California 
 
 egional 
 
 acility
 
 MY SUDAN YEAR
 
 BY 
 
 E. S. STEVENS 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 "THE VEIL." "THE MOUNTAIN OF GOD," "THE EARTHEN 
 DRUM." "THE LURE." AND "THE LONG ENGAGEMENT" 
 
 WITH FORTY ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 object of this book is a very simple one. 
 It delivers no new and startling facts or 
 theories about the Sudan ; it may possibly contain 
 erroneous statements or judgments. It is but an 
 attempt to convey to the tourist or fireside traveller 
 something of the interest and charm of the Sudan 
 in an unambitious form. Statistics and Blue 
 Books mean little to most people ; but an account 
 of the passing incidents, trifles, and characteristics 
 which have arrested the attention of an idle 
 traveller may form for them a picture of the country 
 which an enumeration of facts would merely blur. 
 Perhaps the mothers and sisters of Englishmen 
 whose work lies out in the Sudan may find in 
 this book a setting for their thoughts, a coloured 
 background for their imaginings of the lives and 
 doings of those in whom they are interested. 
 
 2045778
 
 vi INTRODUCTION 
 
 The title was chosen more with a view to the 
 series to which this book is to belong than with 
 regard to actual fact. I have not spent a summer 
 in the Sudan ; few women ever do. The expression 
 " year " must be taken, therefore, figuratively. 
 
 I should like to take this opportunity of thanking 
 those who so kindly helped me in collecting in- 
 formation, especially Miss Bewley, Mr. T. W. 
 Sagar, Captain G. S. Symes, D.S.O., Mr. Stanley 
 Dunn, and Mr. K. C. P. Struve.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER P18B 
 
 I. GETTING THERE 1 
 
 II. THEN AND Now ..... 12 
 
 III. DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL KHARTOUM , 24 
 
 IV. FIAT Lux .38 
 
 V. THE BENDING TWIG .... 49 
 
 VI. " THE SITT OF ALL COLOURS " . .64 
 
 VII. "GHOSTS" 79 
 
 VIII. OMDURMAN 92 
 
 IX. SUDANESE SONGS AND SINGERS . . 99 
 
 X. To THE SUDD AND BACK . . .115 
 
 XI. To THE SUDD AND BACK (continued) . 132 
 
 XII. To THE SUDD AND BACK .146 
 
 XIII. To THE SUDD AND BACK .157 
 
 XIV. To THE SUDD AND BACK .171 
 
 XV. To THE SUDD AND BACK . 186 
 
 vii
 
 viii CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XVI. To THE SUDD AND BACK (continued) . 198 
 
 XVII. To THE SUDD AND BACK .211 
 
 XVIII. To THE SUDD AND BACK . 225 
 
 XIX. SOMETHING ABOUT THE PEOPLE WHO 
 
 LIVE "FoK" . . . .236 
 
 XX. BAGGARAS AND NUBAS . ' . . 259 
 
 XXI. SIMPLICITY AND THE SMILE SUPERIOR 281 
 
 XXII. THE OUTLOOK . . , . 290 
 
 APPENDIX .... 303
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 OUR ATTENDANT NUGGEE . ^ ^^ . Frontispiece 
 
 FACDTd PAQH 
 
 SMALL GIRLS WASHING CLOTHES AT OMDURMAN . . 16 
 WASHING VEGETABLES IN THE EARLY MORNING, OMDURMAN 35 
 JURS AT MVOLO (BAHR-EL-GHAZAL) . . ; "* . ., 60 
 JURS AT MVOLO CARRYING IN THEIR TRIBUTE . ' ' . . 68 
 A FAIR LADY OF OMDURMAN . . ; . . .70 
 A LADY OF SIX-FOOT-FIVE IN OMDURMAN .... 92 
 NATIVE POTTERY MARKET, OMDURMAN .... 95 
 JUR GRANARY IN A SMALL VILLAGE NEAR MVOLO . .110 
 A SUDD-SCAPE . . . , * , '' . . . 116 
 MEN OF THE JUR TRIBE BUILDING HUTS .... 124 
 GROUP AT OUR FIRST WOODING STATION . . . .138 
 THE RAILWAY BRIDGE AT COSTI . ... . 143 
 SHILLUK HIPPO HUNTERS, HILLET-ABBAS . . . 144 
 
 A VILLAGE SHOP 154 
 
 THE DILUKA IN PROGRESS . . . . * . 156 
 VIEW IN KODOK (FASHODA) .... . . 160 
 
 SHILLUKS' VILLAGE 162 
 
 DONKEY TRANSPORT CROSSING THE NA'AM RIVER . .164 
 WEAVER NESTS IN AMBATCH TREES, BAHR-EL-ZERAF . 181
 
 x LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FACJKQ PAGB 
 THE DEEDOER AT WOBK . . . 183 
 
 A VIEW OF THE CELEBRATED " CUT " BETWEEN THE BAHR- 
 EL-ZERAF AND THE BAHR-EL-GEBEL .... 188 
 
 THE MEAT HUNG OUT TO DRY 190 
 
 CUTTING UP THE CROCODILE 192 
 
 CHOPPING UP THE SUDD FOR SUDDITE .... 196 
 THE GRAVE OF A NIAM-NIAM CHIEF . . . .198 
 SULTAN YANQO OF THE MERIDI 200 
 
 NIAM-NIAM WOMEN TAKING WATER FROM THE UPPER COURSE 
 OF THE NA'AM RIVER 208 
 
 NUERS IN THE BAHR-EL-GHAZAL 213 
 
 THE HARLEQUIN COIFFURE OF THE NUER WARRIOR . . 215 
 
 GHABAT-EL-ARAB . . 218 
 
 OUR STEAMER FLANKED BY THE TWO NUGGERS . . 232 
 
 ERKOWIT, THE HILL STATION OF THE SUDAN . . . 234 
 
 THE " OMDA " OF THE DINKAS AT MELUT. . . . 240 
 
 DINKA CANOE ON THE WHITE NILE, NEAR MELUT . . 250 
 
 IN A SHILLUK VILLAGE 254 
 
 A GROUP OF BRAVES 256 
 
 NUBA COUNTRY, EMIRA HILLS . . . . - . . 262 
 
 SUDANESE WOMAN MAKING BREAD 280 
 
 VILLAGE SCENE, WHITE NILE . . . 290
 
 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 GETTING THERE 
 
 TT was in the summer of 1910, after my return 
 from Syria, that I first came into indirect 
 contact with the Sudan. In London I chanced to 
 meet some men from the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, 
 all in high spirits at being back in England after 
 their yearly exile. One of them showed me a 
 number of Mr. Morhig's excellent photographs of 
 the Sudan, and, while turning these over, I formed 
 a vague desire to visit the land which could ex- 
 ercise such a fascination on these men even while 
 they were rejoicing to leave it. Unmeasured 
 swamps, uncouth beasts, savages who, like Mr. 
 Shaw's woad-stained Britons, considered respecta- 
 bility sufficiently propitiated by a coating of clay 
 and a bead or two : photographs and tales of 
 these stirred the imagination and brought a 
 1
 
 2 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 breath of adventure into the greyness of a wet 
 London summer. My Englishmen abused the 
 life of course who ever met the Englishman who 
 did not grumble ? They were like boys at a 
 public school home for a holiday ; ready to 
 declare they had left a miserable hole ; but ad- 
 mitting, nevertheless, that there was nothing like 
 it, and that they could never settle down in Eng- 
 landnever, that is to say, until the years should 
 come of which Solomon wrote in his sorrow, that 
 there was no pleasure in them. 
 
 But the wish, so casually formed, was, after the 
 manner of casual wishes, suddenly fulfilled. Early 
 in the following winter, I took passage on the 
 comfortable Nord-Deutscher-Lloyd steamer Prinz 
 Heinrich, and arrived in Cairo, where I arranged 
 to go south by one of Messrs. Cook's river-craft 
 those floating palaces which ply between the 
 Northern capital and Assuan, and thence on to 
 Wady Haifa. For no one, if he is not tied for 
 time, should travel by train in Egypt more than 
 is absolutely necessary. The old high-road of 
 Egypt is its river, a highway on which men go 
 down to the sea in feluccas and dahabiyahs after 
 the manner of ages, and white sails are ever spread
 
 GETTING THERE 8 
 
 like protecting wings over cargoes journeying up 
 and down. 
 
 The railway is too abrupt. It jerks you like a 
 hooked minnow from one century into another, 
 it blinds you with dust, it shakes you, it makes 
 your bones ache, it is abominably hot it pre- 
 cipitates you into burning tropics while you are 
 still blinking from your London fog. The Nile 
 on the other hand bears you gently on its broad 
 bosom in comfort and leisure. The history of ten 
 thousand years unrolls itself before you as you pass 
 village after village, city 'after city, temple after 
 temple. There is no indecent haste. The very 
 river moves placidly. It has time to mirror the 
 palm groves, the serrated brown houses, the domes 
 and minarets, the funereal comeliness of Philse, 
 the massive temples of Abu Simbel, the limpid 
 skies at sunrise and sunset. It is a spectacle of 
 such variegated beauty that you are never sated. 
 Moreover, you become gradually acclimatised as you 
 exchange the agreeable coolness of Cairo for the 
 summer of Luxor and the tropical heat of Assuan, 
 and, passing from Assuan into the golden deserts 
 of Nubia, reach the Tropic of Cancer, where the 
 Southern Cross glitters in the sky of nights, and
 
 4 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 the wind is dry and fervent and pure from its 
 long sojourn over sunbaked wastes. 
 
 And the Nile is the river with more personality 
 than any other in the world. Its very name calls 
 up, like the Witch of Endor, the ghosts of mighty 
 dead, the pageants of buried centuries. Invokes 
 the pomp and circumstance of the Pharaohs and 
 the Ptolemies, it brings up the shadowy histories 
 of mummied kings and queens ; the loves of 
 Antony and Cleopatra, and the happier passion 
 of the great Rameses for slender Nefert-tari, the 
 queen of all his queens ; the woman who held his 
 tenderness in the hollow of her little hand till her 
 body was laid to jewelled rest in the barren moun- 
 tain side at Thebes. The perfume and humanity 
 of these arise fresh as they did thousands of years 
 ago. There are other memories too, for the 
 transports which bore relief to Khartoum passed 
 this way on their futile journey southwards to 
 arrive too late ; and to Haifa on the same water- 
 way came the later vengeance, when Kitchener 
 poured men and railroad makers into the Sudan, 
 that he might fling his battle line forward. These 
 are phantoms that call for thought ! 
 
 Haifa has changed mightily since the days of
 
 GETTING THERE 5 
 
 which the late G. W. Steevens wrote in his wonder- 
 ful book " With Kitchener to Khartoum." Every- 
 one who goes to the Sudan reads that book, for it 
 brings the great drama of the annihilation of the 
 Dervish troops before the vision as no other 
 history has ever done. The very clang of the 
 busy hammers and the rattle of the steam engines 
 are in your ears as you read his description of the 
 Haifa of 1898. " Kailways run along every dusty 
 street, and trains and trucks clank up and down 
 till Haifa looks for all the world like Chicago in a 
 turban." 
 
 There are no engines running loose in the streets 
 now, no cheerful battalions on their way to the 
 front. But in a certain compound of the town 
 aged men sit and sometimes talk of those times. 
 They are the " political prisoners," men who led 
 hosts into battle in the name of the Mahdi, and 
 among them is the great Emir Osman Digna, a 
 white-haired and pleasantly-spoken old gentleman, 
 with much of fallen greatness in his mien. 
 
 For the rest, Haifa is a peaceful place enough, 
 with its neat row of European-built houses along 
 the river-front, its mosque and hospital, and a 
 growing native town rather less smelly and dirty
 
 6 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 than the average Egyptian town. You wander 
 down the main souk and buy Sudanese beads and 
 curios from an elderly merchant who dozes at a 
 corner shop, and realise that, somehow, there is 
 a different atmosphere about this place. The 
 ofncial seems more alert, more paternal, the 
 native more respectful. It is a subtle something 
 which tells you that you are at last in the 
 Sudan. 
 
 For most travellers Haifa is merely the memory 
 of a railway station. Outside that station women 
 crouch on their heels with open baskets, in which 
 are exposed for sale such commodities as native 
 loaves of bread, long and flat, biscuit-like rings of 
 semit sprinkled with sesame, fat green melons, 
 oranges and knobbly shammams. The fourth-class 
 passengers native of course buy from these 
 women provisions for the twenty -four hours' jour- 
 ney. Inside, the train is waiting, the white desert 
 train, shuttered down to keep out the blistering 
 sun. The platform for the last half-hour has 
 been a kaleidoscope of colour and life. There is 
 a group of veiled ladies the household of an 
 Egyptian officer returning south he himself as 
 modern as army regulations can make him, the
 
 GETTING THERE 7 
 
 women looking coeval with the Pyramids in their 
 black habbaras and white face-veils. They are 
 bundled hastily into the train. There sits an 
 Arab of patriarchal appearance, surrounded by all 
 his goods ; and beside him a good-tempered six- 
 foot-two Sudani, his black face one grin, his 
 cheeks decorated by horizontal gashes to show his 
 tribe. There are plenty of effendis Egyptian 
 Government clerks and officials in irreproachable 
 tarbushes and black coats. Yonder goes a Scottish 
 engine-driver in dirty khaki in close conference with 
 a black mechanic. Beyond is a cluster that might 
 have dropped from Hurlingham, ladies on their 
 way down, conversing under dainty parasols with 
 some spick-and-span English officials and a sub- 
 altern or two returning from leave. 
 
 In short, Haifa is a railway station of character, 
 for few people, except tourists, make that twenty- 
 four hours' journey with the idea of spending only 
 three days at the other end. Most of the passengers 
 are preparing for months of work or sport, in 
 surroundings so different from those they left 
 behind in England that they might be preparing to 
 jump over centuries into the Middle Ages. The 
 white desert train is going to provide the transport.
 
 8 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 Many of them are purposing to journey yet a 
 thousand miles south to that swampy Garden of 
 Eden in Central Africa where clothes are dispensed 
 with and money is not. They are not going for 
 a week-end, either. Thus it comes about that 
 Wady Haifa Station has an atmosphere of its 
 own. 
 
 A horn blows it sounds like a tin trumpet ; 
 and those who are seeing off, fall back ; those 
 who are departing step inside, and the train moves 
 off. 
 
 You find that an electric fan, a berth, a washing 
 basin and soap are provided in each compartment ; 
 and you settle down beside the violet-tinted pane 
 to watch the desert glide past. It is one vast 
 expanse of yellowish brown, varied here and there 
 by a little scrub ; here and there by a few palm 
 trees, and all the way by telegraph wires ; but it 
 is a huge nothingness and barrenness spread out 
 to scorch beneath the tropical sun to scorch from 
 the moment the huge ball arises on the horizon till 
 it sets in a theatrical blaze, casting long shadows 
 to the east of every stone and boulder, and playing 
 fantastic tricks with the dazzled vision. There 
 is no respite, no cool dew of eve or cover of chasing
 
 GETTING THERE 9 
 
 clouds ; only the sun, emperor and tyrant, set 
 in a pallid sky too fervent to be blue. You tire 
 of it at last the monotony has nothing to offer 
 you. 
 
 It is only after dinner that you realise how 
 beautiful this desert can be. At sundown it 
 flamed like a Mexican opal, but it did not touch 
 your heart. When the train stops to water at 
 Station No. 6, you step out into the coolness of 
 night on to a champaign of faery. The moon sails 
 like a goblin argosy in the sky, and the sand is 
 turned into powdered snow and silver. Acacias, 
 black and delicate against a vault in which the 
 stars have faded before the greater light, brush 
 the lonely station hut set in the waste, and the 
 tall unlovely tank and mystery walks on the 
 long moonlit horizon. 
 
 An English colonel close by is telling some 
 ladies who have just dismounted that, in the days 
 when this was the Sudan Military Railway instead 
 of the Sudan Government Railway, it was here 
 that Kitchener dug for water and to the surprise 
 of every one found it, and convinced the native 
 that the hand of Allah was with him. His second 
 and third attempts were not so successful, but the
 
 10 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 fourth again saw his hope realised and the brave 
 little train refreshed on its way. 
 
 Our train has been refreshed too ; the horn sounds, 
 and we get in, this time to bed. The old traveller 
 warns you to cover everything you possess, and 
 in the morning you find that he is right, for in 
 spite of the closed shutter and violet pane, every- 
 thing is thickly powdered with sand. Your mouth 
 is gritty, the soap scrapes you, your very clothes 
 must be shaken, your black shoes have become 
 white. 
 
 Some one mentions baths. Atbara Station is 
 near. You meant to think of the Battle of the 
 Atbara when you arrived at that historical place, 
 but, as a matter of fact, you think only of baths. 
 And you discover a bath worthy of the name, 
 broad and deep and hot a bath indeed. That 
 half-hour is the happiest of the day. For the 
 rest, the hours crawl on with the thermometer 101 
 in the shade, and you keep up an interest in life 
 by meals and by an occasional excitement, such 
 as a vision of the squat pyramids of Meroe against 
 the sky-line. Professor Garstang's excavating 
 camp is close by, a cluster of white tents. You 
 consume a great deal of liquid. It is not a tempera-
 
 11 
 
 ture to travel in. The railroad follows the Nile 
 now, and passes brown village after brown village 
 built of sunbaked mud. You sink into a torpor. 
 At last, late in the afternoon, you cross the 
 broad river, over a brand-new bridge, eighteen 
 hundred feet of it, and see a vision of white houses 
 and green trees, and then of a big railway station 
 with many trucks and signals and rows of brown 
 houses. You have arrived at Khartoum capital 
 of the Sudan.
 
 CHAPTEB II 
 
 THEN AND NOW 
 
 o get a rough idea of the shape of the Sudan, 
 imagine a large plaice, laid on the map 
 so that its head is at Haifa at the north and its 
 tail at the Lado Enclave at the south a district 
 of some seventeen thousand square miles which 
 was added to the southern province of Mongalla 
 in 1910. From north to south the Nile forms an 
 irregular backbone, the Blue Nile wandering up 
 from the east to Khartoum, and the main stream, 
 the White Nile, finding its source in Victoria 
 Nyanza through Lado, at the extreme tip of our 
 fish's tail. To the west of the White Nile lies the 
 big province of Kordofan, covering an area larger 
 than Portugal ; farther west still Darfur, whose 
 independent Sultan, Ali Dinar, looks with mis- 
 giving at the railway recently opened between El 
 Obeid, the capital of Kordofan, and Costi on the 
 river, which makes it possible to perform in twenty - 
 
 12
 
 THEN AND NOW 13 
 
 four hours the journey from Khartoum, which, 
 by river and canal, took formerly twelve days. 
 AH Dinar may well feel uneasy. This means an 
 iron fist thrust towards his own domain a 
 territory as big as England. 
 
 Below these two and touching the boundaries 
 of each stretches the triangular district of the 
 Bahr-el-Ghazal, the region of swamp and malaria. 
 In the north-east corner of our fish lie Haifa 
 Province and then Suakin Province reaching the 
 Red Sea. Then the eastern boundary bends 
 abruptly inwards, and encloses Senaar Province 
 and farther south the Mongalla Province, which, 
 as I have said, comprises the Lado at the tail. 
 This is the roughest description, but it may serve 
 to elucidate the geography of the country for 
 those to whom maps are apt to convey indiges- 
 tible facts. The total area of the whole Sudan, 
 as Sir Auckland Colvin points out, is well over 
 a million square miles, or about two-thirds of 
 China. 
 
 Dividing the fish into three pieces horizontally, 
 Khartoum is situated at the bottom of the first 
 third, just above the point where Blue Nile and 
 White Nile meet. Properly speaking, it lies on
 
 14 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 the Blue Nile. Omdurman is on the opposite 
 bank, past the blending of the streams. 
 
 It is confusing, by the way, that the Nile flows 
 northward and that " up-stream " means south- 
 ward. A unique feature of the Nile is that it 
 is self-supporting. It gets broader instead of 
 narrower as it approaches its source, and, proud 
 and generous to the end, carries its largesse to 
 Egypt and the Delta without the help of tribu- 
 taries. 
 
 Khartoum itself has the pert prosperity of a city 
 of recent growth. The hand of Lord Kitchener 
 is visible in its symmetrical plan. Houses seem 
 to be companies and battalions formed into neat 
 squares and ready at a word of command to march 
 further in orderly rows over the desert. The 
 streets are very wide ; there is an indescribable 
 feeling that the town is a camp, that its life is as 
 artificial as the life of a city of tents. And that 
 impression is deepened by the perpetual bugle calls 
 and sounds of military music. 
 
 A plan of the town is before me as I write. It 
 is as mathematically divided into squares and 
 diamonds as a wall-paper or as a number of Union 
 Jacks, and is pyramidal in form ; the base, two
 
 THEN AND NOW 15 
 
 miles long, extending along the Blue Nile. On 
 the other side of the river, united by the new 
 railway bridge, is Khartoum North, where the 
 Government dockyard and stores, also a suburb 
 of native houses, are situated. 
 
 The most pleasant walk in Khartoum is along 
 the river Embankment Street is its ridiculous 
 name with its shady walks of lebbakhs and 
 acacias and gum-trees ; private houses and care- 
 fully-tended gardens on one side and the river 
 with Tuti Island to the north-west on the other. 
 Here English nursery-maids bring their charges in 
 the cool hours of the day, along it tourists mounted 
 on donkeys rejoice in the sudden shade and respite 
 from the frizzling heat ; and below the bank lie, 
 sweltering in the sun, the white Government 
 steamers prior to setting forth on their journey 
 southwards, while just above them the sakya 
 creaks its mournful song. A sakya, for those 
 who do not know, is a contrivance for drawing 
 water from the river for irrigating purposes by 
 means of a wheel turned by oxen. The small boy 
 sits behind them, singing or dozing. In the latter 
 case, the oxen, missing his reminders, gradually 
 cease their weary round and drowse too in the
 
 16 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 heat of the day. The tune of the sakya may soothe 
 you or may set your teeth on edge. There is a tale 
 of an Englishman who, maddened by the noise, 
 gave a sakya driver oil and backsheesh so that he 
 might be troubled no more. But the owner of the 
 sakya came to him with an injured countenance. 
 " How is it possible/' he asked, " for me to know 
 whether the sakya is working or not, now that I 
 cannot hear it ? '' 
 
 The other principal thoroughfare is Victoria 
 Avenue, also planted with trees, but these are as 
 yet in their extreme youth. Just where Victoria 
 Avenue is intersected by Khedive Avenue, stands 
 one of the most important and dramatic monu- 
 ments of the place the Gordon Statue. It is 
 seen from four quarters. Troops pass it all day 
 long. It culminates the broad entrance to the 
 Palace Gardens. It is the focus of the town, this 
 simple bronze effigy of a man on a camel. The 
 statue of Gordon Pasha dominates the city, as 
 does his indomitable spirit of patriotism and 
 faithfulness unto death. But a short distance 
 from the statue, Dervish spears were dipped in his 
 blood ; but a stone's throw away Kitchener and 
 his staff bared their heads at the retaking of the
 
 THEN AND NOW It 
 
 city, while the funeral service was read over the 
 spot where the martyr fell. 
 
 There are many legends about the statue. The 
 natives regard it with awe. One old black woman, 
 who used to be attached to Gordon's household, 
 was said to sit here for hours together because, 
 she said, it sometimes smiled at her. Others 
 declare they have seen it move. An Englishman 
 was once looking at the statue, when a Sudanese 
 who had paused also informed him that the 
 likeness was excellent on the whole, but that 
 " the colour was not right. " " I knew him well," 
 said the old man, " and he was as white as you ! " 
 
 In the Palace Gardens a rose-bush is still 
 cherished that was, it is said, planted by Gordon's 
 hand. In the Palace chapel, his favourite hymn, 
 " Abide with me/' is still sung after evensong on 
 Sundays. If ever the spirit of a man walked the 
 scenes of his lifetime, then surely the great and 
 honest spirit of General Gordon stalks about 
 Khartoum. 
 
 The day after my arrival in Khartoum happened 
 to be the day on which a garden-party was given 
 
 at the Palace, " to meet Lord Kitchener." The 
 2
 
 18 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 present Agent-General of His Majesty's Govern- 
 ment in Egypt was then out of employment, and 
 had just returned from a shooting trip on the Blue 
 Nile. Lord Kitchener was, in fact, up in the 
 Sudan after an absence of seven years, for pleasure 
 and not business. Seven years before, Khartoum 
 was scarcely raising her wounded head from the 
 dust after the devastation of Dervish rule, for 
 though much had been done in the five years of 
 Anglo-British administration, that time was mostly 
 taken up with recuperation. Now the Sudan had 
 lived through seven years of healthy growth, and 
 the differences to the eye must have been enor- 
 mous. 
 
 It was the holiday Kitchener that we saw that 
 day of the garden-party, burnt brick-red, smiling, 
 and as cheerful as a schoolboy. His especial wish 
 had been to kill a fine kudu that was known to 
 be in the neighbourhood of Sennaar, and secure the 
 prize he did, within only an hour of the time fixed 
 for his return. He had found leisure too, during 
 his short trip, to open the new bridge at Kosti on 
 the White Nile, to glance at all the improvements 
 in Khartoum, to give lozenge advice to every one 
 of the most practical description, praise to those
 
 THEN AND NOW 19 
 
 who deserved it, and to keep the whole place busy. 
 Such are the methods of the present British 
 Agent ! 
 
 The Palace Gardens are vastly different now from 
 that wilderness into which Kitchener and his 
 officers walked the day when the British and 
 Egyptian flags were hoisted once more on the 
 roof that Gordon had paced, searching for the help 
 that came too late. Then the Sodom apples ran 
 riot over the beds and lawns, and the Palace was 
 a pitiable ruin. Now the rebuilt edifice presents 
 a bland and imposing face, and there is a carpet 
 of sward before it that might be the lawn in front 
 of the Club House at Ranelagh. The garden is 
 brilliant with red and white oleanders in full 
 bloom, scarlet poinsettias, poinsianas, yellow taco- 
 ma, sysybans, and glorious torrents of bougain- 
 villea ; and the sward is shaded by mimosa, acacias, 
 broad-leaved fig trees, orange trees and down- 
 drooping banyans. 
 
 The dazzling sunshine of this January day made 
 one blink. The flowers provided colour, and so did 
 the crowds on the lawn. I say crowds, because, 
 though the white uniforms of civil officials and 
 the coloured uniforms of army officers were inter-
 
 20 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 mingled with light-coloured dresses and parasols, 
 the native contingent, the local sheikhs and leading 
 Khartoum merchants, kept to themselves, and 
 looked like a page torn from the Old Testament. 
 
