to me very remarkable. Among the Bongo, on the other hand, I spent six months before I saw a single specimen, and it appears to be an established fact that, upon the whole, they are not generally common in Tropical Africa. Perhaps the species which is most frequent is the giant python (Sebæ). Those which inhabit the Dinka huts are, as far as I could learn, not venomous; and, as evidence that they are harmless, I cite the scientific names of the three species: Psammophis punctatus, Ps. sibilans, and Ahaetuella irregularis.

The Dinka are far more particular than any other tribe in the choice of their animal food. There are many creeping things, which are not rejected by the Bongo and Niam-niam, which they loathe with the utmost disgust. Crocodiles, iguanas, frogs, crabs, and mice they never touch; but, connoisseurs of what is good, they use turtles for making soup. It is scarcely necessary to say that the accounts of the cannibalism of the Niam-niam excite as much horror amongst them as amongst ourselves. Nothing, likewise, is more repulsive to them than dog’s flesh, which is enjoyed by the Mittoo—​a fact which justifies us in the supposition that that tribe is addicted to cannibalism. Dinka, as well as Bongo, have declared to me in the most decided manner, that they would rather die of hunger than eat the flesh of a dog. But a delicious morsel to the Dinka is the wild cat of the steppes, which is often found in this part of Africa, and is the origin of our domestic cat, to which it bears no slight resemblance. But more delicious than all they esteem the hare; and in order to illustrate their appreciation of it, a Dinka, to whom I was talking, naïvely asked me whether I knew what a Dinka did when he managed to kill a hare on the steppe by a lucky blow of his club? “He makes a fire,” he added, “and roasts his game and eats it quietly, without saying anything about it at home.”

Even before they had any intercourse with Mohammedan countries, a love of tobacco-smoking had been one of the traits of the Dinka, who use the same huge pipe-bowls as we have already observed amongst the Shillooks. A strong stem opens into a small calabash, which serves as a mouth-piece, and is filled with fine bast, to intercept the narcotic oils. Denarcotinizing, as it is termed, is quite an old African invention. Here, where tobacco does not grow at all plentifully, the process answers a double purpose, for, by taking off the top of the pipe, the bast can be removed, and, impregnated as it is with tobacco oil, it is subsequently chewed. The smoking apparatus is so ponderous that every one is obliged to sit down while he smokes.

The principal plants that are here cultivated are sorghum and penicillaria, three kinds of beans, earth-nuts (Arachis), earth-peas (Voandzeia subterranea), sesame, yams, and Virginian tobacco; but we shall have a more ample opportunity of entering into the details of these crops when we speak of the Bongo, who cultivate nearly the same products of the soil.

The domestic animals are oxen, sheep, goats, and dogs; poultry was never to be seen, and the cause of its absence is inexplicable. The cattle belong to the Zebu race, and are smaller than those of the Baggara and Hassanieh; they have a hump, their horns are slender, the fore part of the body prevailing so in size as to resemble an antelope. As to colour, the majority are nearly white, but it would be incorrect to say that either the speckled or the striped, the tawny or the brown, are wanting. The Dinka have separate expressions to denote every shade of colour of the breed, and, indeed, their vocabulary for all that relates to cattle and cattle-breeding is more copious than that of any European tongue.

The continual dampness of the pasture, especially throughout the rainy season, favours the development of revolting intestinal vermes, and the rain-pools in the dry months become most prolific as breeding-places for Cercariæ. I have frequently seen sheep suffering under disease, their ailment arising from their liver and gall-ducts being choked up by these worms. The distoma, which is a denizen of every zone and extends even to Greenland, is found here an inch long.

The dogs closely resemble the common village curs of Nubia, a cross between the greyhound of the Nubian steppes and the pariah of the streets of Cairo. It is not unusual for their colour to be brown, but by far the larger number are a tawny yellow.