 Lord Kitchener paused to converse with them 
 when he had descended the Palace steps with the 
 Governor-General between rows of coal-black giants 
 in red and white ; and, later on, while every 
 European was crowding into the marquees for 
 tea and ices, I saw one after another detach him- 
 self gravely from the throng, kneel down at a 
 little distance from the rest, and repeat his evening 
 prayers, with his face turned Mecca-wards. The 
 sight of those prostrating figures brought the 
 strange incongruities of the function before one as 
 could no other incident during the afternoon. 
 
 There were other paradoxes. Those same black 
 giants in white embroidered with red to which I 
 referred just now, the Sirdar's bodyguard, were 
 old soldiers, many of whom must have fought 
 against our troops years ago. And, not so odd 
 perhaps when one considers that the Sudan is 
 chiefly run by Scotchmen nowadays, it amused 
 me to hear the native bands piping forth Scotch 
 airs on Scotch bagpipes, with true Caledonian
 
 THEN AND NOW 21 
 
 zest. The Sudanese are apt musicians. The regi- 
 mental bands are brass and play in harmony, and 
 no one in Khartoum need ever be ignorant of the 
 latest musical comedy airs they are played in 
 Khartoum as soon as in London. 
 
 The bands were to the fore the next morning at 
 the review which took place in the early hours. 
 That was a sight to which I cannot do justice. 
 All Khartoum and his wife poured out into the 
 desert beyond the town. Omdurman sent its 
 contingent of scallywags too. 
 
 On the road to the parade-ground we met 
 dog-carts, motors, horsemen and horsewomen, 
 Egyptian ladies peeping out with veiled faces 
 through the curtains of their carts, high officials 
 on donkeys, and riff-raff on the same or on foot ; 
 scantily clad women with naked babies, raga- 
 muffins, functionaries and what not. Above us a 
 cloudless sky, and a sun so powerful that the 
 kites wheeling high up in the pure air cast clean-cut 
 shadows on the scorched sand. And a wide 
 horizon, a vast dun-coloured plain, broken only 
 by a mud village or two, miles away, and a string 
 of telegraph posts marching into the distance like 
 pins stuck into a huge sheet of cardboard. The
 
 22 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 troops were there stretched out in glittering 
 lines, the red and green pennants of the cavalry 
 fluttering out in the brightness like a row of tiny 
 rags. A roped-in enclosure accommodated the 
 ladies with chairs, and beside it stood the motor- 
 car from the Palace. Kitchener paused to speak 
 to its occupants for a few seconds, his horse switch- 
 ing its long tail impatiently, before he cantered 
 away. He was dressed, as some one put it tersely, 
 like a loafer no spurs, no sword, no gloves. But 
 when he pulled up by those blinking, twinkling 
 lines of miniature men and horses out on the field 
 of sand, and rode down the length of each, one 
 realised that here was the man responsible for 
 this pageant of Empire in a Desert. 
 
 The march past brought a strange lump of 
 emotion into one's throat. Many and many a 
 man had faced our guns in that not far-distant 
 past. The 9th and 13th Sudanese number in 
 hundreds dervishes who joined our ranks after the 
 battles of the Atbara and Omdurman. They 
 made brave foes their smiling faces, brown and 
 black, show that they can be loyal friends. The 
 Sudanese march with a fine swing, and it was 
 impossible to tell their age. Men of fifty looked
 
 THEN AND NOW 23 
 
 as active as boys and as cheerful. Most, how- 
 ever, were of the younger generation, upright 
 fellows whom any man might be proud to com- 
 mand. Among the native officers the Khalifa's 
 son was pointed out to me. At first it seemed 
 almost horrible that the son of this man above all 
 others should serve his father's destroyers, but 
 after a while one realised that it was a fine thing 
 that, not only had our Government destroyed its 
 enemies, but their enmity also. 
 
 It was a sight worth remembering. The cavalry 
 with their pennants ; the Arab mounted infantry 
 with their brown and green turbans and dark 
 intelligent faces, mounted on small Abyssinian 
 mules ; the Cadets from the Military College ; 
 the Camel Corps lurching and swaying forward ; 
 the dangerous little Maxims looking so bright and 
 workmanlike ; all passed and saluted ; and then 
 came the gallop past with a thunder of hoofs, a 
 clatter of wheels and a clanking of bridle chains. 
 The review was over. Once again the glittering 
 lines stood firm, and there was the sound of shout- 
 ing, the " Effendimiz chok yasha ! " 
 
 The bands struck up the Khedivial Hymn and the 
 British National Anthem, and?the pageant was done.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL KHARTOUM 
 
 rpHROUGH most of the nights of the year it 
 is warm enough to sleep out of doors. In 
 the hot weather you camp out on the roof, where a 
 breeze may perchance fan you, with an earthen 
 pitcher of water within reach. In the so-called 
 cool weather your angareb * is placed in the veran- 
 dah or garden, and there you lie watching the 
 great stars nickering in a sky of vast clearness, or 
 fireflies spangling the magic of the tropical moon 
 if she is at the full, until you fall asleep. An 
 extra blanket should be at hand, for the night 
 grows chilly just before dawn. You can be 
 awakened by a variety of causes : by the light 
 always dazzling, by the bugling in the barracks, 
 by a regimental band braying past, or by the 
 
 * A native bed made of leather thongs on a wooden frame. No 
 Sudani is without one, and few Europeans, as it is very comfortable, 
 
 24
 
 DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL KHARTOUM 25 
 
 strident note of the Sudan bulbul in the tacomas 
 or acacias. 
 
 You draw no mosquito curtain about you, for 
 the energy of the medical officers of health has 
 done away with the Khartoum mosquito. More 
 than that a householder is fined 50 piastres if a 
 mosquito is found on the premises. The mosquito 
 breeds in stagnant water, therefore all stagnant 
 water is treated with paraffin, or removed. In 
 a town like Khartoum, where people used to stand 
 up to their necks in water to be rid of the torment 
 of the stings, this is more than triumph. 
 
 It is only a part of the work of the sanitary 
 authorities. Khartoum is one of the healthiest 
 cities in the world, thanks to untiring vigilance.* 
 The English official makes constant personal 
 inspection himself, however efficient the native 
 subordinate may be. Once there is a case of 
 malaria or enteric, the cause is doggedly hunted 
 down, and usually found. In 1909 there were 
 some cases of malaria in the British Barracks. 
 The Blue Nile was falling at the time, and leaving 
 
 * The death-rate as recorded in the Report for 1910 was 7 per 
 1,000 ; or 422 deaths in a population of 60,000 natives and Euro- 
 peans.
 
 26 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 pools in its bed near the Barracks. These pools 
 
 were examined, the larvse of anopheline mosquitoes 
 
 the species that brings malaria with it found 
 
 in them, and they were treated. But as soon as 
 
 fresh pools were formed, the larvse made their 
 
 appearance in them too. The officer of health 
 
 immediately suspected an irrigated field on the 
 
 further side of the river, but the native inspector 
 
 declared that it was innocent. However, a sanitary 
 
 inspector near the farm himself developed malaria. 
 
 The medical officer then made a thorough search, 
 
 and discovered the fatal larvse in the channels that 
 
 watered the crops. As soon as they were treated, 
 
 there were no more cases of malaria. 
 
 That is characteristic. An eternal war is waged 
 on the bacillus, a contest as determined as 
 Kitchener's campaign against the Khalifa. This 
 year, rabies appeared at Khartoum, and in ex- 
 perimenting, one doctor got some of the inoculated 
 serum into his eye. It might have cost him his 
 life ; he was forced to go down to the Pasteur 
 Institute at Cairo for treatment. Happily, no evil 
 result ensued. Mr. Wellcome, of the firm of 
 Burroughes and Wellcome, has endowed the 
 " Wellcome Tropical Research" Laboratories " at
 
 DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL KHARTOUM 27 
 
 the Gordon College, where a war to the death is 
 being waged on the diseases which have made 
 tropical countries too often the grave of the white 
 man. There the idiosyncrasies of the wicked 
 little sleeping-sickness bacillus are being studied 
 as a general studies the idiosyncrasies of the 
 enemy, full reports of the work are published, and 
 incalculable services are being rendered to the 
 science of tropical medicine. 
 
 To return to the point from which mosquitoes 
 beguiled us. It is not always warm enough to 
 sleep out of doors. There may be a " cold snap " 
 when the thermometer is actually at 60 degrees 
 Fahrenheit very cold, that, for the Sudan, and 
 noticeable, owing to the draughty construction of 
 the houses. You may be awakened, nevertheless, 
 by the twittering of birds, for in Khartoum the 
 sparrows make free of the houses, and even build 
 their nests inside. They chirp, and fly in and out 
 of the rooms, or perch on the furniture to look at 
 you with impertinent bright eyes, as if they had 
 a perfect right to be there. The Sudanese sparrow 
 is as cheeky as the English sparrow, and not 
 dissimilar. His plumage is not so dingy, how- 
 ever, and he is smaller. The bulbul to which I
 
 28 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 referred further back is one of the most familiar 
 garden birds in Khartoum he is almost as big 
 as a thrush, grey in colour and black-headed 
 his notes are loud and cheery, if not very 
 musical.* 
 
 One can drink water with impunity at Khartoum. 
 It is brought from the deep wells at Burri, and is 
 pure and good. In the olden days women carriers 
 and donkeys used to go about with water-skins 
 and paraffin tins full of the precious liquid, but 
 they have been replaced by taps, water-carts, 
 and public drinking fountains, at which vessels 
 may be filled for a small payment. 
 
 As for food, it is always possible to get mutton, 
 which is good, beef too, and unlimited chicken, 
 but never veal or pork. The larder can be varied 
 with sand grouse, wild duck or venison on occasions. 
 Fish Nile fish is plentiful, but muddy and coarse 
 in flavour. Milk and butter can be obtained from 
 the Government Farm at certain times of the 
 year both taste unlike English dairy products, 
 but are prized and expensive. Vegetables are not 
 plentiful, and green-stuff is almost precious. It 
 is true that one can buy most of the vegetables 
 
 * See Appendix A.
 
 DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL KHARTOUM 29 
 
 of the earth in tins at one or other of the Greek 
 stores, and Sudanese cooks are excellent at sauces 
 in fact, it is sometimes impossible to recognise 
 the dish for the sauce. Curry powder is dear to 
 the Sudanese cook's heart but it is sometimes 
 put to unholy uses. A certain civilian was back 
 from a successful shooting trip, yet was informed 
 by his cook that there was no meat. " What ! " 
 said the civilian. " How about that gazelle ? " 
 " Excellency/' said the cook, " the gazelle has 
 gone very bad, and I have no curry powder ! " 
 
 The Sudanese cook is on the whole cleanly, but 
 he has peculiarities. The pig is an unclean animal, 
 and he handles him under protest. One house- 
 holder discovered his servant spitting devoutly 
 on the accursed ham before bringing it in to 
 breakfast. 
 
 Sudanese servants are often Berberines a tribe 
 born to serve, and serving, on the whole, ex- 
 cellently. But the truth is seldom in them, and 
 the English sitt (lady) does not always find her 
 way a smooth one. Everything that goes wrong 
 in the house is attributed to the Devil. Bishop 
 Gwynne told me that one day his " boy " came 
 to him and said, " The Devil is in the house."
 
 80 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 " Oh," said the Bishop, " that is very interesting ! 
 When did he arrive ? '' 
 
 " He came in with the cook from the souk 
 (market) yesterday evening." 
 
 " Really ? " commented the Bishop, puzzled. 
 
 " Yes, and in the night he came out of the cook 
 and passed into me." 
 
 " Oh, and what did he do ? " 
 
 " He went to the cupboard and broke a plate 
 and the top of the jam jar." 
 
 A light broke in on the Bishop. 
 
 " Oh he was after the jam ! I suppose he 
 ate some ? " 
 
 " Yes," said the boy ; " he did ! " 
 
 Another long-suffering householder was told 
 time after time that the Devil had broken his 
 plates. Losing patience at last, he cried, " Well, 
 you tell the Devil next time he comes to go into 
 
 Captain 's kitchen and break his plates, 
 
 instead of mine ! " 
 
 The idea of devil-possession is not merely an 
 elaborate form of excuse ; the native servant really 
 believes in it. One man possessed a cook who 
 at times had a devil who caused him to bubble 
 and froth at the mouth. The other servants
 
 DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL KHARTOUM 31 
 
 dared not go near him when he was possessed, but 
 happily the Devil did not prevent his cooking. 
 He would turn out an excellent dinner of several 
 courses, bubbling all the while, but the dishes were 
 pushed out to his frightened fellow-servants through 
 the doorway not one would venture into the 
 kitchen. 
 
 Their idea of honesty is somewhat primitive. 
 In the early times the Bishop of Khartoum shared 
 
 a garden with Major . The Bishop, one of 
 
 the most energetic of men, undertook to get the 
 garden into shape himself, and laboured hard at 
 it with a native gardener. He thought he might 
 utilise the opportunity in other ways as well, and 
 talked to the gardener of such improving subjects 
 as the advantages of honesty and straight-dealing. 
 The man responded intelligently and appreciatively. 
 ' Wallahi," he said, " your words are the words 
 of God ! You speak truth." 
 
 Next day the Bishop, not to harp on the ethical 
 string too much, confided that he intended to 
 build a hut at the end of the garden. The gardener 
 asked of what materials he would build it. " Sun- 
 dried bricks/' replied the Bishop, " and mud 
 mortar." " Why not proper mortar ? >: " Be-
 
 S2 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 cause lime is too expensive." The gardener 
 beamed. " Do not let that trouble you ! I know 
 where the bags of lime are kept at the Public 
 Works, and to-morrow, after dark, you and I " 
 
 One of the Bishop's suffragis,* by the way, was 
 the Khalifa's water-carrier : he was found wounded 
 near the Khalifa's body at the battle in which 
 Abdullahi met his doom. 
 
 There is a season in Khartoum, that is to say, 
 from the end of December to the end of March 
 there are dances, tennis-parties, a garden-party or 
 so at the Palace, gymkhanas, picnics and polo. 
 The gaieties are not on so large a scale as those of 
 Cairo, but, as in a large hill-station in India, 
 there is usually some engagement to write against 
 every date, especially when the tourist invasion is 
 at its height. There is a pleasant lack of swagger 
 about these entertainments ; the Levantine ele- 
 ment is entirely excluded, women do not over- 
 dress, and those who do not possess pony-carts or 
 dog-carts with smart little waleds like turbaned 
 black imps perched behind, ride to dances or 
 functions on donkeys. 
 Indeed, every one rides on the unpretentious ass, 
 
 * Table servants.
 
 DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL KHARTOUM 33 
 
 from the British private who discourses cheerfully 
 and profanely to the donkey boy alongside in 
 plain Cockney or broad Scots, to the tourist and 
 the high official. The hireable donkey is the taxi 
 of Khartoum. He is mostly saddled with a stirrup- 
 less native saddle covered with a dyed sheepskin, 
 he is often without a bridle, and the fare is a 
 piastre or two, or four for the afternoon. You 
 direct his footsteps by prodding his neck or kicking 
 his sides, and if this fails, the donkey boy tugs 
 him into the way that he should go with blood- 
 curdling sounds. The donkey boy is a barefoot 
 chocolate-hued ragamuffin aged anything from 
 eight to eighty, and he urges his charge along with 
 an indrawn hiss which sounds like " I'll teach you 
 in a minute ! " or a staccato " Arr ! " in his throat. 
 Thus encouraged, the small beasts canter or trot 
 along nimbly, however heavy their load. On 
 the whole, they are well-conditioned little beasts, 
 and have the long-suffering of angels, but it is as 
 well to lift the sheepskin and see if there are saddle 
 sores. 
 
 The bray of the ass is heard from morning to 
 night in the Sudan. There is nothing in the 
 
 known realm of sound that can equal that 
 3
 
 34 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 passionate protest from its highest note to the 
 pacified sob at the end. The Arabs tell a good 
 tale about it. When the animals were first created, 
 they say, the asses idled so much of their time 
 away in paying court to their lady-loves that 
 they neglected their work. In his anger, Allah 
 swore that there should never be any more she- 
 asses. Horrified at this, the donkeys lifted their 
 voices and wept. Allah could not endure the 
 noise. " For pity's sake, stop," said he, " and I 
 will take back what I have said ! " The donkeys 
 ended in a sigh of relief. But to this day they 
 voice their feelings after the same manner. 
 
 There are a good many grass tennis lawns in 
 Khartoum. They need very careful watering, 
 and are no good after the third year unless they 
 are dressed and left unused. But polo is not 
 played on grass (turf is too precious), but in the 
 desert beyond Omdurman. The journey is made 
 in the Governor-General's boat, the " Elfin," once 
 one of Gordon's boats. It was discovered when 
 Khartoum was re-taken in 1898, lying high and 
 dry on the shoal, pock-marked with shot and shell, 
 rotten, rusty, but with engines that were not
 
 * f 
 
 *
 
 DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL KHARTOUM 35 
 
 entirely past work. In its second incarnation it 
 is as smart as white paint can make it, but it is 
 interesting to think of its past history. On the 
 long sandy shore of Omdurman, donkeys and 
 ponies and dogcarts are waiting, and every one 
 mounts or clambers in as the case may be, and the 
 cavalcade starts through the maze of one-storied 
 mud rabbit-hutches, that is Omdurman, for the 
 desert beyond. A slight detour to the left will 
 take you to the ruins of the Mahdi's tomb that 
 grave of the faith of thousands ; and then over 
 the huge square which the dervishes made their 
 open-air mosque. The polo ground is visible from 
 afar by its gay marquee, and the Sudanese In- 
 fantry Band is rendering "The Girl in the Train " 
 perfectly, though they have never as much as set 
 foot in a theatre in their lives, and to sit through 
 a musical comedy would cause their eyes to start 
 out of their black heads with astonishment. It 
 might be Ranelagh or Hurlingham but for the 
 lack of green turf. Instead, the sand has been 
 rolled hard. 
 
 It is the last polo match of the season, and the 
 Departments are playing the Infantry for the 
 Challenge Cup. There is a cloud of dust, in which
 
 36 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 you dimly discern men and ponies and swinging 
 sticks ; the sun beats down swelteringly, the 
 spectators consume tea or coffee or lemonade in 
 the tent or its shadow, while a crowd of eager 
 ragamuffins of all sizes and colours watch the 
 proceedings from behind the barrier. Their teeth 
 show in dazzling grins, their eyes glisten in their 
 round dark countenances. There are little girls, 
 too, with their hair plaited into at least two hun- 
 dred tiny plaits over their heads, and greased with 
 mutton-fat. 
 
 It is over at last the Departments have won, 
 and the ponies are being rubbed down by attentive 
 syces. The band plays the two national anthems, 
 and the proceedings end up with a horse-auction, 
 one of the victors making an excellent auctioneer. 
 Finally, the laws of our country are broken by a 
 raffle, and when the pony so disposed of has fallen 
 to a lady, every one, mightily contented, mounts 
 his donkey or gets into his conveyance. 
 
 The amazing thing is that this takes place on the 
 very spot where, only thirteen years ago, within 
 the short lifetime of some of the children who 
 have been looking on, war-drums beat the Jehad. 
 It does not strike the average Englishman as
 
 DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL KHARTOUM 37 
 
 incongruous. It is very characteristic of him, is 
 it not ? The Englishman is never disturbed by 
 time, place or climate. He eats his food, plays 
 his games, and sings his hymns on Sundays, no 
 matter where he is. He will probably do the 
 same, or its disembodied equivalent, in the next 
 world, whatever the Angels think about it.
 
 CHAPTEK IV 
 
 FIAT LUX 
 
 A TOURIST once made an epigram about the 
 -^- Sudan which expressed neatly the impres- 
 sion first gained by new-comers. " Apparently," 
 he said, " the Sudan is run for the benefit of the 
 unemployed sons of our nobility/' He might 
 have added, " at the expense of the Egyptian 
 Treasury," and voiced the bitter contention of 
 some malcontents in Cairo. The second accusa- 
 tion I shall deal with later on. But to the first 
 bunch of critics it may be answered that, though 
 these young sprigs of British aristocracy do come 
 out to the Sudan, it is certainly not for amusement. 
 They play, it is true, when circumstances allow, 
 but they work with an unflagging will and en- 
 thusiasm that would appal our ready-to-strike 
 labouring classes, whose motto would seem to be, 
 " Never put your heart into your work." 
 
 38
 
 FIAT LUX 39 
 
 The visitor to Khartoum is apt to imagine, after 
 a week's stay during which he has had a remark- 
 ably good time, that it is all play, because he meets 
 his hosts only in their moments of relaxation. If 
 he stays longer and keeps his eyes and ears open, 
 the most casual observer will be undeceived and 
 will gather that if the country is run for any one's 
 benefit, it is certainly not exploited in the interests 
 of those who have undertaken the difficult task 
 of civilising, pacifying, and ruling it with justice 
 and equity. 
 
 In many parts of the Sudan the only hold the 
 English inspector has on the natives is their belief, 
 founded on experience, that the Englishman will 
 weigh out justice with an impartial hand, and do 
 his best to right wrongs and alleviate disaster 
 with the unending capacity for taking pains that 
 some one defined as genius. It is, in fact, a succes 
 d'estime in the most literal sense of the phrase. 
 Accustomed for generations to pillage, slaughter, 
 slave-raiding, want and disease, the paternal 
 methods of the Englishman come home to their 
 intelligence with a shock. The Englishman is 
 stark, staring mad, with his fussy ideas about 
 ' sanitation and his way of refusing bribes, but it is
 
 40 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 a madness which brings blessings in its wake. 
 So much is this the case, that before the rains come 
 in the Khartoum district, the downfall is supposed 
 to be more plentiful on the land on which the 
 inspector has trodden during his circuit of in- 
 spection, and the farmers set crops accordingly. 
 As one man put it, " If Allah is pleased with the 
 inspector, He brings rain to show that his feet are 
 blessed.'* 
 
 There is a tale in the Bahr-el-Ghazal about an 
 old man who accused another of stealing his cattle. 
 The Englishman listened to the plaintiff, who was 
 supported by his son as witness ; then he had 
 the accused brought before him and asked him 
 what he had to say in defence. The old man arose. 
 " Is this justice ! " he cried. " Come away, my 
 son. This man listens to both sides ! " 
 
 And two stories culled from the Annual Reports 
 of 1909 and 1910 more human than most Blue 
 Books, by the way, will be illustrative of the 
 difficulties encountered by the English inspector. 
 
 "A., a Dinka, stole ten bulls from B., another 
 Dinka. B. tried to recover his cattle, whereupon
 
 FIAT LUX 41 
 
 a court was assembled, chiefly composed of A.'s 
 friends. There was no dispute, and A. fully ac- 
 knowledged the theft. But the Court, while 
 ordering that the cattle should be returned to B., 
 not only adjudged no punishment to A., but since 
 he had suffered all the trouble and risk of stealing 
 the cattle and was going to derive no benefit 
 therefrom, he should keep one of the stolen bulls 
 for his hard fortune. The fact was that there was 
 not one of the assembled judges but had, at some 
 time in his life, stolen or attempted to steal a 
 neighbour's cattle, consequently not one who 
 could cast the first stone. Wherefore, it is easily 
 seen why the Inspector, who caused restoration of 
 all the captured cattle and also fined the thief, is 
 looked upon as a brutal, and probably conscience- 
 less innovator." (From the Report of the Upper 
 Nile Province). 
 
 (Gedid District). " A certain individual pro- 
 mised a cow to a Fiki * if he could write a charm 
 which would have the effect of making his wife, 
 who had hitherto been childless, bear him children. 
 The Fiki wrote the charm, and in course of time 
 the woman became the mother of a son ; but when 
 the Fiki asked the husband to fulfil his part of the 
 bargain and hand over the cow, the husband 
 
 * Religious teacher.
 
 42 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 refused. The Fiki then wished to sue the husband 
 in the courts, and was somewhat disappointed 
 when he was told that if he could write a charm 
 which could work such a miracle, there was no 
 need for him to have recourse to the courts to 
 enforce his debts against the husband." (Report 
 of the White Nik Province.) 
 
 And in his Keport of the Haifa Province for 
 1910 Captain Bassett, the acting Governor, tells 
 the tale of a Kababish woman charged with the 
 murder of a fellow-wife by attacking her from 
 behind, whilst she was drawing water from the 
 river, and drowning her. The evidence, he said, 
 was conflicting, and the injured husband did not 
 serve to elucidate matters much. Though deeply 
 attached to the young and favourite wife who had 
 been drowned, he was not anxious for the con- 
 viction of the other, his point being that, having 
 lost one, he might at all events try to keep the 
 other. 
 
 This is comprehensible when one remembers 
 that a dowry must be provided for every wife 
 taken, not by her father, but by the prospective 
 husband. 
 
 The Hadendowa Arabs, who wander about in
 
 FIAT LUX 43 
 
 the Eastern Sudan and are cattle-owners, have 
 blood feuds ; and are apt to resent any inter- 
 ference with the old law of an eye for an eye and 
 a tooth for a tooth ; and in the Southern Sudan 
 the Dinkas, Shilluks, and Nuers make a point of 
 killing a man if they suspect him of withholding 
 rain for there are professional rainmakers who 
 are accredited with powers of drawing showers. 
 They also think it right to kill wizards and witches ; 
 and to prove whether the accused is guilty, they 
 have recourse to trial by ordeal they administer 
 poison, or force the suspected person to go into 
 the river or pass through fire. If the supposed 
 witch or wizard survives the poison, escapes the 
 crocodiles, or avoids being badly burnt, he or she 
 is proved to be innocent. Another method is 
 divination by chickens. A man will even consent 
 to the murder of near relatives if he believes that 
 they are guilty of witchcraft. After all, we were 
 not much better but a few centuries ago in civilised 
 England ! 
 
 The inspector has to make it his care to respect 
 tribal law as far as he can. In dealing with the 
 Dinka tribes, where the tribal code is very elaborate 
 and explicit (I shall refer to these later on), for
 
 44 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 instance, the inspector finds a definite system of 
 fines upon which he bases his judgments. Many of 
 the laws dealing with marriage might serve as 
 models in the schemes of European eugenists and 
 social reformers. 
 
 The native is ridding himself slowly of the idea 
 that justice can be bought. The venal Egyptian 
 and Turk, his former masters, accustomed him to 
 the bribe, but he is now learning to take his place 
 in the courts as an ordinary litigant. Other 
 deeply inculcated ideas take some time to root 
 out, as that of blood money. For instance, there 
 is a Sudan ordinance similar to the English Work- 
 men's Compensation Act. This is confounded 
 with the more ancient practice in the native mind, 
 and in every case of death from injuries, the petition 
 presented by the dead man's relatives asks for 
 " blood-money." I am informed that it is difficult 
 to persuade the relatives that they are entitled to 
 nothing unless they can prove their dependency on 
 the dead man. They regard the payment as a 
 pious offering on the part of the employer, to wipe 
 out the stain of blood. 
 
 The Law Courts are situated in Khedive Avenue. 
 They are a fine building, its front shaped like a
 
 FIAT LUX 45 
 
 blunt E. Within are high, cool rooms and many 
 corridors. The court-rooms are provided with 
 bench, bar and witness-box, as in England, and a 
 black usher in uniform. 
 
 Criminal cases are not tried in the Law Courts, 
 but in the Police Court. There are two Mohamme- 
 dan courts, the Cadi's Court (the Court of First 
 Instance), and the Grand Cadi's Court (the Court of 
 Appeal). Then come the District Court, presided 
 over by a Civil magistrate with jurisdiction up 
 to 10 ; and the Civil Court, presided over by the 
 Civil Judge the highest court of the First Instance. 
 The Civil Court has unlimited jurisdiction. The 
 Court of Appeal is at present in the Court of the 
 Judicial Commissioner, but it is hoped shortly to 
 have a proper Court of Appeal with three judges. 
 
 As I have indicated, Government inspectors 
 have the power to judge civil cases ; but civil 
 judges go on circuit from time to time in some 
 parts of the country. 
 
 The criminal courts are modelled more or less 
 on the Indian pattern ; and the more important 
 cases are tried by three magistrates on the bench. 
 The criminal courts are in the offices of the Governor 
 of the Province.
 
 46 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 In Khartoum there are three civil judges and 
 one chief judge, one police magistrate and three 
 district civil magistrates. The small or district 
 court for civil cases under 10 is judged by an 
 Egyptian officer. 
 
 There are many picturesque features in the law 
 courts, many touches of romance. In the long 
 sunny arcade with its chequered shade, as I passed 
 down it, sat a little group of Jews, in Biblical dress, 
 their long curls descending to their shoulders like 
 the Jews of Jerusalem, waiting for their case to 
 be called. Muraslas, native messengers in white 
 and green, go backwards and forwards with that 
 indolent swiftness which is never equivalent to 
 European bustling. A colourful element in the 
 court-room is the black usher, a tall, powerful 
 Sudanese who was formerly the slave of the 
 Shenari family of Suakin, once wealthy merchants, 
 now fallen on evil days. I was told that the 
 faithful ex-servant sends some of his pay to his 
 impoverished masters. He was also a soldier, 
 and it is said that at the beginning of his regime he 
 was discovered drilling the witnesses ! 
 
 There is an interpreter for such cases aa are 
 conducted in the vernacular ; many of the magis-
 
 FIAT LUX 47 
 
 trates, however, understand Arabic so well that 
 they scarcely need him. The manner of procedure 
 in a civil case is very simple, so that a litigant can 
 conduct his case in person : a written petition is 
 sent in to the judge by the plaintiff, and if he has 
 a legal claim, the petitioner pays the fees. The 
 case is then fixed for hearing and tried. 
 
 Civil law in the Sudan is at present a very un- 
 certain quantity. Until the commercial conditions 
 of the country are better known it will be useless 
 to frame codes as has been done in Egypt. From 
 time to time ordinances are drafted to meet the 
 requirements of civil justice, and no doubt these 
 will be consolidated at some future date. But 
 the legislator has not kept pace with the com- 
 munity. Many important ordinances have not 
 yet been drafted, while others have been drafted 
 but not passed. These ordinances have to be 
 passed in Cairo and Khartoum, and the waste of 
 time can only be described as ridiculous, sometimes 
 extending to years of red ink and bad temper. It 
 is to be hoped that this matter will be taken in 
 hand seriously and that some effort will be made 
 to meet the needs of the growing commercial 
 community.
 
 48 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 The Criminal Code of the Sudan is simply the 
 Indian Penal Code, adapted to the country. From 
 1909 to 1910 the total number of civil cases for the 
 whole Sudan was 8,839, the total convictions in 
 the more serious offences tried by Non-Summary 
 Courts, 632 ; the death sentence was carried out 
 on ten persons. 
 
 There are a few mounted police in Khartoum, all 
 educated natives of high intelligence, and quarters 
 were erected for them two years ago by prison 
 labour. Prison labour is used for strange purposes : 
 I remember, when assisting to arrange scenery for 
 some open-air theatricals, that a few criminals 
 were lent to help us with the more strenuous pieces 
 of labour. They proved most polite and in- 
 telligent ! I was told that it is found of infinite 
 benefit to treat the prisoners humanly as well as 
 humanely. They respond to interest like children, 
 and show themselves open to reason. There is 
 the confirmed criminal in the Sudan as well as in 
 England, but only a very small percentage of 
 prisoners confined on criminal charges are criminals 
 by nature.
 
 CHAPTEE V 
 
 THE BENDING TWIQ 
 
 li EDUCATION, to be useful to the community, 
 "*^ should fit a man for that station of life to 
 which it shall please God to call him. It should 
 not render him too fine to carry out the work in 
 society to which he is by disposition and heredity 
 adapted ; on the other hand, it should not deprive 
 him, should he show greater capabilities, of the 
 opportunity of utilising them for the good of all. 
 Above all, it should not rob the land of her heritage 
 of labour. 
 
 The education of the black, or rather semi- 
 black, man is an important matter. Here is a 
 vast territory, as big as Great Britain, Germany, 
 Austria, France, Italy, Spain and Portugal put 
 together, for the well-being of which England has 
 made herself answerable. It will, supposing that 
 it develops normally, boast in future years a large 
 
 population. In our hands lies the responsibility 
 4 49
 
 50 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 of moulding the unborn race. How are we accept- 
 ing it ? 
 
 The raw material is at present the so-called Arab 
 tribes and Moslem nondescripts of the Northern 
 Provinces, also the Pagans of the South, the Shilluks, 
 Dinkas, Nuers, Nubas, Nyam-Nyams and others. 
 It is as varied as more varied than the nationali- 
 ties of Europe as to race, tongue, custom and re- 
 ligion. It comprises the sons of those who fell 
 in their thousands at Omdurman, and those black 
 tribes who have for centuries provided the slave- 
 markets of the world. It comprises the sleek and 
 time-serving Berberine and the haughty Baggara 
 tribesman. 
 
 Education on such a vast scale could not be 
 compulsory. It must be uniform, but it must be 
 elastic, so as to adapt itself to the various idiosyn- 
 crasies of tribe, race and place. It must be 
 religious, to provide an ethical ideal applicable to 
 all, but it must not be sectarian or bigoted. 
 
 The system adopted in the Sudan may, I think, 
 be said to conform in the main with these require- 
 ments. It is my purpose here to survey it as 
 briefly as possible, and then to look at the results. 
 
 The simplest form of schooling that a boy can
 
 THE BENDING TWIG 51 
 
 get in the Sudan is the kuttab, or elementary 
 vernacular school. These kuttabs are scattered 
 throughout the provinces, but placed only in 
 districts which pay an educational rate, or tax, of 
 so much on the ardeb.* They are under the direct 
 supervision of the local mamur or police official, 
 and their administration is modified and adopted 
 by the Governor of the Province, through whose 
 hands all the correspondence between the head- 
 master of a kuttab and the educational centre at 
 Gordon College must pass, the master communica- 
 ting to the mamur, and the mamur forwarding the 
 communication to the Provincial Office through 
 the inspector. In the kuttab a pupil learns to 
 read and write in Arabic, simple arithmetic, 
 geography, the Koran and his duty towards his 
 neighbour. Native dress is worn, and school work 
 is not allowed to hinder a boy from helping his 
 parents in agricultural work at times when he is 
 really needed by them. Books and materials are 
 provided for the scholars free of charge. Sons of 
 those who do not pay rates are charged a fee of 
 five piastres a month, that is to say, one shilling 
 and a halfpenny. The Gordon College at Khartoum, 
 
 * The unit of measure of dry goods.
 
 52 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 under the directorship of Mr. James Currie, 
 is responsible for the syllabus, staff, and actual 
 teaching, and educational inspectors are sent 
 round from time to time. 
 
 Thus an education of some kind is accessible to 
 the bulk of the population of the Sudan, and it is 
 an education not calculated to draw them away 
 from the cultivation of their crops or care of their 
 cattle, but sufficient to make the younger generation 
 less fanatical and superstitious than their elders. 
 As a rule, when a boy has finished his three years 
 at one of these elementary schools, he goes back 
 to the land ; but a percentage, a very small 
 percentage, is sent on to the primary schools. 
 
 In the primary schools a boy is trained for 
 Government employ. He learns advanced re- 
 ligious teaching, English, Arabic, a little practical 
 carpentry, geometry and land-measuring. At the 
 end of a four years' course in the primary school, 
 a boy is able to fill adequately a minor official 
 post and earn 3 or more a month. Egyptians 
 are only eligible for such positions if they are 
 domiciled in the Sudan. 
 
 An annual examination is held at the primary 
 schools, and from the boys who show special ability
 
 THE BENDING TWIG 53 
 
 a select number is picked out to go on to the 
 secondary school. In 1911 the number of boys at 
 the secondary school was 64, of whom 57 were 
 Moslems, 7 Copts. The primary schools from 
 which these boys had been drafted were those of 
 Gordon College (16 boys) ; Omdurman (30) ; 
 Wad Medani (5) ; Berber (9) ; Haifa (2) ; and 
 Suakin (1), 
 
 There is only one secondary school namely, 
 Gordon College. The lads so picked out of the 
 primary schools then bifurcate into two sections. 
 One section is destined for teaching, the other for 
 engineering. The teacher section is taught in 
 Arabic, and supplies the teachers for the kuttabs, 
 those who do not enter the employ of the Gordon 
 College becoming interpreters and clerks. The 
 course lasts four years. A boy who enters the 
 second section has a five years' course, and when 
 it is finished he is drafted into the Public Works, 
 Railways, Irrigation or other branches of public 
 service. 
 
 All the instruction in this section is given in 
 English, as no native instructors and books are 
 available. 
 
 The secondary school, excellent as it is, has
 
 54 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 had to confront two undesirable tendencies. The 
 teachers of the first section are largely Egyptian, 
 and it has been suspected that some of them, 
 possessed of Nationalist leanings, may not have 
 had an altogether desirable effect upon the minds 
 of their pupils. The boys who leave the engineer- 
 ing section, on the other hand, sometimes leave 
 it " a little too big for their boots/' as one English 
 official expressed it to me. These tendencies, 
 however, can be safely left to the wise correction 
 of Mr. Currie and his staff, who have surmounted 
 many worse difficulties in dealing with the problem 
 before them. 
 
 Another important section of the Gordon College 
 is the Training College of Sheikhs. A sheikh, 
 roughly speaking, is a person of standing, so that 
 these young sheikhs represent the best Arab blood 
 of the country. Here you will find one of the 
 Khalifa's sons, a fine intelligent youth, and two of 
 the Mahdi's grandsons, each aged about nineteen. 
 It is strange to see these youths and their com- 
 panions with their turbans, flowing robes, sashes 
 and loose-sleeved coats, in such a milieu as the 
 Gordon College class-rooms. Their fathers lived 
 mostly in the insanitary and fanatical barbarism
 
 THE BENDING TWIG 55 
 
 of Omdurman in Dervish days. These their sons 
 and grandsons live a life which differs little from 
 that of an English schoolboy. They have their 
 baths, their dormitories, their lockers, their system 
 of prefects (the monitor is called alfus), their 
 fire-drill, and their football ! They are lovable 
 boys, and respond with fire to an appeal to their 
 honour or to their affection. An Englishman who 
 knew them at close quarters told me that their 
 sense of " what was cricket " was as keen as that 
 of any average English public school boy. 
 
 The sheikhs pass first through the primary 
 schools, like the rest, and at the end of their 
 training they are ready to become cadis, ulemas, 
 and so on. 
 
 It is not likely, however, that the sons of those 
 who galloped to certain death on the slaughter- 
 field of Kerreri would devote themselves entirely 
 to the arts of peace, or that the sons of the fighting 
 blacks could all dedicate themselves to mild 
 pursuits. It would be a sheer waste of excellent 
 fighting material. There is, therefore, a Military 
 School affiliated to the Gordon College, which is a 
 sort of Sudanese Sandhurst. The Cadets of the 
 Military College receive all their literary training
 
 56 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 in the Gordon College, but drill and learn pro- 
 ficiency in all military subjects from their military 
 instructors. An English officer is in command of 
 the school, an English sergeant is in charge of the 
 drill, and the teaching staff was composed in 1911 
 of three native officers. The cadets live at the 
 military school, and must be under sixteen years 
 of age when they enter it. It was my fortune to 
 see them both at work and at play. They look 
 fine, well-set-up lads in their khaki uniforms ; and 
 when a skating rink was opened at Khartoum, the 
 cadets took up roller-skating with great zest, en- 
 tirely unruffled by falls, their dark mostly black 
 faces one perpetual grin of good-nature and 
 fun. 
 
 Finally, there is the Technical School at Gordon 
 College. In order to enter the industrial work- 
 shops it is not necessary for a boy to have passed 
 through the primary schools first he can be 
 drafted into them straight from the kuttab, and 
 usually enters before he is twelve years old. There 
 are no fees, and the boy who enters signs a contract 
 to stay three years in the school. There are two 
 sections the carpenters' and the practical en- 
 gineering section. In the workshops the boys
 
 THE BENDING TWIG 57 
 
 learn fitting, smithwork, machine-running and 
 other branches of practical knowledge, and it is 
 a pleasure, if one goes over the premises, to see the 
 industry and cheerfulness which prevail. The 
 boys look very intelligent, and have, as a matter of 
 fact, executed most of the work of the new College 
 buildings, including the iron railings, the electric 
 light fittings, and the furniture. In addition to 
 their crafts, the boys in this school learn how to 
 write, read and draw, and are instructed in re- 
 ligion and the Koran. 
 
 So much for the bare bones of the system. 
 How does it work ? 
 
 If one judged only from what one saw at Gordon 
 College the answer would be enthusiastic. The 
 visitor passes from class-room to class-room ; he 
 sees the students at work, the workshops humming 
 with activity ; is favourably impressed by the 
 gardens, the football grounds (the Gordon College 
 boys can play an excellent game and often meet 
 our regimental teams), and by the keen interest 
 displayed by the staff in their work. If he judged 
 only by this, the scheme would appear ideal. But 
 no scheme on earth is perfect, and it would be 
 idiotic to expect this one to be without blemish.
 
 58 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 One thing must be borne in mind during our 
 consideration. It does not matter "tuppence/* 
 speaking materially, to the welfare of the Sudan 
 whether a man believes the world to be round 
 or flat. But what is, and will continue to be, 
 important to her for many years, is that he may 
 be able to dig. The country is undeveloped for 
 lack of labourers, and will be for many years 
 to come. 
 
 Now the natural instinct of the native teacher, 
 if he takes a pride in his work, is to produce the 
 boy with no ambition beyond a Government 
 clerkship, the very type of boy who is ornamental, 
 inefficient and unnecessary at the present stage 
 of national development. This tendency will have 
 to be rigorously repressed, and the primary schools 
 should only be fed with just as many boys as can 
 be trained efficiently for professional and com- 
 mercial life, and no more, however intelligent the 
 boys in the kuttabs may be. The industrial 
 workshops are excellent, but artisans must not 
 be produced at the cost of agriculture. It is 
 significant and eloquent that the education rate in 
 agricultural districts is paid in durra. One cannot 
 help wondering if it would not be possible to give
 
 THE BENDING TWIG 59 
 
 some sort of agricultural education as well, similar 
 to the Jewish educational farms and settlements 
 in Palestine. Apprentices could be placed in 
 such farms under much the same conditions as 
 in the industrial workshops. I am more than 
 probably asking this out of my ignorance, but in 
 any case it is a point which occurs immediately to 
 the outside observer. 
 
 In the Annual Report for 1910, published this 
 year, I read two remarks which bear directly on 
 this question. In his Report of the Berber 
 Province, Captain Townsend, Governor of the 
 province, writes under the heading of " Educa- 
 tion " : 
 
 " Progress continues, but I fear that a number 
 of people look on schools as a means of making 
 Government look after their children and eventu- 
 ally provide them with billets. . . . Under this 
 heading it may be stated that the Senior Medical 
 Inspector, Atbara, who has kindly furnished me 
 with his remarks, states : * Pupils from these 
 schools often come for medical examination as to 
 fitness for Government employment, and it is 
 remarkable what poor physiques most of them 
 have. The race does not improve from the
 
 60 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 physical point of view as a result of educa- 
 tion/ " 
 
 And Colonel Jackson, Governor of Dongola 
 Province, writes : 
 
 " Dongola School is by far the most advanced 
 establishment in the province. Last year I recom- 
 mended this school for further advancement, 
 namely, to that of primary class. Since then, 
 however, I have carefully re-studied the question, 
 and have arrived at a definite conclusion that such 
 a step is undesirable. I therefore now withdraw 
 my former recommendation. My reason for this 
 decision is that I consider that the education of 
 the rural children of the province should be con- 
 fined to the teaching of the Koran, reading, writing, 
 elementary arithmetic, and geography of Egypt 
 and the Sudan. If the children become over- 
 educated, by the teaching of foreign languages, 
 etc., the result will be that they will refuse to 
 return to their former rural life, and will imagine 
 that it is the duty of the Government to find them 
 employment in its service. I therefore am firmly 
 of opinion that province schools should be ' Kuttab 
 Schools/ thus leaving primary education to be 
 carried out at Khartoum/'
 
 THE BENDING TWIG 61 
 
 In speaking recently at the opening of the 
 railway to El Obeid, Lord Kitchener urged the 
 importance of " steadiness " and cautious going 
 in our development of the Sudan. The same warn- 
 ing may be applied to educative measures. In 
 education, as in everything else, it is necessary to 
 go slowly above all, with the tribes known as 
 the " Pagans " in the South. For education, 
 literary education, as a matter of fact, has never 
 brought the black happiness, and never will. The 
 black races are born to labour ; and, should we 
 now attempt to give them a white man's education, 
 we should be giving them a curse instead of a 
 blessing. 
 
 One other feature of the question must be 
 touched upon here the mission schools. The 
 State religion of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan is 
 Moslem ; Government holidays are Fridays (the 
 Mohammedan day of rest), Bairam, Courban 
 Bairam, and Mouled (the Prophet's Birthday). 
 The religion taught in Government schools, there- 
 fore, is Mohammedan. Should there be any 
 attempt to proselytize to Christianity in such 
 institutions as the Gordon College, the result, as 
 even the most fervent missionary spirit must
 
 62 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 admit, would be disastrous confusion and ill- 
 feeling. For the same reason missionaries are 
 forbidden to proselytize in the North, where the 
 State religion is professed, while in the South, 
 among " Pagans," they are given a free hand. 
 But so, also, are the Moslems ; and I have heard 
 it said that the Moslems are more successful at 
 making converts than the Christians, for the reason 
 that the simpler theology and explicit directions 
 of the Mohammedan faith are more easily com- 
 prehensible to the Pagan brain. 
 
 However, missions are not in any way dis- 
 couraged from educational work, and mission 
 schools throughout the country have undoubtedly 
 been civilising factors. It is sometimes complained 
 that when a boy who is a Christian convert enters 
 a Government school, he becomes a Moslem, for 
 though no pupil's religious belief is interfered 
 with, it is only natural that the boy's environment 
 and comrades should influence his attitude of 
 mind. 
 
 It is indisputable, meanwhile, that men of the 
 stamp of the British Missionaries and the Austrian 
 Fathers of Lul and Tonga will leave a mark for 
 good in the country to which they have devoted
 
 THE BENDING TWIG 63 
 
 their lives, and incidentally they are doing a great 
 service to the sciences of anthropology, folk lore, 
 and language, by their study of such peoples as 
 the Dinkas, the Shilluks, and the other tribes 
 with whom they are in close and intimate contact.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 " THE SITT OF ALL COLOURS " 
 
 TT is a boisterous day in spring the warm, 
 dry sand and dust are blown into your nose, 
 mouth and eyes as you drive along one of the 
 windy streets of Khartoum. The telegraph posts 
 and flat-roofed drab-coloured houses look more 
 than usually unattractive and prosaic in the 
 universal dust. The world is brown, sun-baked 
 and gritty. 
 
 In front of a building the size of a large parish 
 room at home, you stop, and enter. The interior 
 is pleasantly cool, and seems dim after the sandy 
 glare without. Chairs fill the body of the hall, 
 and on a wide platform, in rows upon rows, are 
 neat and smiling little girls, dressed in white frocks 
 which would remind one of nothing as much as 
 little English schoolgirls gathered together for 
 Empire Day, if it were not for the complexions 
 
 64
 
 " THE SITT OF ALL COLOURS " 65 
 
 above the frocks. There is every shade of skin, 
 beginning at olive and shading down through 
 cafe au lait to black. But the dimples and bloom 
 are there even in the blackest, a bloom which 
 lends the complexion the satin surface and texture 
 of a ripe plum. Syrian mistresses keep the little 
 souls in order. The English sitt who has made 
 herself responsible for their good behaviour whis- 
 pers an admonition to this wriggling little person, 
 a word of encouragement to that shy and solemn 
 little person, while she receives her guests. To- 
 day, she and her aides-de-camp are receiving the 
 fathers and brothers of all this multi-coloured 
 feminine humanity, together with some of the 
 English residents. The fathers and brothers, wear- 
 ing their best tarbushes, their faces cheerful with 
 expectation and recognition, sit on one side of the 
 hall, the English visitors on the other. It is the 
 Ihtifal, the " speech day " of the Girls' School of 
 Khartoum. 
 
 There are four girls' schools in the Sudan, and 
 of these four, only one, at Rufaa, is a Government 
 school ; the other three are mission schools 
 one at Omdurman, one at Atbara, and one at 
 Khartoum. That of Khartoum is the largest, 
 5
 
 66 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 for it numbers close on two hundred pupils. There 
 is no distinction of class, race or religion in the 
 school, the teaching is non-sectarian, and every 
 little girl, whether black, brown or white, is wel- 
 comed and instructed in the simplest elements of 
 education reading, writing, arithmetic, history, 
 and English. English, however, is only taught 
 in the upper classes, the majority of children learn 
 in the vernacular. 
 
 The programme is a long one, for every child 
 who can perform is anxious to show off before 
 its proud parents ; and there are recitations in 
 English and Arabic, English and Arabic part- 
 songs with action, and a dialogue between two 
 girls on the benefit of learning, in Arabic. This 
 last provokes tremendous applause from the fathers 
 and brothers, it is so very " educated " and 
 " genteel." There is something inexpressibly comic 
 in hearing a small black thing about four or five 
 reciting " Twinkle, twinkle, little star," or some 
 other English nursery ditty ; and one young re- 
 citer is so overcome with shyness that she breaks 
 down and has to run away, to be comforted and 
 reassured. Learning by heart comes easily, almost 
 too easily, to native children.
 
 " THE SITT OF ALL COLOURS " 67 
 
 At the end of the proceedings portogan 
 (orangeade) and refreshments are served, and the 
 gratified fathers and brothers troop out again, to 
 tell the mothers and sisters at home how splendidly 
 little Fatma or Zia or Nazli has acquitted herself ; 
 and the mother, hearing it, thinks what an ex- 
 cellent match she will be able to make for her 
 daughter later on, when she is of marriageable 
 age ; for accomplished young women can look 
 high. 
 
 I was told that not all the pupils were children. 
 There were three grown-up sittat three married 
 women in the school, who came and went in their 
 veils. One of these was a young woman whose 
 husband was away from her, studying French in 
 Paris. She came to the school and said that she 
 would like to join the English classes, so that 
 she might be able to educate herself in his absence. 
 There was something pathetic in this woman's 
 striving patiently over the beginnings of English 
 with children less than half her age, in order that 
 her husband, when he returned, might find that she, 
 too, was accomplished in foreign learning. 
 
 As a rule, prospective husbands of the better class 
 of Egyptian or Arab prefer a well-educated wife,
 
 68 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 but this is not always the case. The English lady 
 in charge of this mission school told me the tale 
 of two sisters who once were pupils of hers, and 
 it is worth transcribing for the light that it casts 
 upon the revengeful pettiness of the Egyptian. 
 The girls were partly Circassian, the elder, a more 
 than ordinarily pretty girl, being as intelligent as 
 she was good-looking. So anxious to learn was 
 she that she persuaded her parents to let her stay 
 on at the school a whole year after her younger 
 sister had left. The younger was a nice girl, but 
 fat, placid, and altogether less interesting. Their 
 father was very proud of the elder girl's quickness, 
 and though he was fond of his younger daughter, 
 his affections were chiefly centred upon her sister. 
 In due time a young Egyptian officer in a Sudanese 
 regiment came to the father and asked the hand 
 of the younger daughter. The father agreed, and 
 the suitor went away contented. Shortly after- 
 wards a wealthy Egyptian merchant also came to 
 the father, with the request that he would give 
 him his younger daughter in marriage. The 
 father answered : "I have just promised her ; 
 but there is %iy elder daughter, much the 
 prettier ard the more intelligent of the two,
 
 4 THE SITT OF ALL COLOURS " 69 
 
 who is still unmarried ; I will give her to you 
 instead." 
 
 " No," said the merchant. " I want the younger 
 and not the elder." 
 
 The father reflected. It was the wish of his 
 heart to see his elder daughter married suitably, 
 and the rich merchant was just the match he had 
 hoped for her. The suitors' preference for the 
 younger daughter could only be whim, for of 
 course neither young man had seen the girls. He 
 resolved secretly, therefore, to pass the elder off 
 as the younger, and replied : 
 
 " It shall be as you wish ; the girl shall be yours." 
 
 Unfortunately, rumours reached the merchant 
 that some trickery was intended. He went to 
 see the father, and threatened that if he were 
 disappointed in the bride he had chosen he would 
 make trouble. The father assured his prospective 
 son-in-law that his suspicions were false, and that 
 he had no intention of deceiving him : meanwhile 
 quieting his own uneasiness by telling himself 
 that when his best-beloved daughter had shown 
 herself to her husband on the wedding night, all 
 would be well. 
 
 The two weddings took place : the officer taking
 
 70 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 the younger, whom we will call N ; and the 
 
 merchant the elder daughter, M . When the 
 
 festivities were over and the Egyptian and his 
 bride were left alone in the wedding chamber, the 
 
 bridegroom addressed her as N . Tremblingly, 
 
 the young bride confessed that she was M and 
 
 not N . The young husband was furious that 
 
 he had been duped, and resolved to send her home 
 to her father after only three days of married 
 life the greatest insult that he could offer to his 
 wife's family, for it is considered a great disgrace 
 if a bride is sent back to her own people. 
 