Every idea and thought of the Dinka is how to acquire and maintain cattle: a kind of reverence would seem to be paid to them; even their offal is considered of high importance; the dung, which is burnt to ashes for sleeping in and for smearing their persons, and the urine, which is used for washing and as a substitute for salt, are their daily requisites. It must be owned that it is hard to reconcile this latter usage with our ideas of cleanliness. A cow is never slaughtered, but when sick it is segregated from the rest, and carefully tended in the large huts built for the purpose. Only those that die naturally or by an accident are used as food. All this, which exists amongst most of the pastoral tribes of Africa, may perchance appear to be a lingering remnant of an exploded cattle-worship; but I may draw attention to the fact that the Dinka are by no means disinclined to partake of any feast of their flesh, provided that the slaughtered animal was not their own property. It is thus more the delight of actual possession, than any superstitious estimate, that makes the cow to them an object of reverence. Indescribable is the grief when either death or rapine has robbed a Dinka of his cattle. He is prepared to redeem their loss by the heaviest sacrifices, for they are dearer to him than wife or child. A dead cow is not, however, wantonly buried; the negro is not sentimental enough for that; such an occurrence is soon bruited abroad, and the neighbours institute a carousal, which is quite an epoch in their monotonous life. The bereaved owner himself is, however, too much afflicted at the loss to be able to touch a morsel of the carcase of his departed beast. Not unfrequently in their sorrow the Dinka remain for days silent and abstracted, as though their trouble were too heavy for them to bear.

The only domestic animal which is slaughtered amongst them is the goat, which scarcely represents the thirtieth part of the value of a cow. A heifer has three times the value, and a cow that has calved double the value of a steer. In common with the other tribes of this part of Africa they use rather a singular method of butchering their cattle, proceeding, whenever it is practicable, by the way of making a violent stab in the nape of the neck by means of a spear. This causes immediate death, and is a method which gives but little trouble.

It is not difficult to understand how people like the Dinka should make their whole delight to centre in having thriving cattle-farms, but to us their profitless practice of emasculation must remain incomprehensible. The herdsmen cut their bulls and bucks with the mere intention of feasting their eyes upon a development of fat which is always obnoxious to the stomach. Almost the third part of their bulls are submitted to the knife, and the same proportion of their goats and rams, and even their dogs, with the design of rendering them more agile, more, enduring, and fitter for the chase; this also being the reason why their ears and tails are clipped. Ask the Dinka what good they get from their possessions of oxen, and they have ever the answer ready that it is quite enough if they get fat and look nice. Such is the way in which they express their satisfaction and their pride.

The failure of the beard amongst the male cattle so treated is a topic that suggests some observations. In spite of the anxiety and care which the Dinka bestow upon their herds, there is no mistake about the degeneration of the race. The way in which I chiefly account for this is that there is not enough crossing of breeds—​in fact, that there is almost a total exclusion of any strange stock. I should say that hardly one in a hundred of the beasts is capable of either bearing a burden or going a journey, a purpose, however, to which none of the negroes of the Upper Nile ever seem to put them. But nothing is more remarkable than the entire absence of fat which characterises them; a single pound of fat could not be obtained from a whole ox; and not only does this deficiency extend to the parts that are ordinarily plump and fleshy, but the spinal marrow itself is so utterly dry that in a stewpan it runs off like white of egg, without depositing a particle of grease. Eye-witnesses have assured me that Miss Tinné, during her residence here, although she had whole herds at her command, could never get her supply of pomade replenished.

Again the cattle of the Dinka are not provided with salt in any form whatever, which may in a measure account for the degenerating; it may explain the prevalence, all but universal, of the worms known as “kyatt,” which cover the first stomach or paunch, of nearly all their cattle. These worms in Europe are included in the genus of the Amphistoma; they are like an oval bag, something under half an inch long, and generally as red as port wine.

The sheep and he-goats that are left are quite devoid of fat; their flesh when it is cooked has an odious soapy flavour, and is altogether more repulsive than the rankest roast antelope.

As an illustration of the degree to which the Dinka devote all their attention to cattle-breeding, and find their chief delight in it, it may be mentioned that the great amusement of the children is to mould goats and bullocks out of clay. Travellers have related the same fact about the children of the Makololo; and, for my part, I could not help having a kind of satisfaction when I saw these first efforts at sculpture in a land where there are no pictures and no images of deities.