 The girl is now living with her parents, and has 
 small hope of re-marrying, on account of the 
 slight that was put upon her. When remonstrated 
 with, the merchant retorted that he liked the 
 girl well enough, but that he wished to revenge 
 himself upon the father for having deceived 
 him. 
 
 The lot of a rich man's daughter in Khartoum 
 or Omdurman, as a matter of fact, is not nearly 
 so happy as that of a poor man's. The wife of 
 a rich man must go veiled and seldom goes into 
 the street ; a poor one labours, it is true, but 
 goes unveiled ; and the blacker she is, the easier
 
 A FAIR LADY OF OMDURMAN.
 
 " THE SITT OF ALL COLOURS " 71 
 
 her modesty, though sometimes one sees a black 
 beauty veiled to the eyes, or carrying her tobe in 
 her teeth, thus covering the lower part of the face. 
 The tobe is the universal garment throughout the 
 Sudan ; it is a mere drapery of blue cotton stuff, 
 which the Sudani woman throws off with no more 
 concern than an Englishwoman throws off an 
 opera-cloak in a theatre, and sees no shame in 
 leaving the upper part of the body as bare as 
 Eve's. I have seen a Sudanese woman stand by 
 the river, disrobe, standing only in her rahat or 
 fringe and a petticoat wash out her tobe, dry it 
 in the sun, and put it on again. The Egyptian 
 ladies dress their hair and themselves in a style 
 which is more or less European, though out of 
 doors they shroud themselves in the habbara. 
 The Sudani woman dresses herself as she did in 
 the days of the Mahdi, except that in those days 
 she was not allowed to wear the beads in which 
 her soul delights that is in public, for Mahdism 
 was a whited sepulchre, and the forbidden luxuries 
 of life were indulged in in secret. But the Sudani 
 woman's mode of hairdressing is the thing that 
 first impresses the stranger, for it is braided into 
 hundreds of rat's-tail plaits all over her head, until
 
 72 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 she looks like an archaic bronze figure ; and for 
 hair-oil she uses mutton-fat. 
 
 Morality has never been very high among the 
 strange mixture of tribes and peoples that make 
 up the population of Omdurman, but however 
 easy their morality, these black daughters of Ham 
 are capable of wonderful fidelity to those they 
 have served. On washing days an old Sudanese 
 woman came to the house in which I was staying, 
 and with a sans gene which would have easily 
 distanced the French washerwoman duchess, she 
 laid aside her tobe before she began operations 
 and did her morning's work in a state as nearly 
 approaching nudity as her conventions allowed 
 My hostess told me something of her history. 
 Her name was Wasna, and in the Khalifa's time 
 she lived in the household of a rich merchant in 
 Omdurman who was possessed of several wives. 
 But evil days fell upon him, and one by one his 
 wives left him. Old and poverty-stricken, he 
 would have been entirely forsaken had not Wasna, 
 not even a legal wife, but only a slave-woman, 
 tended him and kept him in comfort by her toil. 
 He was never grateful for her care, but took it 
 as a matter of course. One day she came to my
 
 !'.!TTI.."y t "i .. HI - 
 
 1,1.," z ~ _. !r*n J; 
 
 - - ; - ~ 
 
 X ->-.
 
 74 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 less, or needs help in the household work, she may 
 even urge her husband to re-marry. The women 
 frequently get attached to each other, and a 
 childless wife will be devoted to the children of her 
 luckier co-wife. There are cases of jealousy, of 
 course, but the proportion of jealous wives is 
 not, in my experience, greater in Moslem than in 
 European countries. What causes most unhappi- 
 ness under the present system is, not polygamy, 
 but divorce. If a man is merely dissatisfied with 
 his wife, he can, by pronouncing the threefold 
 divorce, sever himself from her for ever, nor can 
 he marry her again unless she has married some one 
 else in the meantime. Sometimes a man who 
 has divorced his wife hastily and wishes to re- 
 marry her will hire a man to go through the 
 ceremony of marriage with her, so that a divorce 
 may be again pronounced and the original couple 
 be re-united. 
 
 The ease with which divorce is obtained does 
 not lead to a higher standard of morality, par- 
 ticularly with a quick-tempered, passionate negroid 
 race such as the Sudanese. 
 
 Among the better-class Egyptian Arabs in 
 Khartoum, it is not uncommon to find a man
 
 " THE SITT OF ALL COLOURS " 75 
 
 with one wife only. There are many happy 
 families. An English resident, who is looked upon 
 with much respect and affection in native Khar- 
 toum, told me an anecdote which shows how tact, 
 backed up with a piece of illogical argument, will, 
 in a native household, mend domestic jars which 
 might otherwise have ended in divorce. A certain 
 Bimbashi in Khartoum has a very pretty and 
 cheerful wife, who has borne him many children. 
 The eldest son is at Gordon College ; the mother 
 is an intelligent, attractive woman, of whom her 
 husband is justly proud. One day this English 
 lady, sitting in her verandah, saw the little woman 
 coming up the road towards her. Greetings 
 passed, and as the Bimbashi's wife still lingered, 
 she was invited inside, and accordingly entered the 
 house. The English hostess ordered coffee to be 
 brought, and then, seeing her visitor was agitated, 
 said, " You look distressed ; will you not tell me 
 what is the matter ? " 
 
 The Bimbashi's wife politely denied that any- 
 thing was wrong, but her agitation rose at the 
 sympathetic inquiry. 
 
 " But I can see that you are in trouble," per- 
 sisted the Englishwoman, gently.
 
 76 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 The little woman's reserve broke down. " Have 
 you room for a Muslim woman in your house ? JJ 
 she cried. 
 
 " Beiti beitak (my house is yours)," replied the 
 Englishwoman promptly, " but why then ? Has 
 your husband gone away ? '' 
 
 " No," said the Bimbashi's wife, " but I have 
 left him for ever ! I shall never go back." 
 
 " But why ? " 
 
 A torrent of words was her answer, and the whole 
 story came out as they sat over their coffee. As 
 far as her English friend could gather from the 
 incoherent account, what had happened was that 
 the little lady had been washing out her husband's 
 socks, and had hung them on the back of a chair 
 to dry. They were a new and pretty pair, and the 
 eldest son, approving of them, had put them on 
 and gone off in them. His father, wanting the 
 socks, found that they were missing and, losing 
 his temper, abused his wife, accusing her of having 
 no control over her children, of being a bad mana- 
 geress, of keeping the house ill, and so on. The 
 little woman, exasperated, declared she would 
 leave the house, and did so. 
 
 The tale was still proceeding, when her listener,
 
 4 THE SITT OF ALL COLOURS " 77 
 
 from her seat in the verandah, beheld the Bimbashi 
 himself coming down the road. She went out. 
 He too, was agitated, and in answer to her greeting 
 he exclaimed, " My wife has left the house, and I 
 am looking for her/' 
 
 The Englishwoman replied, " She is here ; come 
 in, and we will talk this matter out/' 
 
 He did so, and there was more excited argu- 
 ment. The Bimbashi spoke first, and taking a 
 self-righteous tone, said that a woman should be 
 a man's under-officer in the house, and should 
 preserve perfect discipline in the family. He 
 worked himself into a fine state of indignation with 
 the rhetorical questions of which the native is so 
 fond. " Am I not always a kind husband ? a 
 devoted father ? " and so on. 
 
 His wife could not listen in silence, and a dis- 
 cussion was in full force, when their eldest daughter 
 arrived. Fresh coffee was ordered, and as soon 
 as the politenesses had been exchanged, the 
 daughter joined in the argument, until it looked 
 like being interminable. 
 
 Then the Englishwoman lifted her voice, and said: 
 
 " You have both spoken a great deal, and now 
 it is my turn to speak. You, Bimbashi, may
 
 78 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 think your wife all that you have said, but there 
 is one thing for which you are very pleased with 
 her." 
 
 He looked surprised. 
 
 " Yes, you are pleased that, instead of going to 
 the other Muslemin sittat, she came to her English 
 friend, who will never breathe a word to any one." 
 She turned to the sitt. " And you did very wisely 
 in coming to me, instead of causing kalam (talk) 
 to be made all over Khartoum. You are pleased 
 with your husband that he has not proclaimed 
 that you have left him, but has come instead to 
 try and find you. Now, my advice to both is this. 
 Go quietly back, and tell no one about this mis- 
 understanding between you, or great unhappiness 
 will ensue, and let everything be as before. Thus 
 no one shall know what has happened to-day/' 
 They agreed to take her advice. The Bimbashi 
 left it is not etiquette for a man to walk out 
 with his women and a few minutes later the wife 
 and daughter put on their face veils, and went 
 peacefully homewards. The next tune the English- 
 woman saw them, they were as contented a family 
 as before.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 " GHOSTS " 
 
 day, as I was descending from the steam 
 tram in Khartoum, I saw two men talking 
 by the roadside. A third approached them, and 
 saluting one in the ordinary manner, he lifted the 
 hand of the other to his lips and his forehead. 
 The man so greeted was an ordinary individual 
 enough, of dark complexion and medium height. 
 He wore black European dress and a tarbush, like 
 any Government clerk, and a gaudy tie. 
 ' Who is that ? " I asked my companion. 
 
 " That man ? Oh, he is one of the Mahdi's 
 sons," was his reply. 
 
 In any other country but the Sudan, it would 
 be incredible that an aroma of sainthood could 
 cling to the memory of the man who was proved 
 over and over again by his false boasts to be a 
 charlatan, whose tomb lies in crumbled ruins as 
 
 79
 
 80 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 it was left after Kitchener had turned his guns 
 upon it, whose promises have never been fulfilled, 
 for whose sake thousands died, and in whose name 
 the country from end to end was made desolate 
 by war, disease, want and cruelty. If ever there 
 was a lost cause, then Mahdism is a lost cause 
 to-day. Yet the truth is that the people still 
 reverence the Mahdi, think of him as a holy man, 
 and venerate his descendants. For no cause, 
 however lost, is a forgotten cause in the Sudan if 
 it has once rooted itself in popular credulity. 
 The Sudanese is religious by nature. Easy to 
 move to laughter, sensual, cruel, physically coura- 
 geous, he is capable of intense fanaticism. Nor 
 does it take much to bring it into being. He is 
 simple-minded, easily imposed upon. Individuals, 
 deceivers, or more often self-deceivers, constantly 
 give themselves out as the Mahdi, or as Christ 
 (Saidna Eissa),or as miracle- workers and prophets 
 and, however thin and poor their pretensions, they 
 are almost certain of a following. Perhaps the 
 explanation lies in the fact that to the Sudanese 
 there are so many things to wonder at in the 
 universe, so many inexplicable mysteries, that few 
 marvels appear incredible. He attributes the
 
 " GHOSTS ' 81 
 
 workings of Nature to the labours of afrits and 
 genii. His is the intellect of the child, to whom 
 it seems equally credible that steam should move 
 trains and faith move mountains. The child 
 makes no hard-and-fast line between the natural 
 and the supernatural. Neither does the Sudanese. 
 Electric light is one miracle ; a Mahdi turning 
 bullets into water is another. He is ready to see 
 the supernatural in everything. 
 
 For instance, Captain 'Sullivan, Governor of 
 the Upper Nile Province, told me of the way in 
 which a shrine was evolved in a Dinka village at 
 which he was staying. A child a naked, idle 
 little brat, in playing, took a piece of white rag 
 and stuck it on a stalk of burnt straw, and another 
 child did the same. There the fragments fluttered 
 in the breeze. Now rags, that is to say pieces 
 torn from the garments, are placed on saints' 
 tombs when their wearers make a petition ; so 
 the next act was that a woman, inspired no doubt 
 by the rags, declared that one night she had seen 
 a ghostly sheikh there. Soon a mound of stones 
 arose, and then a zariba (a defence of thorns) was 
 made to protect it, and now it is a holy place, set 
 about with many flags. 
 6
 
 82 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 Similarly, a tomb near the house in which I 
 stayed in Khartoum had evolved in much the 
 same way. No one knew its origin, no one could 
 tell me who the saint was, or when he died, or 
 how long the tomb had been there. Some one 
 suggested that there had been an " appearance " 
 on the spot. Be that as it may, white flags waved 
 along the paling built around it ; petitioners, 
 humble people, tied rags to the palisades and 
 murmured their requests as they did so ; and an 
 earthen jar was set by the tomb and kept full of 
 water by the charitable, so that thirsty wayfarers 
 might drink at the shrine. It was a " holy place," 
 and that was sufficient ; and perhaps the piety of 
 these simple devotees had in reality created a 
 beneficent atmosphere about the spot : who 
 knows ! 
 
 The religious pretensions of a man called Abd- 
 el-Kader, and the disturbance caused by them in 
 1908 at Kemlin, have been made familiar to those 
 in England by the tragic murder of Mr. Scott- 
 MoncriefL Vengeance followed swiftly, and Abd- 
 el-Kader was taken and hanged ; but there have 
 been many other similar affairs, which, had they 
 not been put down with promptness, might haye
 
 " GHOSTS ' : 83 
 
 had more serious results. Abd-el-Kader was a 
 holy man and a Mahdist, but others have had 
 more ambitious claims. In 1910, at Kitiab in the 
 Berber Province, a certain man gave himself out 
 to be Sahib el Wakt, or Master of the Times, and 
 resisted with violence the police sent to seize him, 
 killing the Sheikh of the village who had been 
 dispatched as emissary by the Officer of the Police. 
 He was put to death. Halley's Comet also pro- 
 duced disturbances when it appeared, as it was 
 supposed to herald great events in the history of 
 Islam. In November the unrest round Singa, 
 where the people were talking Mahdism, was so 
 grave that a small force was dispatched to quell 
 the seditious ; and in Kordofan not long ago a 
 certain man gave himself out as Saidna Eissa 
 (Christ), and, gathering a following, began to give 
 trouble. This too was promptly put an end to, and 
 a number of the followers of the so-called Christ 
 were killed. 
 
 One reason why these fanatics gain a hearing 
 is that they use violence as an argument. The 
 Mahdi in the old days converted at the point of 
 the sword, and that is a powerful missionary. 
 Hence the best method of re-conversion is force,
 
 84 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 and force displayed so quickly that its mere 
 exhibition prevents large bloodshed. 
 
 For the ghost of Mahdism is stained hideously 
 with blood. The population of the Sudan is, 
 even now, after twelve years of peace, not a third 
 of what it was before the Dongolawi proclaimed 
 himself El Muntazzer The Expected One, the 
 Mahdi. To the tourist who comes, shepherded 
 by Cook, to scamper through the sights, it seems 
 impossible that only fourteen years ago such 
 scenes as are described by Father Ohrwalder and 
 Sir Rudolph von Slatin Pasha in their wonderful 
 narratives of life in Omdurman under the Khalifa 
 can have actually taken place. When they see 
 the able and energetic Inspector-General for the 
 Sudan, the Sirdar's right hand, and one of the 
 busiest officials in the country, they wonder if 
 it can be true that this man ran barefoot in the 
 scorching sand beside the Khalifa's horse, that 
 he lived for many years as personal attendant of 
 the Khalifa under a regime whose horrors make 
 one sicken as one reads about them, that he saw 
 fellow European captives die one by one of disease, 
 cruelty ^and starvation, and lived himself momen- 
 tarily expecting death. Yet it is all true, miracu-
 
 " GHOSTS " 85 
 
 lous as it may seem. This very man, I was told, 
 when he escaped from Omdurman and arrived at 
 Assuan, was almost broken-spirited by what he 
 had endured. The story was that one night a 
 servant at the officers' mess announced that there 
 was " wahad " (some one) without. 
 
 " What does he want ? " 
 
 The servant was vague, but said this wahad 
 wished to deliver news. 
 
 They had him brought in, and Slatin,in his dervish 
 jibbeh, stood before them, a dubious figure dazzled 
 by the return to civilisation. The long bondage 
 had robbed him of the power to come in un- 
 announced to say, " Here I am Slatin ! I've 
 escaped." 
 
 But not every man who lived through those 
 days is gifted with Sir Eudolph von Slatin Pasha's 
 wonderful resiliency and personality. For most 
 men, the memory is branded into their souls so 
 deeply that a lifetime will not suffice to remove 
 the scars. There are Europeans who survived 
 that time into whom the iron ate so deeply that 
 they can never be the same. The memory of 
 the Khalifa's reign of terror is still a living horror 
 with them. When Mr. Scott-Moncrieff was killed
 
 86 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 on his fatal visit to Katfia in the Blue Nile Pro- 
 vince, which I mentioned just now, one poor 
 little lay sister in the Austrian Mission Convent 
 was almost beside herself. She was terror-stricken 
 lest there should be a revival of what she had 
 seen in the days of the Khalifa, and wept and 
 would not be comforted. 
 
 Of the sufferings of the nuns of the Mission and 
 of Father Ohrwalder's heroic escape, one can read 
 in his fascinating book. But he is modest enough 
 to suppress much of what he endured. He ex- 
 perienced terrible things. When captured in 
 Kordofan, he refused again and again to say the 
 Moslem creed, and was finally taken off to be 
 hanged. He was quite ready to die for his belief. 
 At the last moment, a messenger rode up on a 
 camel to say that he was not to be killed, as the 
 Mahdi thought it would be unlucky to kill a priest. 
 The Dongolawi had just remembered the tradition 
 in the Hadith that Mohammed, flying one day from 
 some pursuers, was sheltered by a Christian priest, 
 and thenceforward told his followers never to 
 harm one. So Father Ohrwalder was taken back, 
 and put in a small straw tukl, where his fanatical 
 enemies amused themselves by thrusting their
 
 " GHOSTS " 87 
 
 spears through the straw and jabbing at the poor 
 man with them until his body was covered with 
 wounds. He ran round and round the tukl like 
 a trapped animal, until, half-crazed with ex- 
 haustion and pain, he cried out that he would say 
 the creed. He was then forced to marry, and he 
 earned himself a frugal living as a braid-maker 
 in Omdurman, discovering the way to manufacture 
 it, by pulling a piece of braid to pieces and making 
 his own loom. Thus he kept himself and other 
 captives from starvation. He had several children 
 by his Sudanese wife, who are still supported by 
 him. On this account, namely that he broke his 
 vows, he is not now allowed to celebrate Mass, 
 although he is living a life of asceticism again. 
 His escape was far more difficult than Father 
 Bonomi's, because it was subsequent to it, and 
 Father Ohrwalder also helped two nuns to escape 
 with him, which greatly increased the danger. 
 
 The Mother Superior of the convent also was 
 forced to marry, and was fortunate in marrying a 
 Greek. She may be seen any day marketing in 
 Omdurman, has several children, and is much 
 esteemed by every one. The present Superior 
 of the Catholic convent, a successor to Mother
 
 88 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 Francesca, was a nun who, being ill, was sent 
 down just before the fall of Khartoum. The 
 old lay-sister to whom I referred above was, like 
 the rest, forced to marry by the Khalifa. 
 
 The Copts had a very hard time after the fall 
 of Khartoum. No one was permitted to smoke 
 or drink, and, as they went in fear of their lives, 
 they naturally did not transgress this order. But 
 sometimes a Moslem who bore a Copt a grudge 
 or cast a look of envy on his goods, would come 
 in the guise of a friend, and slip a half-smoked 
 cigarette under his straw mat. A few hours later 
 there would be a pounding at the door, and the 
 Khalifa's body-guard, with their quilted helmets, 
 would come in and accuse the Copt of being an 
 unbeliever and breaking the rules. In vain he 
 pattered off the Moslem creed, and declared he 
 had no drink or smoke in the house. A search 
 was instituted, and in good time the cigarette 
 stump was produced triumphantly as a witness 
 against him. Then he was haled off, beaten, 
 mutilated, or his property seized upon, as the 
 caprice of the tyrant might dictate. 
 
 The town of Omdurman itself is in process of 
 reconstruction, but the old landmarks of Mahdism
 
 " GHOSTS " 89 
 
 have not been destroyed, and its ghosts walk 
 the streets of the city. 
 
 To begin with, there is the tomb of the Mahdi 
 that rubble-heap that could never have been 
 anything but a tawdry and insignificant edifice. 
 The remains of the Mahdi have disappeared 
 the body was burnt and the ashes scattered, and 
 the head no one knows definitely where the head 
 is, except those who will keep the secret inviolate. 
 As it stands, the tomb is nothing but four ruined 
 walls, standing open to the heat-blenched sky, 
 and within, you pick your way over a heap of 
 brown, tumbled masonry. Walk carefully, for 
 scorpions have begun to house here. Lizards, 
 grey, horny, evil-looking little wretches, whisk 
 out of sight as you approach, and a few poor 
 weeds, such as attain a yellowed growth beneath 
 the fierce and moisture-licking sun, have struck 
 root among the rubble. 
 
 Then there is the Beit el Mai, the old stores and 
 treasury of the Khalifa, where there is the dusty 
 skeleton of Gordon's piano, a pathetic relic, and 
 where one can buy Dervish firearms for a few 
 piastres. There is the Khalifa's house, no palace 
 at best, but comfortable when compared to the
 
 90 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 squalid and miserable huts and tukls which com- 
 posed Omdurman in his day. It is built of mud 
 bricks like the rest ; the rooms are a little bigger, 
 the place is two-storied, and you are shown the 
 Khalifa's bathroom with its taps for cold and hot 
 water. A poor enough place ; yet a princely 
 dwelling in truth for a Baggara tribesman accus- 
 tomed to rough living and hard fare. It is in- 
 habited now by one or two Englishmen in the 
 Government service, who say that the thick mud 
 walls keep it very cool in hot weather. There is 
 the Mahdi's house, the great praying square, the 
 house in which Slatin lived any tourist conducted 
 by Cook's guides can see these, and re-people 
 them for himself. 
 
 But Omdurman is not only haunted by remi- 
 niscences of the dead, it is haunted by the living. 
 Yonder goes a man without a foot. You look 
 at him more closely and see that for a right hand 
 he has only a stump. Both were amputated by 
 the command of the Khalifa. There are many so 
 mutilated. At the street corner, wrapped in a 
 dirty tobe, an apathetic old woman sits with 
 drooping head in the blazing sun. Her reason 
 has left her; she is dependent upon alms.
 
 " GHOSTS " 91 
 
 She has neither sons nor kindred all have been 
 slaughtered ; she herself was passed in her youth 
 from one master to the other. She looks older 
 than her years ; her life has been full of so many 
 horrors that the marvel is that she is still alive. 
 She is not alive, she is one of the living ghosts of 
 Omdurman. Thus, in the space of a few yards, 
 are two specimens of the wrecks of which the 
 city, for all its present prosperity, is full, and must 
 be full until another half-century has passed 
 away, and time and the English have wrought 
 their work.
 
 OMDURMAN 
 
 TN Omdurman you have as curious an ethno- 
 logical jumble as could be desired. There are 
 Baggaras, Hadendowas, Jaalis, Shaagis, Ber- 
 berines, Dongolawis, Shilluks, Dinkas, Niam-Niams, 
 Nubas, Nuers, Abyssinians, Jews, Greeks, and 
 mongrels of such complicated lineage that they 
 puzzle even themselves. Experts can tell some- 
 thing from the racial and tribal characteristics ; 
 and there are certain tribal marks three diagonal 
 scars on the cheek distinguish the Jaali, three 
 horizontal scars the Shaigi, and four scars in a 
 square the Dongolawi. But these wasms, or 
 tribal marks, are not always to be depended on. 
 They are made by cutting into the flesh with some 
 sharp instrument, and then rubbing in gun- 
 powder. Sudanese belles will decorate their bodies 
 in a similar manner. 
 Steevens called Omdurman " a rabbit-warren 
 
 92
 
 A LADY OF SIX FOOT FIVE IN OMDURMAN.
 
 OMDURMAN 93 
 
 a threadless labyrinth of tiny huts or shelters." 
 It remains a rabbit-warren still, though the filth 
 and stagnant pools are things of the past, and 
 there are neat mud houses and fairly wide streets 
 in place of the old maze of rubbish-heaps. But 
 few of the houses rise higher than one story ; and 
 in the market-place the odd conglomeration of 
 booths like hutches, funny little erections of 
 matting propped up at the four corners by roughly 
 cut trees ; mud shops whose counter is the owner's 
 seat, and cramped huts where the artisans sit 
 plying their trades on the earthen floor in view of 
 the passer by many of these look like the dwellings 
 of beavers or conies rather than men. But cleanli- 
 ness is now enforced by the British Government. 
 In the old days, when a donkey died in the street, 
 he was left there until he became bones, and the 
 process was not sanitary. Now the owner would 
 be fined for such neglect ; and slow camels, their 
 humps swaying as they plant their great pads 
 forward on their careful way, thread their path 
 through the streets and collect the minor rubbish 
 from door to door. Yes, Omdurman, slattern as 
 she is, is forced to be clean nowadays, and on the 
 whole, there is a pleasant scent about the town.
 
 94 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 There is the savoury smell of frying oil and onions 
 about the native cook-shops where kebabs are 
 roasted in the open air ; there is the wholesome 
 fragrance of the grain market, where heaps of 
 shining maize, sesame, millet and domestic cereals 
 are spread in the sun ; the luxurious odour of the 
 gum market, where sweet-scented gums and sandal- 
 wood are sold ; and the subtle pleasures of the 
 nostril in the quarter of the perfume sellers who 
 dispense precious attars and frankincense, myrrh 
 and cassia. But, mixed with all, is the pungency 
 and unpleasantness of the dust, which is blown 
 into your eyes by playful gusts, and finds its way 
 into your mouth and into your clothes. It is 
 amazing what a desert breeze can do, and how hot 
 a wind can be ! 
 
 As I have indicated, all the trades, as in most 
 Oriental towns, are separated one from another, 
 the jewellers in one souk, the tent-makers in 
 another, the weavers of dammur or cotton-cloth 
 in another, the grocers in another, and so on, 
 through the gamut of merchants and artificers. 
 It simplifies shopping, stultifies competition con- 
 siderably, and is undoubtedly a good thing, though 
 in some cases, as in the butchers' souk, it can be
 
 OMDURMAN 95 
 
 rather appalling. One butcher's shop is dreadful 
 enough : but to have a whole row of butchers in 
 huts displaying raw meat and offal is enough to 
 sicken the strongest stomach. The most pleasant 
 souk of all is perhaps that of the silvei smiths, 
 where a gentle tink-a-tink on the small anvil 
 tells of the craftsman at his work. Here filigree 
 zarfs can be bought, the egg-cup receptacles for 
 coffee-cups ; heavy bangles, khalkhals or anklets ; 
 elaborate filigree boxes and earrings though the 
 work is not so good as it was in the days before 
 the Mahdi. Or perhaps the narrow souk of the 
 bead-sellers, with its golden shade varied by 
 sword-thrusts of fierce white sunlight, is more 
 fascinating, where rows of necklaces hang in gaudy 
 brightness, beads of amber, coral and silver among 
 the rest. Hither come travellers from all parts 
 of the Sudan to bargain for trinkets to carry back 
 to their womenfolk, and merchants to lay in their 
 stock of currency beads according to the fashion 
 of the moment ; and long and patient are the 
 negotiations, as in all the East. 
 
 Then there are booths where one can buy 
 pottery of simple and beautiful shape, hippopota- 
 mus hide whips, beaded leather fringes a whole
 
 96 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 and sufficient dress for a Sudanese beauty ; or 
 leather Koran cases finely and patiently tooled : 
 a hundred temptations for those who have a taste 
 for native curios. 
 
 But no one begs from you. Tourists fresh 
 from Egypt, accustomed to hear the very stones 
 cry out " Bakshish ! " cannot marvel enough over 
 this strange stillness. Smiles they get in plenty 
 from the good-tempered black faces around them, 
 but the beggarly whining and obsequiousness that 
 make progress through a bazaar in an Egyptian 
 town so painful are nowhere apparent, and one 
 thanks Heaven and the Sudan Government for 
 it with great sincerity. 
 
 To-day, in spite of the fact that there is hardly 
 an inhabitant of Omdurman who could not tell 
 you of some horrible thing, either endured or 
 committed by him and his in the past reign of 
 terror, there is a general air of prosperity and 
 cheerfulness about Omdurman. Doubtless, were 
 a general licence once again extended to cruelty 
 and rapine, the very black innocent who grins 
 so ingenuously and kindly would straightway turn 
 into a fiend in human shape but in restraint he 
 wins your affection.
 
 OMDURMAN 97 
 
 The natives must be prosperous in Omdurman, 
 for even a working man will pay a preposterous 
 price for his wife. The cost of getting married 
 has gone up since the days of the Mahdi. The 
 Mohammedan custom at marriage is that a certain 
 sum is agreed upon as the bride's dowry, and is 
 provided, not by her father, but by the prospective 
 bridegroom. Half of this is handed over to her 
 people before marriage, and is usually spent in 
 wedding festivities, the other half can be claimed 
 by the wife if her husband divorces her. In the 
 times before the Mahdi, owing to the extravagance 
 with which bridal rejoicings were carried out, 
 and the heavy sums demanded as dowries by the 
 fathers of marriageable maidens, the very poor 
 found it difficult to marry. The Mahdi promptly 
 ordered that the dowry should be fixed at one 
 pound for a virgin, and ten shillings for a woman 
 who had been divorced ; so that, although marriage 
 was a more expensive commodity in the Sudan 
 than in Great Britain, it was not impossible. But 
 now a bitter complaint is being made that the 
 price is getting high again. A well-to-do labouring 
 man may have to pay as much as 15 to 30 for 
 
 a bride. This does not apply to the southern 
 
 7
 
 98 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 provinces. A friend of mine possessed a Dinka 
 servant. One morning the man left and did not 
 come back till the next day. She sent for him 
 and remonstrated with him. He explained that 
 he had been obliged to go to Omdurman, where his 
 mother and wife lived, in order to enforce peace. 
 His wife apparently had refused to cook, and 
 needed to be brought to order by means of the 
 stick. " It is very sad for me," he explained, 
 " because she was not a cheap wife. She cost 
 me five pounds ! " 
 
 So much for a passer-by's impressions of the 
 city of Omdurman, a strange mixture of ruin and 
 squalor on the one hand, and prosperity and 
 commerce on the other. The new city is rising 
 Phoenix-like from the ashes of the Dervish strong- 
 hold. Without exaggeration, it may be said that 
 he who goes to Omdurman with open eyes will 
 see the whole work of the English in the Sudan 
 epitomised, for in those few square miles on the 
 west bank of the Nile he has a visible commentary 
 on the past and future of the country.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 SUDANESE SONGS AND SINGERS 
 
 ri THE Sudanese is a rhymester rather than a 
 poet. He makes rhymes and rhythms on 
 every possible occasion, but, like all of Arab blood 
 or partly Arab blood, he is seldom capable of 
 producing lofty lyrical poetry. The boatmen, aa 
 they tug together at a rope, or pull their oars 
 through the water, make chanteys, but these are 
 rarely imaginative or poetical in the Western sense 
 of the words. The highest flight of their genius 
 carries them no further than the time-honoured 
 comparison of a lovely maiden's face to the full 
 moon, or the platitudes which liken her carriage 
 to that of the gazelle. Maj noun-like, the poet 
 bewails the absence of the loved one in terms of 
 distraction, but there is rarely a simple and lovely 
 phrase to tell of love in its higher form or grief 
 in its more poignant degree. The Arab seldom 
 
 99
 
 100 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 personifies Nature, or chants of the beauties of 
 dawn, of the skies of sunset, or of green places 
 like most children of Nature, he is too close to 
 her, too dependent upon her for his physical needs, 
 to sing of her. House-dwellers can sing of the 
 delights of the open air, but it would not enter the 
 brain of a gypsy to do so, though he would fret 
 beneath a roof. Similarly, the Arab times his 
 night-watches by the stars, travels by them for 
 lack of a compass, knows their positions and their 
 names but writes no lyrics to them. Love and 
 religion move him to song first and foremost, then 
 come songs relating to expeditions, to comforts, 
 to the deeds of such-and-such a one, or mere 
 chanteys and refrains. These chanteys are more 
 often impromptu. If you listen to the boatmen, 
 you will find that one will invent rhythmic lines, 
 to which the others chant a refrain in chorus. 
 Such lines may be prompted by the work in hand, 
 by a person present, or by any event that is taking 
 place or has just taken place. A Government 
 inspector has often to listen to his praises in one 
 of these impromptu chants, and sometimes they 
 are used to taunt or chaff the person against whom 
 they are directed. A certain English official had
 
 SUDANESE SONGS AND SINGERS 101 
 
 occasion to flog a Berberine for some misdemeanour; 
 and the culprit, instead of bearing the punishment 
 without a cry, for most Sudanese take a pride 
 in enduring pain without flinching, wept and 
 shrieked, " I cannot bear it, effendim ! " The 
 other natives, who were Jaalin, were so disgusted 
 at his cowardice and the disgrace that he was 
 bringing on his tribe, that they crowded around 
 to jeer at him, and begged that he might be flogged 
 harder. After that day they made a song of many 
 verses about the incident, with " I cannot bear it, 
 effendim I " as a refrain. The Berberine, unable to 
 endure the chaff, went privately to the composer 
 of the song and offered him some money if he 
 would abstain from singing it. His tormentor 
 pocketed the money and promised to comply ; and 
 the song was stopped, but was succeeded by 
 another in which, to the unfortunate Berberine 's 
 further horror, the poet ironically celebrated the 
 way in which the coward had bribed him to cover 
 his shame ! 
 
 It is a pity that a serious collection is not made 
 of the folk-lore and songs of the Sudan. One 
 English official furnished me with some rough 
 translations of poems taken down by him, and
 
 102 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 from these I have selected a few representative 
 songs, and one or two interesting for topical 
 reasons. Of such topical interest, for example, is 
 the hymn of Abd el Kader Wad el Habuba, the 
 fanatic responsible for the murder of Mr. Scott- 
 Moncrieff. As I mentioned in a former chapter, 
 this religious ruffian was eventually caught and 
 hanged. 
 
 THE HYMN OP ABD EL KADER WAD EL 
 
 HABUBA 
 
 Lords of the host of Heaven, Hassan and Hussein, 
 With our Lord Abbas, of the faith supporters firm, 
 And I glorify my God my establisher, 
 He Who forgiveth our iniquities. 
 
 My desire of God is that I may be improved, 
 
 Of Him I beg that all infidels may perish 
 
 'Neath the Moslem's feet. The Prophet with kohl-stained * eyes 
 
 And separated teeth, of stature medium ; 
 
 He who pardons, and is unsurpassed, walks humbly : 
 
 He is gentle and most merciful. My people, 
 
 Lo, I have found his footprints ! Be ye strong, be bold ! 
 
 Now is the time for deeds for the naked sword. 
 
 The poor rejoice and the prosperous are ashamed, 
 Struck dumb with dismay at news of our uprising. 
 Five years have I conceived and pondered my design 
 Unmindful of the world for 'stablishing the faith. 
 
 * The custom of beautifying the eyes with antimony or kohl is 
 much in use among the Arabs. Mohammed is supposed to have 
 had a separation between the two front upper teeth, and this is 
 supposed to be lucky.
 
 SUDANESE SONGS AND SINGERS 103 
 
 The Prophet, from his birth of thoughtful mind and mien, 
 
 Of spotless purity and fertile in resource ! 
 
 Should I be in distress, Messiah to my aid 
 
 Sends Henein, Uhud, Badr, Khandag and Tebuk. 
 
 The friends of our Mahdi, the Prophets following, 
 
 The band of the twelve hundred hastens to our aid. 
 
 I put my trust in God, and will not hesitate 
 
 Wherever it may lead from following my fate. 
 
 Fear is calamitous and a dread ill as well 
 
 That casts its victims out of Heaven into Hell. 
 
 Our race is nigh extinct. You ask if this is so ? 
 Seek, examine its state : return to me, then go 
 Shout aloud the Word.* At best you are called a fool ! 
 That without love your nearest comes not, is the rule. 
 
 God will destroy His foes with strength of sword and spear, 
 But that which is ordained happens. I will not fear. 
 Fear is the final ill, casting the mortal down 
 Into abysmal Hell from Heaven's crown. 
 
 Some of the lines are obscure, and have been 
 rendered literally. Of the same order of poem is 
 one addressed to Ali Dinar, the Sultan of Darfur. 
 As a piece of fulsome flattery it is not without 
 humour, for Ali Dinar is a negro tyrant of the 
 first water. (See Chapter XVIII). 
 
 * There is no god but God, and Mahomnied is His Apostle,
 
 104 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 The Sultan acts according to Law and Justice ; 
 He requiteth all service, like to the lightning. 
 Aflame in dark heavens his great worth have I seen, 
 Mine own eyes have seen him seek out the oppressed. 
 
 Just Sultan, your land is the fugitive's refuge ! 
 
 High and unblemished is the pride of your lineage ; 
 
 Far and wide is your excellence famed throughout the world, 
 
 In Syria, Yemen, in Taifhar and Kufa. 
 
 The Sultan is just ; by God is his strength increased ; 
 The reed-pipes go before, the rifles are aligned ; * 
 The light of God shines forth the Sultan's path to guide, 
 He who doeth wrong is instantly put to death. 
 
 A characteristic feature of these poems is the 
 introduction of a line used as a refrain without 
 much relation to the sense of the text. As in the 
 following .': 
 
 THE SECRET LOVERS 
 
 When the tale of our passions spread abroad 
 
 (Sweet-smelling oil of cloves !) 
 Little recked I of the shame of it all 
 
 The scandal of our loves. 
 I went to the man who held me in thrall. 
 
 * AH Dinar has a personal following of about 5,000 men, and a 
 standing army.
 
 SUDANESE SONGS AND SINGERS 105 
 
 Few of the love poems are simple, but those 
 that are simple are the best. The following love 
 poem pleased me on account of its naivete. The 
 girl is supposed to be singing in the first part ; her 
 lover reassures her in the last lines. 
 
 LOVE SONG 
 
 O bring me to his fragrant presence, 
 For the breeze at early morning wafts 
 Me-ward sweet memories of my love : 
 My head droops, tears fall upon my breast. 
 
 The chatter and the petty gossip 
 Oppress my mind, but pass unrecked of. 
 He is tall and dark of colour. I 
 Am his alone, in spite of kindred. 
 
 Will the great folks' anger never cease ? 
 
 My beloved is tall ; his voice is sweet ! 
 Eastern lightning, bidding the sleepers waken, 
 Let night be shield, and away we will flee 
 If God will ! to Whom I make my plea. 
 
 They say I'm poor. ' My love's content,' I answer. 
 So I am his, we might sell wood together. 
 Let him be harsh, ill-treat me or abuse me ! 
 Am I the only village girl affected ? 
 
 *7er Lover : 
 
 O Daughter of the Great ! dear thou art to me ! 
 Little one ! None shall ever share thee with me ! 
 And this is indeed the truth ; I love but thee.
 
 106 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 In contrast to this, here is a poem full of more 
 stereotyped phrases. It is confused for Western 
 minds by the abrupt interpolations which seem 
 to break the sense. 
 
 TO HIS MISTRESS 
 
 A camel of the Bisharin,* abroad with head-rope loosened ; 
 Ever with sad, reproachful mien I listen for her calling, 
 Nor after shall she show resentment pleasure brings peace! 
 
 No slim gazelle can outvie the grace of her supple movement. 
 By my life, O Sekina,f say why am I thus in bondage ? 
 (The while the light gazelle has flown from the quarter of Umrein, 
 And with anxious care his mother tends and watches his desire, 
 A pasture green watered anew by the tears of the watcher.) 
 
 For oh, the desire to be with her ! the summons of friendship, 
 'Midst the jealous lies of detractors, happy the glamour of youth. 
 
 thou, my beloved gazelle, wandering in the valley ! 
 
 traveller to Dueim.J see, there is my beloved ! 
 
 Your dwelling, O my Temanin, is distant peace be upon you, 
 
 On your smooth soft hair and shining teeth, blue lips|| and gentle 
 
 speech, 
 
 Your well-turned neck, erect upon beautiful firm round shoulders, 
 Your gestures of regal fire and cushioned softness of bosom ! 
 You wander afield, all unheeding the cry of your lovers, 
 High above the great ones, in your hands all gladness and pleasure. 
 
 * A nomad tribe. f A numerical designation. 
 
 t El Dueim, a town below Khartoum on the White Nile. 
 
 Temanin, lit. Eighty. Every letter has a numerical equivalent 
 in Arabic ; hence Eighty may mean Fatma, as the letters when 
 added give 80. 
 
 I) Sudanese girls tattoo their lips blue.
 
 SUDANESE SONGS AND SINGERS 107 
 
 Pure and high is her lineage, her graces baffle description, 
 Great the charm of her discourse, her scent than the gasis * sweeter, 
 As Mecca to the pilgrim is the healing of her glances, 
 Precious as corn in a famine year death better than parting with 
 
 her ; 
 
 Fair as the garden of El Nur,f free as the Ansar of Firka ; J 
 Like silk to the touch is her skin, fragrant the balm of her breath ; 
 Long-stemmed and flower-tipped as the herbage down by the river. 
 A gazelle roaming free in the desert. Who could replace her ? 
 Her house is in Faj el Madudi, where gentle breezes play. 
 A necklace beyond compare strung with jewels that none can buy. 
 Armed the strength of her escort, in bright gold are his wages paid. 
 Queen of my slumbers ! daintily-clad, breath-giving Elixir ! 
 The shady tree of Abd-el-Aziz before the tarifa, 
 As a branch peeled smooth and straight are the flowing lines of 
 
 her form ; 
 
 Beautiful is my love, nor unreasonable, nor wayward, 
 Kind and modest in manner. How complete her description ? 
 Slender her grace of neck, on the curving line of her shoulders, 
 Her skin has the sheen of gold, as the moon in heaven her face. 
 O wide soft eyes of the gazelle, wandering in the desert ! 
 
 This kind of rhapsody is capable of being pro- 
 longed indefinitely, and is sung to a monotonous 
 chant accompanied by the daraboukeh. With 
 
 * A foreign perfume sold in Omdurman. It is called gasis 
 (priest) because there is a picture of a Greek priest on the bottle. 
 
 f Formerly a garden in Khartoum made by El Nur el Khabir, 
 a wealthy native. 
 
 J The Baggara horsemen of the Khalifa were known as Ansar 
 or helpers. Firka is about a day north of Dongola. One of the 
 most successful Dervish battles was fought here, and the Ansar 
 brought back much loot from it.
 
 108 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 regard to the Elixir of the poem, the actual Arabic 
 is Al Aksir, referring to a fabulous tree, which 
 had the power of turning objects brought into 
 contact with it into gold. Such a tree is supposed 
 to grow in the Sudan. Seventy years ago a great 
 religious Sheikh named Seyyid el Hassan el Morghani 
 lived in Kassala. A certain man came to him, 
 declaring that he had found the tree and had 
 taken a branch of it. The Sheikh asked him to 
 bring the branch, and when it was brought he 
 destroyed it, lest its magical properties should 
 cause dissension and strife. The man sought the 
 tree for the second time, and brought back a 
 branch, but the Sheikh becoming magically aware 
 of it, found the branch and threw it away also, 
 fearing that the possession of gold would work 
 the rum of the tribe. Then the man took a friend 
 and went off for the third time, resolved to get 
 possession of a branch for himself. But on this 
 occasion, though they searched everywhere, they 
 could not find the tree. There is also a story that 
 an Italian, travelling in Kordofan, heard of the 
 existence of the tree in the neighbourhood. When 
 he went to look at the spot, he found that it was 
 growing on an inaccessible rock. He contrived
 
 SUDANESE SONGS AND SINGERS 109 
 
 to form a pulley, and let a man down, but the 
 story has it that the rope broke and the man was 
 badly injured.* 
 
 A more sincere poem is one I have named " Boy's 
 Love." 
 
 To-night is my soul possessed, by love I am overpowered, 
 Sometimes with quick stab of steel, sometimes with blister of flame. 
 The seed that was sown in my heart has quickened and flowered ; 
 A lover's strength yearns to his love, shall not mine do the same ? 
 
 Should I visit her by day, fear of scandal is her whim ; 
 If I go to her by night, but for slumber does she care. 
 Can I divine her wishes ? Can a man the ocean swim ? 
 O true wives, live loving women, ye are rare, ye are rare ! 
 
 From a child none e'er made me carry water from the well ; 
 A boy, I wore maidens' rings in the Mangala fashion f : 
 She parts the curtains ; beckons me ; my heart begins to swell ! 
 She thinks I am still a child, not knowing love or passion. 
 
 * Cf. R. F. Burton, 491st Night, Adventures of Bulukiya. " There- 
 in were marvellous trees whose like he had never seen in his wander- 
 ings, for their blossoms were in hue like as gold. He landed and 
 walked about for diversion until it was nightfall, when the flowers 
 began to shine through the gloom like stars. Seeing this sight, he 
 marvelled and said, ' Assuredly the flowers of this land are of 
 those which wither under the sun and fall to earth, where the winds 
 smite them, and they gather under the rocks and become alixir, 
 which the people collect and thereof make gold.' " Al Iksir means 
 an essence, also the Philosopher's Stone. 
 
 t Rings in the Mongalla fashion, i.e. at the top of the ear.
 
 110 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 The next song is a pastoral. One can almost 
 hear the lowing of the herds as one reads it. 
 
 To-night the thunder in the South has possessed me, 
 
 With keen remembrance of my dear trusting love. 
 
 When night grows chill I hold her clasped against my breast ; 
 
 wretched one ! Who can aid, save God above ! 
 
 To-night the South has loosed the fleecy clouds aloft, 
 Recalling my kindred, distant, far apart, 
 Small and white are their teeth, their skins are fair and soft, 
 The Lord is come, and the lover must depart. 
 
 The vision of the South conjures before my eyes 
 
 The mountains where safe from ill the young sheep rove, 
 
 A striped-necked lamb for milk unto its mother hies, 
 
 1 have none save you ! But one glance craves my love. 
 
 All day and through the night I must my vigil keep, 
 Still my aching heart nor rest nor solace finds ; 
 Watching the grazing flocks, my cattle and my sheep, 
 How can we express the torment of our minds ? 
 
 The day has heard my songs, all night awake I've lain, 
 Friendless and alone I pass along my way. 
 
 In the dawn I found her, and sought to ease my pain. 
 Spurning my embrace, fearful she turned away.* 
 
 A more virile note is sounded in the camel songs. 
 Here are three of them. 
 
 * Literally, " When with her she said ' Consider that I belong 
 to a relative ' " when tribal custom would not permit him to 
 touch her.
 
 SUDANESE SONGS AND SINGERS 111 
 
 i 
 
 How often on a well-fed camel of my own 
 Gaily I have ridden bearing my keen sword ! 
 My house is from the houses of my brothers known, 
 Food for guests is ever ready at my board. 
 
 II 
 
 A camel easily to ride, 
 
 A maiden to my breast to strain, 
 
 Luscious meat with *' basal " * fried, 
 
 Or herding camels in the plain ; 
 
 Tell me, you who have made the test, 
 
 Which of these pleasures is the best ? 
 
 We who have tried them all can say 
 Herd camels, on a cloudy day 
 When elder ones the darkness fear 
 And slow towards the young ones move, 
 And you the camel music hear, 
 Than this there is no better love ! 
 
 Ill 
 
 Camels with thick-furred necks oft have I ridden 
 Over country where wild beasts dare not remain ; 
 Never by a comrade have I yet been chidden ; 
 Nor, may I lose my speech ! treated with disdain. 
 Camels with clean fore-feet, legs of proportion rare, 
 Rough desert country where lions terrify. 
 No one of my comrades will brave the risks I dare ! 
 Should I bow to scorn ? Let who will reply. 
 
 " The Song of Abu Surhan " contains allusions 
 difficult to understand, but they were probably 
 
 * Onion.
 
 112 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 full of sly innuendo at the time the song was com- 
 posed. Abu Surhan was the Sheikh of all the 
 Abadi Arabs north of Assuan. He had a son 
 called Hassan, and was sent by the Khalifa to 
 Redjaf to get slaves. He was a powerful Sheikh, 
 and it was thought that the Khalifa was not 
 altogether pleased with him. Be that as it may, 
 he did not return until Omdurman had been taken 
 and the Khalifa had fallen. Ten days after his 
 arrival he was killed by one of his tribe. 
 
 THE SONG OF ABU SURHAN 
 
 They saddle his camel with a kur ; * 
 Abu Surhan is clothed in dammur.f 
 Nor drinks merissa nor eats cooked foods, 
 For the pride of Jeddah merchants' goods J 
 Has fled, and the house in ruins fell, 
 While the world seems overturned as well. 
 
 Abu Surhan's tarbush is awry, 
 
 His temper is vile, nor brooks reply ; 
 
 He lights candles, at the outer gate 
 
 He spreads out mats for his guests to wait. 
 
 They saddled a camel thick of neck, 
 For to Darfur he is off on trek, 
 Seeking no Dar Fertitawi slaves, 
 But the coal-black Ab Turruma braves. 
 
 * Native saddle. f Cotton cloth. J I.e. his slave or wife. 
 Fertitaw. The natives of Western Kordofan and the Bahr- 
 el-Ghazal.
 
 SUDANESE SONGS AND SINGERS 113 
 
 From the saddle pendant tassels stray, 
 To his blameless love he wends his way. 
 Nor 'tis mere gossip that I'm giving 
 That in Es Saier * he's now living ! 
 
 A poet responsible for many of the songs that 
 live on the lips of the people is Hardallu of the 
 Aulad Abu Sin in Kassala. He is of the Shukria 
 tribe, formerly very powerful, as its territory 
 extended into Abyssinia. The head of the family 
 is Abdullah Abu Sin, to-day a comparatively poor 
 man, and its leading members now live between 
 the Atbara and the Blue Nile. Two of his songs 
 
 run as follows : 
 
 I 
 
 How often have I swaggered in 
 
 The famous mart of Abu Sin ; 
 
 Many the camel I have tired, 
 
 By thought of necklaced beauty fired ! 
 
 My back's now bent and I am " broke," 
 
 Picked clean as any camel's knee. 
 
 I needs must ride upon a moke, 
 
 Nor does e'en that belong to me. 
 
 II 
 
 bird on the wing, bear my greetings to Umara ; f 
 
 Tell him that our land is now ruled by the Baggara, 
 
 The sweet-scented maiden who 'neath curtains spent her days 
 
 Has been plucked from their shelter and walks the scorched ways. 
 
 * Es Saier was the name of the slave whom the Khalifa made 
 the governor of the prison in Omdurman. The prison became 
 known as Es Saier after this man, whose cruelties were notorious. 
 
 | Neufeld and many others were imprisoned there. 
 
 8
 
 114 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 Aa the prey of El Hurrani,* fearful you elope, 
 Your wealth of hair flows loose o'er the shoulders' downward slope ; 
 When banished from her sight, from my work all virtue slips. 
 O the joy of her speech, and the moisture of her lips ! 
 
 I will end the selection by two songs. One is 
 a ditty that may be heard any day in Omdurman 
 as the women bend to rub their durra between 
 the grinding stones. It is also interesting as 
 containing several Nuba words. The other is an 
 ironical complaint from a young man gone to 
 seek his fortune in order to pay the necessary 
 dowry for his bride. 
 
 THE SONG OF THE FIRST WIFE 
 
 O thou Moon, do not set ; 
 Let me see my belov'd, 
 Who left me at sunset 
 In charge of my kindred. 
 
 O thou Moon, remain clear ; 
 
 My country is distant, 
 
 And my man has left me, 
 
 And gone to his own love (i.e. his countrywoman). 
 
 WHAT THE LOVE OF WOMEN IS 
 
 A man left his betrothed and went on a journey, 
 singing : 
 
 " My mother cries, ' Lord, Who knowest my state ! ' 
 My aunt declaims, ' thou Re-Uniter of People ! ' 
 My sister sobs, ' Alas ! My brother and my dear ! ' 
 But my betrothed says, ' He's gone to get me money ! ' " 
 
 * A famous hunter.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 
 
 T N the Sudan a great deal is heard about " sud- 
 dite." What is it ? and why is the question 
 an important one ? 
 
 " Sudd " or " sadd " means literally " obstruc- 
 tion," and in the Sudan it is generally applied to 
 the river- weed which, massing itself together in 
 the Upper Nile, forms a vast expanse of swamp, 
 a veritable inland Sargasso Sea, a waving, 
 lush-green forest of reeds and water growth some 
 thirty-five thousand square miles in extent. Think 
 of it ! Thirty-five thousand square miles of hope- 
 less swamp. Through this sudd region the White 
 Nile travels for three hundred miles, and in the 
 rainy season large islands of " sudd " break away, 
 and, floating down stream, choke up the narrow 
 channel of the river. So serious does this ob- 
 struction become, that river steamers have been 
 
 115
 
 116 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 blocked in for weeks at a time, until a way has been 
 hewn out for them. To lie stagnant in a tempera- 
 ture resembling the hottest room in the Savoy 
 Baths, surrounded by a flat eternity of swamp 
 swarming with crocodiles and murderous with 
 mosquitoes ; to be running short of food ; and to 
 swelter by day at the slow task of cutting a way 
 through, is a form of torture sufficient to turn the 
 brain. This sluggish octopus, the sudd, could do 
 this. It sucked the blood of its victims with its 
 standing army of millions of mosquitoes ; it drove 
 them crazy by its eternal monotony; it put its 
 green tentacles around them and held them fast. 
 The sudd is the slow monster that strangles the 
 river, that blocks the highway, that drinks the 
 water that should irrigate the thirsty land. There 
 is a brave force of engineers constantly attacking 
 it, and so successfully that, owing to their efforts, 
 the waterways are rarely blocked as hopelessly 
 as of yore. A fleet of dredgers is always at work. 
 Here for nine months out of the twelve they stay 
 in this abomination of desolation, these English 
 engineers, year in, year out ; only seeing a white 
 face from time to time, at grips with the octopus, 
 patient and enduring, scientific and persevering.
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 117 
 
 Men like these, though no one ever hears of them, 
 make one proud of the race. 
 