The accompanying illustration is designed to exhibit something of the daily routine of the Dinka. It represents one of those murahs or cattle-parks, of which I have seen hundreds. It depicts the scene at about five o’clock in the afternoon. In the foreground there are specimens of the cattle of the country. The men in charge are busied in collecting up into heaps the dung that has been exposed during the day to be dried in the sun. Clouds of reeking vapour fill the murah throughout the night and drive away the pestiferous insects. The herds have just been driven to their quarters, and each animal is fastened by a leather collar to its own wooden peg. Towards the left, on a pile of ashes, sit the owners of this section of the murah. The ashes which are produced in the course of a year raise the level of the entire estate. Semicircular huts erected on the hillocks afford the owners temporary accommodation when they quit their homes some miles away and come to feast their eyes upon the goodly spectacle of their wealth.

The milking is performed in the morning hours. Truly miserable is the yield, and the most prolific of the cows does not give as much as one of our ordinary goats. This deficiency of milk is another witness of the deterioration of the breed, and no one would believe the quantity of milk it takes to produce a single pound of butter. The dew hardly goes off before ten o’clock, and it is not until that hour that the herds are driven out. It is quite rare for a murah to hold less than 2000 beasts, and some, as I have mentioned, are capable of holding 10,000. Upon an average I should reckon that for every head of the population there would be found at least three of cattle; of course, there is no lack of the poor and the destitute, and these obviously are the slaves and dependents of the rich. So large are the numbers of the Dinka, and so extensive their territory, that it must be expected that they will long perpetuate their existence amongst the promiscuous inhabitants of Africa. So far as regards their race, their line of life, and their customs, they have all the material of national unity; but where they fail is that their tribes not only make war upon each other, but submit to be enlisted as the instruments of treachery by intruders from outside. That the Khartoomers have not been able hitherto to make good their footing upon Dinka soil is due more to a general resistance to external control than to any internal condition of concord. Every attempt to bring this people into subjection has been quite a failure, and not at all the easy matter it proved with the Bongo and some other communities. The southern people are emphatically agricultural, for the most part devoted to peaceful pursuits, and so they are wanting in that kind of organisation which could unite them into a formidable body for mutual resistance. The marked peculiarity of the Dinka, as well as their adherence to all their wonted habits, renders them thoroughly useless as far as regards the slave traffic. Although the people of Khartoom for fifteen years or more have traversed their country, they have never been able in any way to make use of the material which might be afforded by a regulated commercial intercourse.

The Bongo and the Niam-niam are alike greedy of bits of clothing, but the Dinka are utterly indifferent to anything of the sort. The women, on account of their proficiency in housekeeping, play a large part in the Khartoom slave-trade, but they give their masters infinitely more trouble than the slaves of any other race. The men that were captured, in days now gone by, were one and all converted into soldiers by the Government, and, even to this date, so large a majority of the dark-skinned troops of Egypt consists of men of the Dinka, that their well-formed persons, their tall stature, and their innate courage, would be missed very considerably from the ranks. Adam Pasha, who at the time of my visit had the military command in the Soudan, was himself a Dinka by birth.

I must be allowed to pass lightly over, as an equivocal topic, the religion of a people whose dialect I was unable adequately to master. It seems to me like a desert of mirages, or as a playground, where the children of fancy enjoy their sport. The creed of the Dinka apparently centres itself upon the institution to which they give the name of the Cogyoor, and which embraces a society of necromancers and jugglers by profession. Other travellers have recorded a variety of marvels about their sleight of hand, their ventriloquism, their conjurations, and their familiarity with the ghosts of the dead; but of these I shall defer all I have to say till I come by-and-by to speak generally about casting out devils.

Before we leave the Dinka we must not omit to recall their virtues, in order that we may fairly estimate the charge that has been laid against them of cruelty in war. It is affirmed that they are pitiless and unrelenting in fight, that they are never known to give quarter, and revel in wild dances around the bodies of their slaughtered foes: a whole village will take their share in the orgies which one of the community will start, whenever, either by lance or club, he has prostrated an antagonist. But, for my part, I am ready to certify that there are Dinka whose tenderness and compassion are beyond a question. One of the Bongo related to me, as a matter of his own experience, that he had been severely wounded upon an expedition which the Nubians had set on foot against the Dinka to steal their cattle: he had laid himself down just outside a Dinka’s house, and the owner had not simply protected him against all his prosecutors, who considered themselves amply justified in proceeding to every extreme of vengeance, but kept him till he had regained his health: not content with that, he provided him with an escort back, and did not abandon him till he was safe and sound again amongst his own people.