 But recently a new aspect has been given to the 
 sudd. Up to the present it has been wholly 
 malignant. It is now possible that a service may 
 be wrung from it. A certain German diplomatist, 
 Herr von Eath, was the inspired originator of the 
 idea. The steamers that go up from Khartoum 
 to Gondokor and the Lado and back cannot use 
 coal, for the price of transport renders the expense 
 prohibitive. Hence, at the fuelling stations placed 
 at intervals along the White Nile, you will see 
 neatly piled stacks of wood placed on the bank, 
 and this " wooding " is a process to which you 
 will soon get accustomed if you journey south- 
 wards. It is full of disadvantages ; indeed, it is 
 chiefly disadvantages. Wood-fuel takes a long 
 time to get on board ; it occupies a great deal of 
 space when it is on board, and it eats up the 
 timber of the country. Now, it occurred to this 
 Teutonic genius that, could the mass of weed be 
 dried and prepared for the burning, the sudd, 
 which was useless, might just as well provide the 
 fuel instead of the trees, which were useful ; accord- 
 ingly, with the grateful approval of the Sudan
 
 118 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 Government, experiments were duly carried out. 
 Some tons of the tall weeds were cut down, dried 
 in the sun, subjected to a disintegrating process, 
 and converted into neat briquettes about six 
 inches long, three broad, and one deep ; the 
 handiest little objects imaginable. The heating 
 qualities of this " suddite," as it was christened, 
 are, according to its inventors, nearly two-thirds 
 that of coal, while the briquettes themselves have 
 a density of four-fifths of coal. 
 
 Hence a company was formed, with the result 
 that I quote in extenso from that well-informed 
 little paper " The Near East." 
 
 "As a result of the experiments which have 
 been carried on in Europe and the Sudan during 
 the last three or four years, and also the satisfactory 
 manner in which the fuel has emerged from the 
 various trials to which it has been subjected, the 
 Sudan Government have, we understand, defi- 
 nitely granted a valuable concession, conferring a 
 monopoly for the manufacture of solid fuel from 
 sudd, for a period of seventeen years. Under the 
 terms of the concession, the Government are to 
 receive 10 per cent, rebate on all fuel supplied 
 at the price charged to the public consumers. 
 The Government are further to receive a deacl
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 119 
 
 rent of 250 per annum, or a commission of 5 per 
 cent, on the net profits of the company, whichever 
 shall be the greater. The Government have 
 allocated to the concessionaires the first 150 
 kilometres of the Bahr-el-Gebel, starting from 
 Lake No, in which they are to have the sole right 
 of cutting papyrus, um-soof, and other aquatic 
 growth constituting what is commonly known as 
 sudd. The Government further give a site of 
 25 feddans of land for the purpose of erecting 
 a factory, etc., in any place which maybe selected 
 by the concessionaires, where such land may be 
 available. The concession provides that the con- 
 cessionaires shall supply the needs of the Govern- 
 ment services in preference to private consumers, 
 and stipulates for a minimum output of double 
 that amount." 
 
 It was upon a steamer specially chartered by 
 this company for the purpose of choosing a site 
 for the factory, that I went in 1911 as a passenger. 
 
 In the manufacture of suddite I had no imme- 
 diate interest, but the expedition was to take a 
 route different to that of the ordinary Govern- 
 ment steamers, and I was curious to see that 
 floating uninhabitable wilderness of weeds beyond 
 Lake No, to go down the Bahr-el-Ghazal usually
 
 120 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 forbidden to tourists, and to see a little of wild 
 Africa, for of this the civilisation of the Northern 
 Sudan could tell me nothing. 
 
 
 
 Perhaps the best manner of describing that 
 journey to the sudd is to give it almost as it stands 
 in my diary. If there are trivialities recorded, I 
 must beg forgiveness. I fancy that trivialities 
 will convey as much of the atmosphere of a place 
 as a series of facts, sometimes ; and this book 
 does not aim at conveying facts as much as im- 
 pressions. 
 
 The steamer chosen for the expedition was the 
 Cephcdonia, and she lay just below the high 
 river bank in the Blue Nile, by the garden of the 
 Slavery Department, which happens to be one of 
 the best gardens of Khartoum. The Department 
 concerns itself, not with providing labour, but 
 with stopping the slave-traffic. The Cephalonia 
 was herself scarcely more than a glorified nugger, 
 with a wheel-box astern ; and, like all the up- 
 stream vessels, she was attended by two satellites, 
 one on either side flat-bottomed nuggers, or 
 native boats. To get on board it was necessary 
 first to thread one's way through a group of donkeys
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 121 
 
 and camels under the lebbakh trees above ; then 
 to descend the perilously steep bank ; then to 
 cross by a plank to the attendant nugger ; to 
 pick one's footsteps through bales, a menagerie of 
 animals, sleeping men, wood, saddles, and every 
 imaginable utensil, till one arrived at the Cepha- 
 lonia herself. The other nugger, reached acro- 
 batically from the steamer, was a comfortable 
 barge-like structure of considerable age, judging 
 from the way that she crumbled under a shock. 
 She contained supplementary sleeping accommoda- 
 tion and an upper deck. She had pretensions to 
 respectability, a semi-genteel look, as it were. 
 The first nugger, on the other hand, was a mere 
 maid-of-all-work, a slatternly Martha, dedicated 
 to the humbler uses. The broad bosom of her 
 deck accommodated seven sheep, two donkeys, 
 a cage full of pigeons, three Sudani women and 
 about ten men, in addition to which wood fuel 
 was added later on, to the discomfort of the 
 unfortunate animals. I felt sincerely sorry for 
 the menagerie. There they stood, day by day, 
 hardly moving, their heads dejectedly drooped in 
 the burning sun, for there was no merciful shade 
 for them. It was sad, too, to see the number of
 
 122 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 sheep gradually diminishing, as one by one they 
 were dedicated to the knife or the cook. When 
 we returned to Khartoum at the end of our trip, 
 one solitary sheep was left, gazing at the skin of 
 the last-sacrificed brother. 
 
 The two younger women, comely Sudani girls, 
 and the older woman, discarded their blue tobes 
 as soon as we had left Khartoum well behind us, 
 and kept only the scantiest of draperies about 
 their hips. Their skins were black and shining 
 I often admired the bare back of one girl as she 
 bent over her cooking ; it might have served as 
 a model for a sculptor. Their hair was braided 
 in the orthodox manner into hundreds of little 
 plaits, only a few hairs going to each plait, and the 
 whole plenteously besmeared with grease. 
 
 We left Khartoum in a fresh breeze, for it was 
 a cool winter day, the thermometer on deck stand- 
 ing at 86 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade. Past 
 Tuti Island we went on the down stream, and at 
 three o'clock rounded Moghren Point, where one 
 can still see a mass of masonry, the unfinished 
 beginnings of a palace projected by a former 
 Egyptian Governor-General at the meeting of the 
 two Niles. The encounter of the two streams is
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 123 
 
 very marked, for they do not mix at once, and 
 the opaque water of the White Nile is at once 
 distinguished from the clearer stream. From 
 this point they flow together down to the Delta. 
 
 Our steamer now ploughed its way southward 
 instead of northward, and we were fairly started 
 on our journey up the White Nile against the 
 current. The river is very wide, and the shores 
 are flat and green with lupins, among which ants 
 move that prove, when examined through glasses, 
 to be half-naked women bending over their toil. 
 I have said the shores are flat the country beyond 
 them is flat too, stretching away interminably to 
 the deserts on the horizon ; a uniformity scarcely 
 broken by a few scrub-like trees. Seen in the 
 generous sunlight and pure air, this vast platitude 
 is not unattractive. The wideness of the un- 
 bounded horizon, the shining bosom of the great 
 river, these give a sense of free breathing and the 
 joy of illumined space. Here and there low green 
 islands just rise above the water level, and flocks 
 of wild ducks whirr into the air with their own 
 peculiar, horizontal flight. 
 
 The bird-life of the Sudan is increasingly wonder- 
 ful the farther south one travels, It is indeed
 
 124 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 the territory of the birds. In the Upper River, 
 where human beings can only subsist precariously, 
 birds of every species live and die in their millions. 
 With field-glasses one can never be dull : there 
 are always the birds a commonwealth of infinite 
 variety. For them Nature provides abundantly ; 
 the insect life, the fish life, the grub life, the seed 
 life are all a vast larder for her spoiled children 
 the birds. 
 
 The next day, February 10, still saw the river 
 at its widest the same expanse of shining river and 
 flat featureless banks, save here and there where 
 a village of tukls arose. These tukls resemble 
 nothing so much as a collection of straw beehives, 
 except that the beehive is better built. Their 
 construction is simple. The conical straw roof is 
 made first, and this is lifted, with much laughter 
 and shouting and singing for noise drives evil 
 spirits away on a rough circular palisade of 
 sticks. The rest is added afterwards in much the 
 same fashion as that in which a bird builds her 
 nest. 
 
 Our journey was enlivened at about 8 a.m., 
 while we were at breakfast on deck,bythe smoulder- 
 ing of the wood casing enclosing the smoke-stack.
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 125 
 
 It was evident that we were in danger of being 
 burnt out, so axes were brought, and jagged holes 
 hewn quickly in the casing, from which smoke 
 poured forth. But under the direction of Abdu, a 
 Berberine genius who was our Admirable Crichton 
 throughout, the men brought water, which they 
 hurled by cocoa-tins full on the conflagration 
 through the apertures. A little before three in 
 the afternoon we passed Jebel Arashkol. It" is 
 a high barren mass of rocks, with several distinct 
 peaks, and has a volcanic appearance. The highest 
 peak is known as the Jebel Abd el Daim, or rather 
 the Gebel Abd-el-Daim, for the J is pronounced G 
 in the Sudan. The shore was so distant on either 
 side that, to get a clear vision of any object, we 
 were obliged to use strong field-glasses. At one 
 village, Amara, I think, the villagers were sheep- 
 washing. I watched the process for some time, 
 as the reluctant sheep were half-carried, half- 
 dragged out into the river for their bath ; their 
 attendants standing waist-deep in the water. 
 This would have been a highly dangerous pro- 
 ceeding farther up the Nile ; but crocodiles rarely 
 venture beyond Dueim nowadays. 
 Our progress was very slow. It is a drowsy
 
 126 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 business, this ploughing up-stream at midday. 
 There is the constant thud of the engine as the 
 boat moves in answer to the wheel of the reis in 
 his little shelter above, the droning song of a 
 bahari somewhere in the nugger dragged alongside, 
 and a sun which blisters the paint. The natives 
 converse in low tones, the banks are too far away 
 and too flat to be interesting, and all you can do 
 is to join in the general siesta. 
 
 Approaching El Dueim, which is one hundred 
 and twenty-five miles from Khartoum, the Nile 
 gradually narrows, till at Dueim itself it is only a 
 mile across. We arrived at Dueim in that magical 
 hour which is " between the dog and the wolf." 
 The after-glow was still keeping rosy little clouds 
 captive in a long vista of pure green sky, while 
 night rose from the horizon in heavy clouds, and 
 the full moon had already made a white and 
 tremulous highway across the river. Shadows 
 and freshness stole up together after the long 
 white glare of the day. The Cephalonia came to 
 a standstill as close to the shallow shore as possible, 
 yet not near enough to throw a board from the 
 nugger to the strand. A native or two waded to 
 land, the moon making white ripples about their
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 127 
 
 feet, and passed up the milky shore into the little 
 town, which was dark against the sky. A perfume 
 stole across to us as we waited to see what would 
 happen. It was a subtle, pervading breath of 
 spices, which, like a half-told tale, stirred the 
 imagination and materialised the romance of the 
 dusky and silent African town before us. 
 
 All at once we became aware of voices on the 
 water's edge. A group of idlers Dongolawi for 
 the most part was ready to convey us across 
 to the land. Some of them were stripped to the 
 waist, displaying torsos like that of Hercules. 
 Their shining teeth, as they smiled up at us, and 
 their outstretched arms, brawny and black, were 
 the invitation. For a piastre or two we were 
 borne on their shoulders through the water, across 
 a strip of clay, and set down on the sandy shore 
 beyond. 
 
 They call Dueim hideous who know it by day- 
 light, but by night it is strange and beautiful. 
 In the moonlight we walked down one wide, 
 straight street after another, sweet-smelling and 
 paved with sand ; where gums, grain, incense, 
 and precious woods were exposed for sale in deep 
 baskets of woven halfa grass. The shops were
 
 128 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 unlit, save where here and there a merchant had 
 kindled a solitary candle in a shamadan or glass 
 globe, but even this was hardly necessary with 
 the tropical moon sailing up like a golden lamp. 
 The town was very silent. A few white-clad 
 natives conversed together in low tones where 
 they met in twos and threes, and at one corner 
 there was a click of dominoes as some players in 
 a little mud cafe mixed their pieces. We en- 
 deavoured to buy some of the incense that per- 
 fumed the streets, but not knowing what it was 
 called in Arabic, our efforts were in vain. At 
 last an obliging merchant who sat on his heels 
 with a friend outside his shop, looking like an 
 ebony statue swathed in ivory draperies, made 
 a gesture of perfect comprehension ; and, vanishing 
 into the shadows of a neighbouring mud house, 
 reappeared later with a bottle inscribed " Ess 
 Bouquet ! " At last, the resourceful Abdu ap- 
 pearing like a Genie of the Lamp, we bought what 
 we had wished rock-like lumps of incense that 
 looked like toffee which has been played with by 
 a little boy. It contained all manner of gums 
 and spices, he told us. 
 
 Another moon-bathed, silent street brought us
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 129 
 
 to some tukls. I looked in at one faintly illumined 
 interior, and found the arrangements of the 
 simplest. A man was brewing some coffee in a 
 brown earthenware pot over a small charcoal fire, 
 and, smiling politely, bade us enter. The furniture 
 consisted only of an angareb and a pitcher or 
 two, but the whole was spotlessly clean, for 
 these riverine people are scrupulous in the care 
 of their persons, and there are no fleas in the 
 Sudan. 
 
 At last we found ourselves back on the shore 
 again, where sacks and bales and cases of all 
 sizes were heaped. They contained gum, simsim 
 (sesame), senna, durra, powdered fool Sudani or 
 ground-nuts, and grains of various kinds ; for 
 Dueim, till the railway from El Obeid was finished 
 this year, was the jumping-off place for Kordofan, 
 the highroad to that richest territory of the Sudan. 
 From it caravans set forth, to return with produce 
 which was shipped for the North ; and to Dueim, 
 in the old times, Baggara slave-hunters brought 
 their gangs of hapless captives. 
 
 Since January of 1912 there is the swifter means 
 of transport, and Dueim must gradually fall 
 asleep on its sandy river shore. Formerly, camels 
 9
 
 130 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 were hired at Dueim if a man wished to travel into 
 Kordofan, and a leisurely and Biblical journey 
 was made across the sands and wild barren country 
 until the wooded Nuba hills were reached. But 
 the railway has put an end to that. A cinemato- 
 graph was exhibited at El Obeid when the railway 
 was declared open by Lord Kitchener, and the 
 Kordofan chiefs who attended gaped at the miracle. 
 The cinematograph and the railroad marked the 
 beginning of a new era, one productive of peace 
 and progress no doubt, but robbing gradually a 
 hitherto unsophisticated set of barbarians of their 
 simplicity. Civilisation may cut their claws and 
 draw their teeth, but barbarians they will remain, 
 in spite of cinematographs and railways, for the 
 race tendency is strong. Civilisation will rid 
 them of many qualities, but it may not replace 
 them with any worth having. 
 
 Apropos of the railway, it has been told me 
 since that some Kordofan chiefs who were sent 
 by the Government down to Port Sudan to meet 
 the King and Queen on their return voyage from 
 India could not believe that so long a voyage 
 could be performed in three days, and brought 
 provisions for several weeks ! In the case of one
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 131 
 
 chief, the provisions included five wives, each 
 bearing a pot of merissa. 
 
 As a matter of fact, Dueim, whose inhabitants 
 are mostly agriculturists, has many disadvantages 
 from the white man's point of view. It is very 
 malarious during the autumn months, called 
 darat by the natives, when the rains have swollen 
 the Nile and flooded the khors. For down the 
 stream float pieces of sudd, bearing the malignant 
 anopheline mosquito, and the khors, or back- 
 waters, lie stagnant and act as breeding-places for 
 the pest. Later on, the health-giving north wind 
 springs up but those three months have exacted 
 their toll of fever.
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK (continued) 
 
 our arrival, we found Butler Bey, the 
 Governor of the Province, on board. An 
 Irishman, of a genial and enthusiastic tempera- 
 ment, he had spent many years in the Sudan, 
 and, although his retirement was impending, he 
 confessed that he hated the idea of leaving his 
 work. The Nuba country in Central Kordofan 
 seems to root itself in the hearts of the Englishmen 
 who have had to administer justice and maintain 
 peace there. For the natives they develop actual 
 affection. " They're topping people/' quoth Butler 
 Bey, with his jolly smile. As for the raids by 
 the Baggara Arabs on the Nuba gebels or hills, he 
 said it was often a case of " Cherchez la femme." 
 He used to threaten the Baggara girls with im- 
 prisonment if another raid occurred. ' You 
 naughty girls ! Next time there is trouble, I'll 
 
 132
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 133 
 
 clap every one of you into gaol ! " It was this 
 way. There would be a dance, and the comely 
 young Baggara girls would taunt the young 
 bloods, saying, " Ah, if our mothers and grand- 
 mothers had wanted slaves, our fathers and grand- 
 fathers would have procured them ; but you are 
 afraid ! " 
 
 Then the young men, piqued, would creep up 
 into the hills, bag a few Nubas or get bagged 
 themselves and return with the slaves to parade 
 before the girls. 
 
 Slave-raiding is looked upon as a species of 
 fox-hunting, and the Nubas are quite able to get 
 their own back. One gebel runs sheer down in a 
 precipice some two hundred feet from edge to 
 foot ; and the Nubas used to catch a couple of 
 Baggara Arabs when there was a feud between 
 them owing to one of these little slaving raids, and 
 prod them up the hill at the end of their spears, 
 until they were forced over the precipice, to be 
 dashed to pieces on the sharp rocks below. 
 
 The Nuba unmarried maidens have wrestling 
 bouts among them. Professor and Mrs. Seligmann, 
 who travelled in Kordofan to make ethnological 
 notes, witnessed one of these contests though
 
 134 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 native men are not allowed to be spectators. 
 They reported, however, that the tree-tops around 
 swayed with Zacchaeuses who had swarmed up 
 to view the match. The winners of these wrestling 
 bouts are much sought after in marriage. Men 
 wrestlers go about from village to village, the 
 champions being considered great men. 
 
 One day Butler Bey went down through Southern 
 Kordofan to Dinkaland. He approached a village, 
 in advance of his caravan, and sat down under a 
 tree to wait for it and rest. He had entered into 
 conversation with a Dinka who could talk Arabic, 
 when suddenly his convoy of camels appeared. 
 There was a general stampede. The Dinkas of 
 this part had never seen a camel before, and were 
 afraid that they would eat them. It was a long 
 time before they could be persuaded to return and 
 open proceedings, and then Butler Bey, thinking 
 that at last he could get a siesta below the tree, 
 laid him down. But it was not his lucky day for 
 repose. A procession was seen approaching, com- 
 posed of about twenty men and boys, who sang a 
 chant. They marched around him in an ever- 
 diminishing circle, until he was hemmed in. Then, 
 one by one, they approached him, crawling, and
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 135 
 
 licked the palm of his hand. At the end of the 
 procession of lickers, a bull was led, and this was 
 solemnly presented to him. No sooner had they 
 retired than, to his dismay, he saw a fresh twenty 
 approaching from the village, and these went 
 through the same evolutions and presented another 
 bull. This was repeated, until he was the proud 
 possessor of five bulls. During his progress through 
 the district he had other bulls presented, and 
 they became rather a nuisance. He refused the 
 last five offered by polite villagers ; nevertheless, 
 when he returned to the village two years after- 
 wards, they brought him the bulls again, saying 
 that they had kept them for him. 
 
 In connection with this habit of hand-licking, 
 Butler Bey told us an amusing anecdote. When 
 he went down the Sobat with Sir William Maxwell 
 years ago on a pacification mission, the natives 
 gathered on the bank at one point, making a great 
 noise ; and a rainmaker, in full war-paint, was seen 
 to be using incantations, as it was thought that 
 the steamer with its gleaming guns and lights 
 had the evil eye. One Sheikh and his retinue were 
 at last persuaded to come on board. When they 
 arrived on deck, they crawled on all fours to Sir
 
 136 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 William Maxwell, took his hand, and spat into his 
 palm. Far from being an insult, this was their 
 form of showing good faith. The same unpleasant 
 attention was shown to Butler Bey. By degrees 
 they gained confidence, and the Sheikh was solemnly 
 presented with an old opera-hat and a table-cloth 
 of many colours ; and his delight was complete 
 when Butler Bey hung around his neck a chain of 
 beads, with a spoonbait divested of its hooks in 
 the centre, as an ornament. He paddled back 
 proudly with the hat on his head, the tablecloth 
 draped around him, and the necklace around his 
 neck. The envious ones on shore made for him 
 in a body, the tablecloth was torn into hundreds 
 of pieces, and numbers of delighted natives sported 
 the fragments. The ice was broken. After such 
 generosity, they got quite friendly. 
 
 
 
 We woke up the next morning to find ourselves 
 in wooded country, and by wooded I do not mean 
 green. The whole riverscape here was khaki- 
 coloured ; the trees were miserable and burnt, 
 the very water rushes, which should have been 
 green, were yellowed with sun. The grass be- 
 neath the thorny undergrowth was pallid and
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 137 
 
 rank ; the tyranny of the sun was over the place 
 like an iron hand. The only verdant patches upon 
 which the eye could rest were the patches of 
 papyrus that grows here and there, its plumy head 
 bending before the north wind. And presently 
 we saw a small island some four yards across, 
 floating down stream. It was composed of grasses 
 and reeds it was an adventurous piece of sudd 
 that had floated down from the Great Bog for 
 which we were bound. It was easy to imagine 
 how a river could be blocked by similar floating 
 islands. Other things reminded us we were leaving 
 civilisation behind us. Some one on the boat saw 
 some monkeys springing from branch to branch 
 on the nearest shore. At nine forty-five we arrived 
 at our wooding station Dibeikir, one hundred and 
 sixty miles from Khartoum. 
 
 A village of tukls stood on the shore, a little way 
 from the neat stacks of wood piled up by the 
 landing stage. This landing stage consisted merely 
 of ragged stakes driven into the bed of the river 
 and a footway of branches and rushes into which 
 the foot sank as one walked upon it. The barefoot 
 carriers passed along, bearing wood on their 
 shoulders, which they deposited in the nugger.
 
 138 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 They worked leisurely, however, bringing only a 
 log at a time. Truly the suddite would be a 
 boon if only in consideration for the time wasted 
 in wooding. However, the scheme has not been 
 proved workable yet, and it is possible that petro- 
 leum fuel may yet oust all other. 
 
 We went ashore ; the men to shoot. A village 
 of tukls looks very much like a collection of hay- 
 ricks, but a close inspection proved them to be 
 clean, although cocks and hens ran in and out as 
 they do in Irish cottages, and small kids, whose 
 mammas were wandering about with the herds 
 outside the village, were given the freedom of the 
 little homesteads. A zariba or protection of 
 thorns often formed a kind of yard about a tukl. 
 The women, swathed in their dark blue tobes, 
 came out to gaze and smile at us. One asked 
 where we were going. When we replied " Fok 
 baid ketir " (Yonder very far), she seemed satis- 
 fied. For every one understands " Fok " here to 
 mean southwards. Mangy dogs, naked children, 
 and semi-naked girls completed the population of 
 the village. The men were out with the herds. 
 At the end of the village stood the pigeon-cote, 
 an odd structure of which I took a photograph.
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 139 
 
 Most of the villages of the Upper Sudan possess 
 pigeon-houses, I was told. Outside the village a 
 sunbaked track led into the surrounding bush. 
 The grey soil of the trodden path was cracked into 
 wide fissures from the heat. Dry, unkempt grass, 
 thorny brake, cassia trees red of stem and pro- 
 tected with spikes, their powdery balls still honey- 
 sweet if one plucked and smelt them, and other 
 trees blighted and sparse in fact, a barren mockery 
 of a forest stretched to right and left of this 
 footway. It is as if Nature had exhausted the 
 colours on her palette, and had painted this 
 part of the world in browns and greys and 
 ochres. 
 
 Half a mile out, we came upon high-shouldered, 
 meek-looking oxen, tender-eyed as Leah, driven 
 by a herdsman. He was black and unclothed to 
 the loins, and wore a crownless sailor hat after 
 the manner of a halo. After the sound of their 
 scuttering hoofs had died away again, there was 
 silence except for the sound of many wings when 
 flocks of pigeons or wood-doves fluttered up in 
 twenties and thirties, and away. 
 
 Then we returned to the village, over which vul- 
 tures, strong-winged and patient, hovered, watchful
 
 140 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 for offal. The guns returned too, with guinea-fowl, 
 a franklin partridge, small quail, and a blue roller 
 with long tail-feathers. They had seen monkeys 
 and the spoor of a hippo. 
 
 We did not get under way again until one 
 o'clock, wooding having occupied more than three 
 unprofitable hours. During lunch we saw a large 
 water python, about twelve feet long and a 
 foot round, swimming powerfully in the water. 
 Soon afterwards a small crocodile was sighted, 
 sunning itself unsuspectingly on the bank. Some 
 one at once rushed for a rifle, and a bang from 
 the top deck was followed by the sudden jerk 
 upwards of the reptile's tail. The shot had got 
 him square in the middle. He flapped and flopped 
 into the water, and that was the last we saw of 
 him. A hippo, our first, was the next excitement, 
 his pink and black snout showing like a half 
 submerged buoy just above the river. He was 
 too far away, happily, for a shot. There is, to me, 
 something brutal in this indiscriminate potting 
 at hippos. No one who has seen the good- 
 tempered intelligence of hippos in captivity can 
 help feeling a friendliness for this uncouth monster. 
 He is a vegetarian, he does no harm to any one,
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 141 
 
 yet any tourist with a 5 licence, bad shot or 
 otherwise, is entitled to shoot at him, without even 
 dispatching him. It is usually replied that he 
 destroys the agricultural efforts of the native. 
 But in the sudd country and much of the Upper 
 Nile there is no attempt at agriculture on the part 
 of the native ; and native delight at getting hippo- 
 meat is no invariably valid excuse either, for the 
 poor hippo is often slaughtered and left to rot in 
 the water. It is true that north of Kodok " sports- 
 men " are limited to four hippos, but after Kodok 
 is passed there is absolutely no restriction as to 
 number. It is the wounding to which I object. 
 Surely the crocodile, though he be counted vermin, 
 is entitled to the mercy of death, and how much 
 more the amiable hippo ! 
 
 We passed Abba Island later in the day. It is 
 fringed by reeds and papyrus, and the trees are 
 almost as green as if they stood by an English 
 river. The Mahdi's house is still visible amongst 
 the trees, for it was here, before his days of great- 
 ness, that he followed his trade of boat-builder, 
 and let his imagination, fevered by asceticism, 
 take the flights which ended in his proclamation 
 of his Divine appointment. It is a green and
 
 142 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 peaceful-looking spot in which to have evolved 
 so bloody a mission ! 
 
 While the island was still in sight, we perceived 
 three hippopotami like three black blobs on the 
 water. But our approach sent them diving under 
 the water, and they did not show themselves 
 again. A black and white goose with a black 
 knob on its beak was shot, and a small boat 
 lowered to pick it up. It was subsequently cooked 
 and served up, and proved palatable though 
 coarse-flavoured : the guinea-fowl, too, were good 
 eating, and better than the Sudan chicken. 
 
 The moon had risen before we arrived at Costi, 
 a small station just above the new railway bridge. 
 Some of our party were to join us there by train 
 from Khartoum, so, without going ashore, we 
 remained by the river bank till morning. 
 
 After the heat to which we had become accus- 
 tomed, the next day proved to be chilly. The 
 sky was grey, the thermometer registered 74 
 maximum and 60 minimum in the shade, and we 
 shivered and wrapped ourselves warmly. The 
 bridge at Costi was reached at 7.30, and we waited 
 until it should be opened. The bridge over 
 which the railway to El Obeid passes is a fine
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 143 
 
 structure, and resembles the bridge across the 
 Blue Nile at Khartoum. It is supposed to open 
 for river traffic between six a.m. and eleven a.m., 
 but, in spite of our hooting, it remained churlishly 
 closed until ten. 
 
 At Hillet Abbas we stopped to enable the 
 Inspector who had joined us at Costi to get on 
 shore, with the intention of riding back to Costi. 
 A Shilluk village stood close to the landing stage, 
 and I had an opportunity of seeing some of these 
 people at close quarters for the first time. They 
 were a fine-looking set of men, and their curious 
 coiffure and ornaments gave them an imposing 
 appearance. Farther south they are often entirely 
 without clothing, but these men wore a toga-like 
 garment of cotton, which was draped over one 
 shoulder and left the upper part of the body bare. 
 Several of them wore sandals. I endeavoured to 
 buy a bracelet of solid ivory about two inches 
 thick from one man, but as I thought the price he 
 asked five reals was excessive, I did not purchase 
 it. (A " small " real equals two shillings, a 
 11 big " real is the equivalent of the American 
 dollar.) Later, I learnt that it is no unusual 
 thing to pay as much as 5 for a good, thick,
 
 144 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 two-rimmed specimen, embellished by black in- 
 cisions. 
 
 Shortly after leaving, we encountered more 
 masses of sudd, composed chiefly of papyrus 
 (dees) and the rank grass called by the natives 
 umm soof (mother of wool). These sudd islands 
 look feathery and beautiful when seen like this, 
 argosies of green, floating downwards. The shores 
 appeared to be well wooded. Heglig and sunt, 
 acacias and cassias, grew thickly to the very 
 water's edge. 
 
 We wooded at Abu Zeid. This is a pretty 
 village of tukls surrounded by trees. The women 
 asked for baksheesh when a camera was levelled 
 at them, but anxious mothers called their little 
 ones into safe shelter and looked angrily at the 
 would-be photographers. Again I marvelled at 
 the cleanliness of these villages. No offensive 
 sights meet the eyes, no offensive odours the nose. 
 It is almost incredible after the filth and noisome- 
 ness of Egyptian villages. We passed several 
 hippos and crocodiles they roused no excitement. 
 It is strange how quickly a wonder becomes 
 commonplace. But though one's sense of novelty 
 may become blunted, the sense of beauty is always
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 145 
 
 fresh, and this was gratified that evening by the 
 vision of Jebelein (the Two Mountains), its twin 
 peaks silhouetted in silver grey against a sky 
 ivoried by the full moon. The Japanese see Fuji 
 so in inspired moments, and these rugged peaks 
 in Africa looked no whit less lovely under the 
 magic of the tropical night. 
 
 10
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK (continued) 
 
 farther one gets to the magic South, the 
 more marvellous and multiform is the bird 
 and beast life of this wonderful river. In my 
 records for February 13, I find that I spent most 
 of the morning in a deck-chair with field-glasses 
 to my eyes, watching the population of the bank 
 beginning with two hippos, a mother and child, 
 which stood, pink-nosed and fearless, amongst 
 the tall grasses at the water's edge, to gaze at 
 us. By the time that a zealous sportsman had 
 got his rifle, they had leisurely disappeared into 
 the water, leaving nothing more than an air- 
 bubble and a ripple behind them. Farther on 
 five or more hippopotami were disporting 
 themselves, their wet black heads just showing 
 above the surface. Tiny reed-warblers rose from 
 the banks in clouds like smoke, revolving and 
 
 146
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 147 
 
 turning simultaneously as if in answer to an un- 
 heard word of command. Diving eagles, perched 
 on low branches above the river, descended with 
 a plop like that of a falling stone into the stream 
 after fish, and afterwards stood on the bank 
 extending their wings as a dancer spreads her 
 skirts, in order to dry them in the sun and wind. 
 Reeves and ruffs, sunbirds, rollers, pigeons, bee- 
 guides, fluttered in the trees ; and water birds 
 long-legged cranes, kingfishers, weaver-birds and 
 a host of others, tenanted the rushes and shallows. 
 Herodotus mentions the crocodile bird, which 
 enters the crocodile's jaws as he suns himself on 
 the bank and picks his teeth ; and I was assured 
 that there is really a little parasite bird tolerated 
 by the crocodile in the same way in which the 
 rhinoceros tolerates the rhinoceros bird. The 
 latter lives upon the vermin which infest the hide, 
 and has long curved claws specially adapted for 
 clinging on. He repays the hospitality of his host 
 by warning him by his cries of approaching danger. 
 I do not think, however, that the crocodile bird 
 is on such friendly and reciprocal terms with its 
 patron. 
 During the morning, water-buck were sighted
 
 148 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 on the port side, and the boat was brought to a 
 
 standstill, in order that the men of the party 
 
 might follow them up. We who were no Nimrods 
 
 were carried to shore. It was desolate enough. 
 
 The cotton soil was blackened, for the natives set 
 
 fire to the old growth, in order to enable new grass 
 
 to grow. A long plain of this blackened sundried 
 
 soil stretched before us, enlivened only by some 
 
 miserable shrub-like bushes and trees. Just by 
 
 the river's edge the papyrus was green, and brilliant 
 
 morning glories, pink and white, twined about a 
 
 shrub which resembled a Cape gooseberry. 
 
 Another bush proved to be the prized arak, from 
 
 which our crew at once cut off sticks and shoots, 
 
 for the wood of the arak is used to clean the teeth, 
 
 the end being sucked and frayed until it becomes 
 
 a brush. It is supposed to possess beneficial 
 
 qualities, and is white and soft, the bark being 
 
 light grey in colour. The Arabs and Sudanese 
 
 are very particular about this detail of their 
 
 toilet. 
 
 One man collected some of the giant white 
 snail shells to be found by the water, and brought 
 them to me as souvenirs. In the light ash left 
 by the burnt grasses, I saw the delicate imprint
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 149 
 
 of a gazelle's foot, left, I suppose, that morning 
 when the pretty creature had gone down to drink. 
 The spoor of a hippo was not far off. 
 
 As we re-embarked, two young Arabs galloped 
 up, holding enormous spears in their left hands, 
 and drew their horses abruptly back on their 
 haunches when they reached the bank. It was 
 pure " showing-off," and these men, bronze- 
 coloured and fine-featured, were slender and grace- 
 ful as women, though every muscle was taut and 
 trained. They conversed with our crew, and 
 finally one bartered his spear for twenty piastres. 
 Then, smiling and joyous, they rode off once 
 more ; circled the plain like hawks and, reining 
 in abruptly on the shore by our boats, stood up 
 in their stirrups and shook their spears in farewell. 
 In the clear atmosphere the two white-clad eques- 
 trian figures against the background of black had 
 the effect of an antique Roman cameo. 
 
 Nor were they our only visitors. Before we 
 left, some tall Shilluks, bearing spears, came up 
 to inspect us. Their necks were adorned with 
 necklaces, and their arms with countless metal 
 bracelets fitting tightly to the arm. They ap- 
 peared moved by no vulgar curiosity ; they merely
 
 150 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 gazed with mild interest at the mad white folk 
 who set so much store by the things which cannot 
 matter. For the Shilluk, time is not, beyond the 
 time of day or night according to the sun or stars ; 
 he does not count years ; he does not know even 
 his own age. He can seldom reckon more than a 
 hundred. And travel, for the sake of travelling, 
 can only seem to him a species of lunacy. So 
 much seemed expressed by their incurious gazing. 
 
 As we steamed away, a little procession passed on 
 the bank, bound, doubtless, for some neighbouring 
 village. It included a woman and a child, seated, 
 Europa-wise, on a bull, for the bull is a beast of 
 burden here. A second bull was laden with the 
 household effects, consisting of rolls of straw 
 matting and cloth, slung up on either flank in 
 panier fashion ; and arched over his back was a 
 semicircular shelter of woven rush. The little 
 band of travellers looked at us, and we at them. 
 Did it represent a family flitting, or an impending 
 marriage, or a commercial expedition ? We never 
 knew, but left it plodding seriously on its way as 
 we steamed out of the radius of vision. 
 
 Wooding took place at a village a few miles 
 beyond Renk. Large mrahs or pens built of straw
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 151 
 
 and stakes told us that the place was rich in cattle. 
 The tukls were surrounded by hashes, or en- 
 closures. Four little boys followed us on our tour 
 of inspection, and eagerly collected the black film 
 papers which one of our party threw away, and 
 affixing them to the end of sticks like small black 
 banners, acted as our escort. They were merry, 
 pleasant little children, and were intensely in- 
 terested when allowed to peep at the view-finder 
 and see the pictures reflected in it. I asked the 
 lightest in colour his tribe : it transpired that he 
 was a Jaalin ; two others were Dinkas, and a 
 fourth Nuba. A shy Dinka warrior, a youth of 
 about six foot two, with an innocent babyish 
 expression, was captured by one of our Arabs and 
 brought up to be photographed. He spoke only a 
 few words of Arabic, but the granting of his 
 murmured request for tumbak sent him off, de- 
 lighted, with an ounce or two of tobacco. My 
 small friends were overjoyed by the present of 
 some chocolate. Another boat was wooding beside 
 us, and Captain O'Sullivan, Governor of the Upper 
 Nile Province, proved to be on board. He came 
 over to see us, and what he told us about Dinkas 
 I have embodied in another chapter.
 
 152 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 One of our party was dissatisfied with his 
 shikari, and accordingly, when a young man in 
 somewhat soiled white drapery detached himself 
 from a group of idlers by the bank and presented 
 a bundle of well-worn chits, they were read with 
 interest. Former employers recommended him, 
 and praised particularly his eyesight and keenness ; 
 accordingly, he was engaged on the spot. He 
 was a Habbaniya Arab from Southern Darfur, of 
 something less than medium height, though lithe 
 of build ; his dark features were pleasing, and 
 before the end of our trip he showed himself to 
 have plenty of personality. When told that he 
 could come with us, he wrapped the chits once 
 more in the piece of rag from which he had taken 
 them, unwound his turban, tied them into a 
 corner, and swathed it again round his head. He 
 preferred a request that he might fetch his luggage 
 from the village, and on receiving permission, 
 returned just before the boat started, with a 
 spear ! 
 
 It appeared later that some of the Dinka women 
 in the village had not seen white women before. 
 Some one asked their opinion of us. They replied 
 that it was a pity we were so white, The thing
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 153 
 
 that interested them most was our figures, par- 
 ticularly that of one lady whose waist measurement 
 was eighteen inches. ' Where," inquired one of 
 these black ladies " where do they put their 
 food ? " 
 
 The next day dedicated to St. Valentine we 
 hugged the shore, for the current was deepest near 
 the bank. The trees were thick and tangled with 
 creepers ; the air was alive with glittering darting 
 creatures. Their varieties were mostly unknown 
 to me ; but diving hawks and eagles and the long- 
 legged water-birds were the most solemn amongst 
 them. For the rest, red, blue and green warblers 
 fluttered up and down like showers of living 
 flowers ; rollers passed on brilliant wings, and 
 birds of iridescent plumage mirrored the light and 
 broke it into rainbow colours on their glossy 
 feathers. We passed herds of hippo, their snouts 
 and occasionally their backs showing above the 
 water. Once a great crocodile slipped slimily 
 into the river. The nearer one gets to the damper 
 heat of the South, the greener and richer does 
 the river bank become. We had left behind the 
 parched plains of the North. 
 
 At Melut, where we wooded, a number of Dinkas
 
 154 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 were ranged upon the bank ; slender as rods, 
 their tall slim bodies entirely naked and plastered 
 with wood-ash except the face giving them the 
 look of grey wraiths. The wood-ash serves to 
 protect the body from mosquito bites. Their hair 
 was matted and clipped into designs ; a tall plume 
 was stuck into it. Ear-rings, bead and metal or 
 ivory bracelets, and, occasionally, a small rag, 
 were their only adornments ; and every man bore a 
 spear. They seemed to live in a state of glorious 
 idleness, to judge from the way in which they 
 settled down to an hour's staring. It must not 
 be thought that they are dead to the sense of 
 modesty. A lady, resident in Khartoum, told me 
 that on one of her trips down river, she took a 
 fancy to a necklace worn by a Dinka, and offered 
 to buy it. It was absolutely all that he had on, 
 beyond his own skin ; but he modestly retired 
 behind a tree to take it off. 
 
 The village, of tukls as usual, was remarkable 
 for its curious dove-cotes. One tukl was pointed 
 out as " the souk " or bazaar ; and within sat 
 the merchant, an Arab from Haifa. His wares 
 were ranged inside, and consisted of blue and white 
 beads, sugar, candles, and other simple com-
 
 A VILLAGE SHOP.
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 155 
 
 modities. The village store of these wooding 
 stations is often the property of the clerk in charge, 
 who is usually an Egyptian or Arab, but not in- 
 frequently a Greek. In an out-of-the-way spot 
 the Greek quickly sinks down to the level of the 
 native ; or rather, much lower, since he loses the 
 white man's virtues and does not gain the savage's 
 good qualities. It is scarcely to be wondered at. 
 Absolute solitude among savages, hardship, fever, 
 and the damp horror of the rains ; these eat out 
 the heart of the white man unless he be as easily 
 adaptive as the Oriental Greek. I always re- 
 member with vivid horror the appearance of one 
 Government clerk his soiled tarbush proclaiming 
 his official position. He was a miserable specimen, 
 pock-marked, debased-looking, worn to a thread 
 with fever. No other white man could have stood 
 the job. He stood it at the cost of the white 
 man's pride. 
 
 I managed to get a photograph of two young 
 girls grinding durra between two stones. They 
 were so astonished at my appearance that they 
 remained as if petrified over their task. The 
 little living-tukls were spotlessly clean and smelt 
 as sweet as a field of corn. The richest villager,
 
 156 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 apparently, boasted no more than a few pots, an 
 angareb and a blanket. 
 
 One of our Arabs, who spoke a few words of the 
 Dinka language, suggested to the grey phantoms 
 on shore that they should entertain us with a native 
 dance or diluka. Their stony calm broke at last 
 into wintry smiles, if the word could be used in a 
 temperature of 86 degrees in the shade ! They 
 capered, shook their spears, lunged out and leapt 
 in the air, then as suddenly collapsed into the same 
 state of staring inaction. I bought a plumed 
 spear from one brave for six shillings. 
 
 Just before we passed Melut, we saw grass fires 
 on either side ; sending up smoke and flame into 
 the sky for some ten or twenty feet. The flames 
 moved slowly, crackling and spitting, and leaving 
 black desolation in their wake. Under that fiery 
 sun which spared nothing save that which the 
 river fed, there was something peculiarly ghastly 
 in the line of flame.
 
 THE DILUKA IN PROGRESS.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK (continued) 
 
 Tj^ASHODA, that forgotten bone of contention, 
 is no more. You may search the map for 
 it in vain, for, in a burst of entente cordiale, it 
 was erased from the map. The riverside town 
 where Kitchener met Major Marchand on a certain 
 memorable occasion is now known as Kodok and 
 is the capital of the Upper Nile Province. We 
 steamed up to it in the grey heat of a February 
 morning, the thermometer registering already 98 
 in the shade ; and, at the first glance, it did not 
 look the kind of place about which rational people 
 could quarrel. A wide, unoccupied area of bare 
 soil, devoid of blade of grass or grace of herb, 
 stretches between the town of tukls and the river. 
 The whole unattractive place is as destitute of 
 vegetation as a barrack square ; the tukls stand 
 in long, dreary, regular rows, and everything visible, 
 
 157
 
 158 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 except the sky, which is leaden with heat, is brown. 
 London has nothing more drab. Brown earth, 
 brown tukls, brown horizon, brown people the 
 latter nearer black if accuracy be observed. The 
 natives here are mostly Shilluks, for the Mek or 
 Melek (King) of the Shilluks lives at a short distance 
 from the town in all his native state. 
 
 These Meks are a long-established dynasty, the 
 present Mek being the twenty-sixth of his line. 
 The succession never passes from father to son, 
 for the Mek is chosen from two royal families 
 alternately, which are related but not identical, 
 and this arrangement does not, as one might 
 expect, provoke great tribal disputes. When the 
 Anglo-Egyptian Government took over the country 
 after the defeat of the Dervishes, the then Mek was 
 sent into captivity at Haifa, as the Shilluks showed 
 a disposition to be troublesome. He was a simple- 
 minded old man who had never travelled far, 
 and Bishop Gwynne told me that when he saw 
 him at Haifa one day, the old pagan conversed 
 with him by means of an interpreter. Apparently, 
 he had been interested in the assiduity with which 
 his companions in adversity Mahdists and 
 Mohammedans said their daily prayers. He said
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 159 
 
 that he thought that in future he would pray five 
 times a day, as they did. The Bishop replied that 
 prayer was an excellent thing, and that Christians 
 usually prayed twice a day. Some time after- 
 wards the Bishop paid another visit to the Mek, 
 who said to him despondently, " I can please 
 nobody about this praying. I shall be like you, 
 and never pray at all." 
 
 Should an aged Mek outlive his full power of 
 body and mind, the " law of the pack/' as Kipling 
 says, ordains that his chief wife shall judicially 
 put an end to his life. The present Mek is already 
 old, and I do not suppose that, even should he 
 attain a still greater age, a similar fate could 
 overtake him under present conditions. The 
 Shilluks have a tendency to regard him as an 
 independent monarch who condescends to help 
 the Government, but this idea is gradually dying 
 out, as the old Mek leaves administration of tribal 
 land more and more in the hands of the inspectors. 
 
 On the high bank, or dyke of the river, a number 
 of Shilluks stood, at their usual magnificent 
 occupation of contemplation ; equipped with 
 shields of crocodile skin, long spears, knives, and 
 scanty clothing. A rag or a string of beads is
 
 160 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 considered an elegant, even a superfluous, costume 
 by a Shilluk. But they are fond of bracelets, and 
 often two-thirds of their arms are covered by 
 countless bands of metal, beads or ivory, in some 
 cases, where the arm has outgrown them, so small 
 that they are sunken into the flesh. These gaunt 
 giants gathered around us at a respectful but 
 curious distance ; and, through the medium of 
 Abdu, I bought some curious pipes from one of 
 them, measuring about eighteen inches in length, 
 made of terracotta and bamboo, and extremely 
 heavy ; also a knobkerry or club, weighing as 
 much as an athlete's dumb-bell, and hewn from a 
 single piece of wood. Such a weapon would easily 
 brain a man at one blow. 
 
 There were shops among the tukls, but the 
 merchants only sold cloth, grain, and the com- 
 modities of necessity, which, however, included 
 tinned fruits and vegetables and beads. Some 
 black, smiling women the women have always 
 more to say than the men questioned us as to 
 our destination, to which we replied, as usual, 
 " Fok ! " (Yonder !) which ambiguous reply satisfied 
 their curiosity. 
 
 Kodok is a big place as these tukl-towns go ;
 
 VIEW IN KODOK (p'ASHODA).
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 161 
 
 but, with a baking sun pouring down its vertical 
 rays upon our heads, we did not feel inclined to 
 explore it for long, and so returned to the ship, 
 passing a little caravan of bulls laden with mer- 
 chandise. It is strange to see these animals taking 
 the place of the camels of the North, but their 
 mild patient countenances give the lie to the 
 fierceness with which bulls are accredited. The 
 baggage bull has the amiability of the mildest 
 Alderney cow ; a little child could guide him, 
 and often does. It is literally true in this corner 
 of the world that the ox lies down with the ass. 
 
 Two hours brought us to Lul ; and here we 
 stopped to enable an Italian passenger to borrow a 
 rifle from the fathers, for it is at this place that 
 the Austrian fathers have established their mission 
 settlement for the benefit of the Shilluks, whom 
 they instruct in various handicrafts of civilisation. 
 I was told that one father, who is a learned man, 
 has acquired more of the Shilluk tongue than any 
 white man living, and has made a collection of 
 Shilluk stories and songs. Apparently he does 
 not join unqualifiedly in the universal praise of the 
 Shilluks, for one hears from some people that they 
 live in an idyllic state of simplicity and innocence 
 11
 
 162 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 and that their morals are as fine as their dress is 
 elementary. On the contrary, he asserts that 
 many of the folk-songs show a lack of moral sense, 
 and that he does not permit the younger fathers 
 to read translations of them. He finds many 
 admirable qualities in the Shilluk, but deprecates 
 their unconquerable hatred of work. The occupa- 
 tions of the Shilluk are the occupations of a gentle- 
 man of leisure hunting and fishing. They leave 
 the cultivation of their durra mainly to their 
 women-folk, also the grinding and baking of the 
 same. The fathers at Lul have gradually per- 
 suaded some of the men to work for them, and I 
 noticed that the Shilluks who stood by the mission 
 landing-stage were more clothed than usual, possibly 
 owing to the representations and influence of the 
 fathers. It is a malaria-ridden place, though the 
 mission garden is green and well-attended ; and 
 the Superior was, at the time of our calling, in bed 
 with an attack of fever. The father who brought 
 a rifle on board was a delicate-looking man, whose 
 health, to judge by his appearance, was none of the 
 best. He was very agreeable and charming, and 
 courteously lent a *577 bore by Holland, and five 
 rounds of ammunition more or less damaged.
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 163 
 
 The remainder of the day was uneventful. We 
 saw a good many crocodiles, also a wild ostrich ; 
 and were visited by one or two serut flies and a few 
 mosquitoes. The poisonousness of the serut fly 
 is somewhat exaggerated. If one be in a good 
 state of health, the bite of a serut fly does no more 
 harm than the sting of a gnat. But it is very 
 voracious and attacks you with great pertinacity. 
 Though it is as large as a wasp, it alights with 
 such feather lightness that it is almost impossible 
 to feel it. The first warning of its presence is a 
 pin-like thrust into your epidermis. As for the 
 mosquitoes, they had hardly made themselves 
 noticeable as yet ; it was possible to sit out in 
 evening dress without covering either neck or 
 arms, and our mosquito boots were not brought 
 into requisition until we were in the midst of the 
 sudd region. 
 
 The evening being therefore both lovely and 
 mosquito-less, we sat talking far into the night. 
 I remember that an Anglo-Egyptian official on 
 board, when asked what was the " tightest corner 
 he had ever been in since he came to the Sudan," 
 told us of an incident which I transcribe here. It 
 happened in the Bahr-el-Ghazal. A certain native
 
 164 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 Sultan, secure as he thought in being fifty-five 
 miles away, had sent insulting messages and letters 
 when told by the Government to come in. It 
 was decided to give him a lesson, and to bring him 
 
 in. So Captain A started with all the forces 
 
 at his command, which consisted of only twenty- 
 eight men, recruited for the most part in the 
 Sultan's own district. He chose a devious route, 
 and arriving at the village which was the Sultan's 
 head-quarters at night, set his twenty-eight men 
 around it, and sent a deputation in to say that he 
 had come to talk to the inhabitants. But they 
 took fright, blew the alarm, and opened fire on 
 the party of ambassadors, who forthwith returned 
 without delivering their message. There was 
 nothing to do but to fight. The Sultan escaped 
 by a subterranean passage early in the combat, 
 but the assaulting party were victorious, losing 
 only one man, whilst many of the villagers were 
 killed. The Government troops entered the village 
 and searched it ; then, remembering that they 
 had left only five men at the Government station 
 and thinking that the Sultan's next move would 
 probably be to attack it, they hurried back without 
 waiting to rest, reaching the station at eleven
 
 2 T,
 
 165 
 
 o'clock the next morning. So, altogether, they 
 had marched more than one hundred and ten miles 
 and had an engagement, all within fifty-nine 
 hours ! 
 
 In listening to these and other tales of the 
 adventure of distant administrators, I was forcibly 
 reminded of what Mr. Putnam Weale wrote of a 
 great Englishman in China, the late Sir Robert 
 Hart : " It would seem as if the Fates had made 
 in the Englishman a man who, though often 
 narrow-minded and insular in his own country, 
 has it in his power to identify himself completely 
 with the interests of foreign countries beyond many 
 seas, and to carry tasks of the most dissimilar 
 nature to a successful conclusion." The Inspector 
 in these outlying provinces has to be a Jack-of -all- 
 trades. 
 