Notwithstanding, then, that certain instances may be alleged which seem to demonstrate that the character of the Dinka is unfeeling, these cases never refer to such as are bound by the ties of kindred. Parents do not desert their children, nor are brothers faithless to brothers, but are ever prompt to render whatever aid is possible. The accusation is quite unjustifiable that family affection, in our sense, is at a low ebb among them. In the spring of 1871, whilst I was staying in the Seriba of Kurshook Ali on the Dyoor, I witnessed a circumstance which I may relate as a singular corroboration of my opinion. A Dinka man, who had been one of the bearers who had carried my stores from the Meshera, was about to return to his own home in the territory of Ghattas, but he had been attacked by the guinea-worm, and his feet were so swollen that it was with the utmost difficulty that he could proceed a step, and he was obliged to remain behind alone. Everything was excessively scarce and dear, and he was glad to subsist on a few handfuls of durra and on what scraps we gave him from our meals; in this way he dragged on, and, with a little patience, would have been all right: however, he was not suffered to wait long; his father appeared to fetch him. This old man had brought neither cart nor donkey, but he set out and carried away the great strapping fellow, who was six feet high, for a distance of fifteen or sixteen leagues, on his own shoulders. This incident was regarded by the other natives as a mere matter of course.

In what I have said, I have attempted to describe the leading features in the life of the Dinka, being desirous to exhibit such details as may allow a correct judgment to be formed of the true relations which exist between the Khartoomers and this people, who are at once so pastoral and yet so prepared for war.

Here, at the village of Kudy, our caravan had accomplished about half its journey, which was altogether a little over 90 miles. It was on the afternoon of the 28th of March that we started afresh towards Ghattas’s Seriba, immediately after the gun accident which I have related. On account of their late liberal diet, our bearers did not advance with their usual alacrity. We proceeded for three hours, and at a well called Pamog, 20 feet deep, we halted for the night.

On the next day our route led through forests, and we entered upon the territory of the Al-Waj. The inhabitants regarded us as enemies, and, seizing their bows and arrows, left their dwellings and, like frightened game, flocked to the adjacent woods. According to our Dinka interpreters, the Al-Waj do not belong to the Dinka race, but form an enclave, or isolated community, of unknown origin. As we entered the wood, for the purpose of botanising, the savages were continually starting up before us, causing no little uneasiness to my companions, who suspected a flight of arrows from every thicket. To say the truth, the natives had been so hardly treated that it could not be expected of them to meet their oppressors very hospitably.

We should have proceeded far more quickly, but that we were under the necessity at every halt to send to a distance all round to procure a fresh supply of corn for our numerous party. This continually caused the delay of several hours, as the farms were often very desolate and ill supplied. The Al-Waj district is an almost unbroken forest in the midst of open flats. Throughout the rainy season it is hardly better than one vast puddle. The vestiges of elephants are frequent at all times; and both right and left were giraffes trotting over the rugged grass and wagging their tall heads. The appearance of giraffes when they are running is very extraordinary, and, as they are seen through the grey twilight of the morning, they have a look half spectral and half grotesque; they seem to nod and bow like figures in the ill-managed drops of a second-class theatre.

After leaving the village of the Al-Waj we proceeded for three leagues through the forest, and found ourselves again on the extensive steppe. At noon on the following day we reached the district of the Dyuihr, a clay flat, devoid of trees. The Khartoomers cannot pronounce the native names correctly, and call this people the Dyeraweel. The large villages were now deserted, the population, on account of the scarcity of water and pasturage, having gone to the river-banks. For two nights we sacrificed our rest and hurried onwards by forced marches. It was just before sunrise that we reached the first rocky irregularity in the soil, a general ascent in the ground being quite perceptible. Bush-forests now took the place of the steppes, which we had long found to be but scantily relieved by thickets. A luxuriant foliage revealed itself, presenting one of those striking limits of vegetation which are so rarely to be met with in Africa. From this interesting locality I proceeded for another three leagues, thus accomplishing the preliminary object of my journey. I was in the chief Seriba of Ghattas, which for some months to come I proposed to make my head-quarters.