 Civil and military powers are welded in him ; 
 he must be almost entirely dependent upon his 
 own judgment. His authority rests, as in the case 
 I have just related, upon his own personality and 
 his powers of " bluffing." There is no person on 
 earth so easily intimidated by " bluff " as the 
 native. To illustrate this, the following story is 
 apropos. A certain English official found himself
 
 166 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 shut in on a gebel in the Nuba country in Kordofan, 
 surrounded by four hundred hostile tribesmen, who 
 had avowed their intention of killing him. " How 
 did you escape ? " I asked, when he told me the 
 tale. " Oh, by talking ! " he replied. " I asked 
 them what earthly good they would do themselves 
 by killing me. Was it because they disliked me 
 as an individual ? If that were the case, let them 
 kill me quickly, always remembering that there 
 would be a heavy price to pay to the Government. 
 If it were because I was a Government official, I 
 must remind them that if I were killed, another 
 official would be sent in my place, possibly two, 
 and that for each life taken, many would be de- 
 manded. If they imagined that they could rid 
 themselves of the Government by killing its 
 emissaries, they were mightily mistaken. Besides 
 putting the matter to them thus, I appealed to 
 their sense of hospitality and right. ' You are 
 brave men/ I said ; ' do you think it courageous 
 to kill one by four hundred ? If you will, appoint 
 one man and we will fight it out, he and I. I am 
 a stranger and at your mercy ; you are in your 
 country and in great numbers. It is obvious, 
 therefore, that you can do what you like/ ' To
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 167 
 
 his surprise, the tribesmen let him go, and finally 
 established the most friendly relations. It is 
 often observed, with some justice, by captious 
 critics in Egypt, that the " what-a-good-boy- 
 am-I ! " attitude of the high official in the Sudan 
 Government Service is both irritating and hardly 
 justified by actual fact. In Khartoum a perpetual 
 back-patting goes on. Mr. or Major So-and-So 
 is complimented on his energy and devotion ; 
 such-and-such a department is extolled ; and, if 
 one were to judge by this attitude of self -con- 
 gratulation, one would conclude that we the 
 English were philanthropists actuated only by 
 the noble desire to improve the lot of the un- 
 sophisticated Sudanese. 
 
 Now it is obviously ridiculous to talk as if we 
 governed the Sudan for the good of its inhabitants 
 only. The Sudan is not a philanthropic institution 
 administered by paternal young men who are 
 paragons and saints and Ouida heroes all in a 
 breath. Neither is it a country in which the brutal 
 Englishman exploits and kicks the cowed native, 
 as some others would have us believe. It is, 
 frankly, an investment, and we, as business people, 
 are waiting patiently for our percentage, and not
 
 168 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 forcing the country in any way, as the Belgians 
 have done the Congo. It is not a Utopia. The 
 officials are adequately paid, and work for their 
 pay. But the majority of Englishmen in the 
 Sudan are public school and University men, men 
 of both Services, and men of ability. They realise 
 keenly that national prestige lies in the hands of 
 every individual who works in the Sudan, and, 
 as in honour bound, most of them do their best 
 to keep it up. And the lion's share of com- 
 mendation must go to the men who work in 
 the outlying districts and have to depend, as in 
 the two cases I have just narrated, upon their 
 own seven senses, including common-sense and 
 tact. 
 
 
 
 Taufikia was reached at about half -past two the 
 next morning. When I turned out of my cabin 
 a pink dawn was showing behind the dom palms, 
 while a warm, dust-laden wind whistled through 
 them, telling of parched wilderness beyond. Taufi- 
 kia is not a cheerful place. Some Sudanese troops 
 in khaki which matched the ground were being 
 drilled joylessly by an English officer in preparation 
 for the Sirdar's visit, due in a day or two. The
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 169 
 
 hot wind was enough to blow any one into a bad 
 temper. 
 
 We wooded at Khor Atar, having passed the 
 mouth of the Sobat. A number of gaunt, wood-ash- 
 besmeared phantoms sat in phalanxes on the 
 shore, their thin knees up to their chins, their 
 inevitable spears in their hands. The village was 
 a replica of many others, but I noticed in par- 
 ticular a straw-roofed mosque for the use of the 
 Mohammedan contingent from Khartoum. It is 
 this contingent who do the labour or rather the 
 dilatory form of leisure which consists in passing 
 logs along from the shore to the boat ; for the 
 Shilluks and Dinkas scorn to labour, and merely 
 form decorative spectators. So men are sent 
 from Omdurman to each wooding station with 
 their women-folk for this purpose. 
 
 Serut flies began to be numerous, as the banks 
 were thickly wooded, and the bitterns, pelicans, 
 and other hosts of water-birds scarcely troubled 
 to fly as we passed them, so accustomed were they 
 to be undisturbed. Crocodiles abound in the 
 river at this point, and several were shot at, some 
 being wounded, whether mortally or not I cannot 
 say. A green nenuphar floating down-stream was
 
 170 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 pointed out to me. It looks like a little green 
 cabbage and contains, I was told, hundreds of ants, 
 who colonise on these water-plants. This nenu- 
 phar, small as it is, is often the cause of obstruction, 
 as it has long roots, which cling on in a shallow part 
 of the river, forming an embryo island, which is 
 quickly reinforced by small pieces of drifting sudd 
 until a formidable obstacle is the result. A curious 
 little wood beetle found on deck was also brought 
 to me for inspection. This little insect has a 
 square body and a big round head, with which 
 he bores into wood, eating his way through with 
 such a good appetite that he emerges quite four 
 times the size that he went in.
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK (continued) 
 
 "TTTE awoke the next morning to find ourselves 
 Y in the Bahr-el-Zeraf , or Eiver of the Giraffe, 
 off the regular steamboat route at last, and brought 
 up against the bank while the men went off to 
 shoot. It is not a country in which Nature is in 
 a glad or generous mood. Every growing thing is 
 stunted, all vegetation is burnt and coarsened by 
 the pitiless sun. Fires had done their devastating 
 work as well, and the tall grass was charred and 
 blackened, and the trees scorched where the quick 
 bush fires had rushed past them. Here and there 
 a green shoot showed that life was slowly reawaken- 
 ing, and the downy fluff balls of the cassia hung 
 on the low bushes. But the new leaves had been 
 eaten by red-winged locusts, which whirred up 
 heavily in their legions from the skeletons of 
 
 bushes and trees as our footsteps disturbed 
 
 171
 
 172 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 them, with a sound like falling waters. The 
 trunks of the sunt trees, ruddy as if with blood- 
 stains, looked oddly fantastic in this desolation 
 of drab and black ; and the ground was cracked 
 and parched as if this were the shore of a river 
 in Hades. 
 
 The three guns returned with the heads and 
 antlers of one water-buck, one tiang and two 
 white-eared cob beautiful woodland creatures, 
 whose nobility deserved a better fate. It gave 
 one a pang to think of their widowed and soft-eyed 
 does, for the great herds were so unafraid. They 
 lifted their heads with mild surprise, and were 
 slow to take alarm. If they had been shy, we 
 should have had little chance of stalking them, 
 for the noise of our steamer would have sent 
 them fleetly into the long grass and thick under- 
 wood. 
 
 But though big game shooting may appear cruel, 
 especially in the case of gazelle and small antelope, 
 one cannot very well quarrel with the bona-fide 
 sportsman who shoots for sport, takes his risks, 
 and abides by the rules governing that sport, unless 
 from the humanitarian standpoint, namely, that 
 lack of meat should be the only valid excuse for 

 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 173 
 
 killing any animal. Museum collections are en- 
 riched by carefully selected trophies, and the cause 
 of science is served by the rifle. 
 
 Unfortunately, the rules are not always kept. 
 Every year reports come to hand of such and such 
 a tourist who has been firing indiscriminately from 
 the deck of the steamer into a herd of buffalo or 
 elephant on the chance of shooting some dead, 
 without troubling to follow up the wounded 
 animals. Try as he will, Mr. Butler, the super- 
 intendent of the game shooting, cannot stop these 
 offences against the sporting instinct. In the 
 majority of cases these big game hooligans are 
 rich and influential people, and fines do not worry 
 them. They pay up, and boast of " le sport " for 
 the rest of their lives. One of the worst offenders 
 of recent years was a certain titled person who 
 returned to Khartoum with a bag of three elephants 
 (only two being allowed on the licence), of which 
 one was a male with 10-lb. tusks, one a cow, and 
 the third a calf. To my own knowledge another 
 man was let loose with a gun, a licence, and the 
 best intentions, and told some one that he thought 
 he had hit something, as he had seen blood 
 about, but did not know whether his rifle was
 
 174 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 sighted for a hundred or a thousand yards ! On 
 being asked why he had not followed up the 
 wounded antelope, he replied that he objected 
 to the lions ! 
 
 Had our larder been in want, the guinea-fowl 
 which rose in flocks from the scrub as we churned 
 the oily water with our stern wheel would have 
 provided us with plenty. 
 
 We had seen country over which fire was passing 
 in the distance ; we now went through some reaches 
 of the river about which flames leapt on either 
 side at close quarters, crackling, Jiissing, devouring, 
 and sending up thick smoke into the sky. The 
 heat was fervid, the very wind was scorching, and 
 bore sparks towards us. One realised what the 
 Indian fakir suffers who lights fires in a circle 
 around him and sits in the blazing sun. The only 
 living thing we saw in this zone of fires, save the 
 crocodiles which lay like logs half in and half out 
 of the water, was a brightly-coloured bird, which 
 
 Captain A called a firebird. It is so named 
 
 because of its habit of following up these forest 
 fires and feasting on the roasted grubs and other 
 tit-bits in the black ruin. Here and there we came 
 to a reach which the fires had spared, and all the
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 175 
 
 way tall masses of umm suf and papyrus lined the 
 banks, for every mile now brought us nearer the 
 great swamp. At night the fires flickered all round 
 the low horizon, the smell of burnt grass and wood 
 was in our nostrils, and the taste of it on our lips. 
 It was a scene which might have given Dante 
 local colour for his " Inferno." 
 
 The next day I awoke at sunrise and landed 
 
 with Captain A and his shikari on the left 
 
 bank, the other men and their shikaris choosing 
 the right. Where we landed, the bushes were 
 thick with weaver birds' nests, wonderful pieces 
 of bird architecture, consisting of rushes and 
 grasses interwoven together with such skill as to 
 form a beautifully modelled ball, the opening 
 being a small round hole just big enough to allow 
 the little occupants to pass in and out. The tall 
 grass had been burnt in patches, and our clothes, 
 hands and faces, soon looked as though we had 
 rubbed against a sheaf of charcoal pencils. Where 
 the grass was not burnt it was often above our 
 heads, coarsened and bleached by the sun, and 
 here and there beaten down where some great 
 beast had ploughed through it. The only way in 
 which one could obtain a view of the country was
 
 176 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 by climbing on to a tall ant-hill these achieve 
 heights of four and five feet on an average thus 
 rising above the grass. Then we found ourselves 
 again in thick underwood, scarlet with the stems 
 of the mimosa trees and tangled with thorns. The 
 method of going was to creep forward with bent 
 knees, so as to keep below the level of the grass ; 
 but, though we sighted a buck in the distance, we 
 did not arrive within shooting range. He got 
 wind of us and disappeared. Occasionally we came 
 on deep pit-like marks, showing that an elephant 
 had passed this way when the ground was soft 
 from the last rains, and here and there were spoor 
 of hippopotami and giraffe. We returned at 
 ten o'clock, to find that the others had already 
 re-embarked, with the head of one fine water- 
 buck. Moreover, they told us that they had 
 actually sighted giraffe. 
 
 The shikaris took the keenest interest in looking 
 out for game, and their sharp eyes could detect a 
 herd or single animal at a distance at which we 
 were only able to distinguish objects with the aid 
 of strong field-glasses. The little Habbania Arab 
 was always alert, and it was his vanity to be first 
 with the excited cry of " Tetel ! " or Til ! " or
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 177 
 
 whatever he had sighted. He jumped about im- 
 patiently till the guns started, and his face was 
 one beam when they returned successful. Here is 
 a list of the local names of bird and beast which 
 may be useful to some sportsman travelling up- 
 Nile: 
 
 Elephant 
 
 . FU 
 
 Hippopotamus . 
 
 . Grinti, grintia 
 
 Crocodile 
 
 . Timsah 
 
 Lion 
 
 . Asad or Dud 
 
 Lioness . 
 
 . Labwa 
 
 Leopard . 
 
 Nimr 
 
 Monkey . . 
 
 . Niss-Nass 
 
 Baboon 
 
 Girid or tigl (the "r" must be 
 
 
 rolled) 
 
 Buffalo . 
 
 . Gamus 
 
 Pig . . 
 
 . Haluf, khanzir 
 
 Wart-hog. 
 
 . Haluf 
 
 Hyena 
 
 . Marfain, Dabd 
 
 Eland 
 
 Bouggd 
 
 Water- buck 
 
 . Katambiir 
 
 White-eared Cob 
 
 . Hamraia or Ttt 
 
 Tiang 
 
 . T&el 
 
 Kudu 
 
 Nydliit 
 
 Mrs. Gray 
 
 Abu-akk 
 
 Rhinoceros 
 
 Khar tit or Abu girin 
 
 Ostrich 
 
 . Na-aam 
 
 Giraffe . . 
 
 . Zeraf 
 
 Hartebeest 
 
 . T&el 
 
 Roan antelope 
 
 . Abu Urrf 
 
 Gazelle . . 
 
 . Ghazal 
 
 Duck 
 
 . Batt. or Wiz 
 
 12 

 
 178 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 Goose . . . Wiz (plural Wizin) 
 
 Whistling Teal . Batt 
 
 Baleoniceps Bex or 
 
 Shoebill Stork . Abu Markub 
 
 Everything male is dakr, and female, 'ntaia or 
 anas. 
 
 A new type of incident was provided by the 
 court martial on a small boy, who was found to 
 be in possession of a watch-bracelet belonging to 
 some one on board. The theft was discovered while 
 the culprit was bathing, for the bracelet fell out 
 of his belt. He gave the not very plausible ex- 
 planation that he had bought it in Omdurman, 
 but the theft was brought home to him. It was 
 ordained that he should be whacked at the next 
 wooding station, but I do not know if the sentence 
 was ever carried out, though the small black culprit 
 was forced to part with the bracelet and lived in 
 fear for several days. The magpie instinct is 
 always strong in these black urchins, and it is as 
 well not to put temptation in their way. 
 
 Later on in the day, there was a great fall in 
 the temperature. The sudd was gradually closing 
 in around us ; though the river itself was wide, the 
 channel was narrow, and between us and firm
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 179 
 
 ground was a swampy area of reeds. Telegraph 
 wires showed that civilisation, even in this distant 
 spot, was within reach, though the poles lurched 
 tipsily forward in places where giraffes or elephants 
 had scratched themselves against them, or heavy 
 diving eagles had used them for a perch. Whistling 
 teal passed over the boats in long lines, and we 
 sighted again and again large herds of hartebeest, 
 tiang and water-buck. The evening, though we 
 were on the outskirts of the Great Bog, brought us 
 no mosquitoes to speak of, though the buzz and 
 hum of insect life was continuous, and fireflies 
 sped through the air at dusk and sometimes 
 alighted on deck. 
 
 Nor did the next day bring a return of the great 
 heat our maximum record in the shade was 86, 
 which by comparison seemed almost cold. Early 
 in the morning a boat was put off, and one of our 
 party returned after an hour or two, with the 
 heads of two water-buck and one tiang. The horns 
 of the buck measured 28 inches and 29J inches 
 respectively, and the tiang 20J from tip to tip. 
 Our crew continued to give trouble. This time 
 it was the smiling Sudani cook-lady, who had taken 
 it into her many-plaited, well-greased head to fall
 
 180 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 in love with a stoker on our steamer. The men 
 on the nugger for which she cooked refused to 
 allow her to invite her lover on to their boat, 
 no doubt agreeing that the culinary art demands 
 undivided attention. So she had refused to cook 
 for them, and sat nursing an uncooked fish on 
 her bare black knees, sobbing and wiping her eyes 
 with a rag. The men appealed to authority, and 
 she was told sternly that punishment should be 
 her portion if she continued to mutiny, and that 
 if she would not cook, neither should she eat. A 
 morning's sulking and starvation brought her to 
 her senses, and by the afternoon she was showing 
 her beautiful rows of white teeth as before, and, 
 to judge by her manner, bore no one any malice. 
 We were in the heart of the sudd country at last. 
 For miles at a time nothing broke the sea of 
 undulating grasses but an occasional dom palm 
 rising above the swamp, or grey ant-hills so smooth 
 and hard that they often deceived us into thinking 
 that they were the backs of elephant or rhinoceros. 
 The sky was obscured by a malignant mist, the 
 atmosphere damp, heavy and miasmic. We passed 
 one curious village on an arm of dry land. Its 
 naked inhabitants stood on a big, cone-shaped
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 181 
 
 ant-hill to view us as we approached, their spears 
 bristling upwards, and when we were within hail, 
 they called out in welcome and informed us that 
 there was plenty of game. They were probably in 
 need of meat and hoped that we were a shooting 
 party. But we steamed on, the wash from our 
 progress rocking their dug-out canoes (made of 
 hollowed tree trunks), and ambatches or craft 
 constructed of faggots of ambatch. The ambatch 
 tree grows in the water, and is very much thicker 
 at the root than higher up, its stem tapering away 
 abruptly as the lower branches are reached. It 
 seldom reaches a height of more than three or four 
 feet, but is prized for its light, tough wood. It 
 flowers in February, and its blossom is bright 
 yellow and fragrant, resembling a laburnum flower 
 in shape, but growing singly on the hairy thorn- 
 protected stem instead of in a down-drooping 
 cluster. The leaf is pinnate. 
 
 But neither beast nor man had real dominion 
 here, for as I have said, this is the kingdom of the 
 birds. Where there were trees they were white 
 with snowy-plumaged herons and alive with 
 flapping bodies. Water-fowl of all kinds were 
 busy at their fishing, other bright-feathered birds
 
 182 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 brushed the surface of the river in their pursuit of 
 insects, the air was flagellated by hundreds of 
 wings at a time. The calls and screams of the 
 birds were of every note. They seemed to know 
 no fear of us. One small bird with a pink breast 
 and scarlet bill actually flew on board, and after 
 hopping about and investigating things with his 
 bright eyes, he decided to stay. We scattered a 
 few crumbs for him, and the next day he grew so 
 bold that he ventured on to our laps and into our 
 hands. Then, suddenly and fearlessly, he decided 
 he would be a passenger no longer, and, perching 
 an instant on the rail, flew back to the swamp. 
 Once we saw the rare baleoniceps rex, or shoe-bill 
 stork, a big bird with a swollen bill of ridiculous 
 dimensions, standing gravely on an ant-hill above 
 the reeds, looking like a parody of himself. 
 
 And once we passed a dead crocodile lying belly 
 upwards, an ugly sight, his huge body swollen, 
 green and loathsome through decomposition. As 
 night drew on, the miasmic mist thickened, there 
 was the smell of rank and decaying water-plants, 
 the fireflies began their nightly flickering in and out 
 of the forest of reeds, and frogs their evil chanting. 
 Night- jars flitted across the river after flies, and
 
 THE DREDGER AT WORK.
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 183 
 
 the great marsh was full of mysterious sounds, 
 an under-tone made up of a million tiny notes of 
 infinitesimal grades, the voice of the silence, the 
 song of the whispering swamp. 
 
 A sharp bend in the river brought us sudden 
 surprise. A few miles away over the darkened 
 waste, and visible plainly in the vast monotony, 
 was a lighted monster. It was a dredger, and 
 by degrees we got up to the ungainly craft where 
 she lay ready to begin work betimes the next 
 morning, for these dredgers have a hard fight for 
 it with the octopus. In the loneliness of this 
 savage place there was something marvellously 
 friendly in the sight of the lights and the sound of 
 human speech. Her men came eagerly to the 
 side, and an English voice that of the engineer 
 in charge shouted out a greeting as we passed 
 and the information that there were sandbanks 
 ahead. That was all, and then the monster's 
 lights nickered into a mere spark as we steamed 
 slowly on our way. The man who had called out 
 
 to us, Captain A told me, had once saved a 
 
 native from a crocodile at the imminent risk of 
 his own life. The natives respect him deeply, and 
 his nickname amongst them is " Abu el Melek "
 
 184 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 (Father of the King). They soon know how to 
 measure the character of a man ; in these places 
 of desolation little of a man's nature remains hid, 
 for elemental things lie so close to the surface that 
 the emergencies of daily life bring one into direct 
 touch with them. 
 
 That evening, owing to our late difficulties with 
 the crew, the conversation fell on the uses and 
 abuses of the " cat," or Jcurbag as it is called in 
 Arabic. The opinion of the man with longest 
 experience of the Sudan was that the natives usually 
 prefer this punishment to having their pay docked 
 or undergoing imprisonment. They regard a man 
 who cries out under a flogging as a great coward, and 
 are so proud of their powers of endurance that 
 at Sudanese weddings two men will voluntarily 
 flog each other till one gives in, the victor being 
 given the title of akho benat (brother of the 
 girls, or brave man). It is not an uncommon 
 thing to see a Sudani's back badly scarred from 
 such self-imposed beatings. Sudanese of all tribes 
 make a boast of being able to bear pain without 
 flinching. A Sudanese Arab brought into hospital 
 with a diseased leg was told that he must have 
 it cut off. " Hader " (I am ready), he replied.
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 185 
 
 " But," said the doctor, " you will not feel the 
 pain, because we will give you a medicine to send 
 you to sleep, and when you wake the leg will be 
 gone." The patient indignantly refused to take 
 any anaesthetic, and endured the operation without 
 a moan or a shrinking.
 
 CHAPTEE XV 
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK (continued) 
 
 Bang! Crash! We all hastily 
 slipped on dressing-gowns and ran out into 
 the dawn to see what had happened. It was 
 nothing serious in the narrow channel the living- 
 nugger had ground against the steamboat, and, 
 being rotten, part of her side was splintered away. 
 It was repaired by lashing on logs, and the sun 
 got up in his strength over the wilderness of sudd. 
 It was all as flat as a billiard table, and of a bronzy 
 green, miles and miles of whispering reeds bending 
 before each wind like waves of the sea, uninhabited 
 except for the birds and the insects and the slow 
 horrible beasts that live in the slime. The hippo- 
 potamus is the friendliest, and of his kind we saw 
 a big herd, which disappeared like magic as soon 
 as we had shot into their midst. 
 While repairs were in progress we lay to by a 
 
 186
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 187 
 
 number of ambatch trees growing in the water 
 which were full of weavers' nests. I was enabled 
 to get a good photograph of these, which was 
 afterwards sent to the Budapest Museum. Skin- 
 ners were busy upon the roof of the injured nugger, 
 and the odours borne from it were not altogether 
 fragrant, for the meat of the animals being the 
 perquisite of the shikaris, strips of water-buck 
 and tiang had been hung all round the iron netting 
 and on every available space, while in the centre 
 the professional taxidermist cured the skins and 
 skulls with alum, pepper and salt. One would 
 expect decomposition to set in quickly in such 
 heat, but, strangely enough, the meat has no time 
 to go bad ; it is sun-dried in a few hours, and when 
 it has hardened to the consistency of leather, can 
 be put away in a dry place and kept for months. 
 The shikaris doubtless were enabled to earn a 
 comfortable sum of money by disposing of the 
 meat when they returned to Omdurman at the 
 end of the trip, as dried meat commands a good 
 price. 
 
 At lunch time we came upon the second dredger, 
 and as it was daylight we could examine her. She 
 was visjHe a long way off over the flat expanse of
 
 188 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 green, and when the winding river had brought us 
 up to her we stopped alongside. She had the usual 
 complement of engineers three Englishmen 
 and a crew of fifty natives ; and the upper deck 
 was enclosed entirely in mosquito wiring, giving it 
 the appearance of a giant meat-safe. She was 
 working, and was of the type known as the " grab 
 dredger/' that is to say, she carried a huge crane 
 in front, which dropped a carriage, with opening 
 teeth like an enormous mouth, into the sudd. 
 The teeth descended, closed, and when the carriage 
 was lifted aloft once more with its dripping burden, 
 the crane began to swing round, and the mass was 
 deposited on the widening bank of swamp, while 
 muddy water eddied into the space which it had 
 lately occupied. The " grab " lifts about a ton 
 and a half at a time. 
 
 The engineers came to the side to give us a 
 welcome, attired in faultless white duck. Was 
 there ever such a nation as the English ! Men of 
 Latin or German nationalities, living in the solitude 
 of the swamp for months at a time, sweltering 
 in damp heat, and rarely seeing a white face, would 
 have succumbed to carelessness of dress, if not to 
 actual dirt and slovenliness. Yet here were these
 
 
 A VIEW OF THE CELEBRATED "CUT" BETWEEN THE BAHR-EL-ZERAF 
 AND THE BAHR-EL-GEBEL.
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 189 
 
 three exiles, taken unawares, discovered in clean 
 collars ! I commented on the fact to an English- 
 man, who made the reply, " If they began to let 
 those things slide, it would mean letting all self- 
 respect slip. When a man is left alone the pyjama 
 habit is very easy to acquire and very difficult to 
 get rid of." So much psychology enters into the 
 toilet, that I think he was perfectly right. 
 
 They permitted us to buy some coal from them, 
 two coal barges lying at anchor beside them in the 
 river ; and when we had taken in about a ton, we 
 bade them farewell and paddled our winding way 
 through the interminable sea of weeds, more 
 monotonous than any canal country in Holland, 
 more desolate than any veldt, too hot to possess 
 the beauties of blue sky and white clouds, too 
 damp to invigorate ; the very wind fever-stricken 
 and the green a mockery. Nothing but a heat- 
 grey firmament above, and from horizon to horizon 
 as far as the eye could reach waving rushes, and 
 again waving rushes, and again. Nothing, that 
 is to say, but the birds. For they provide the 
 variety ; screaming, chirping, swooping, wading, 
 their activities never cease, even in this wilderness 
 of miasmic sleep.
 
 190 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 Soon after our encounter with the dredger we 
 turned into the famous cut between the Bahr-el- 
 Zeraf and the Bahr-el-Gebel. It has been till now 
 but little used, and we were certainly the first 
 boat carrying white women to go through. The 
 rich grey earth was thrown up into a high bank on 
 either side, but the channel was too narrow to 
 allow all three boats to move abreast ; accordingly, 
 the living-nugger was towed behind. As we 
 neared the Bahr el Gebel we saw a big crocodile 
 on the bank, her green-grey length extended in 
 the sun. There were two reports, and at the 
 second the first had simply waked the great body 
 into lashing energy she kicked her life out and 
 lay still. 
 
 We brought the steamer to a standstill, the 
 baharis got ashore, and, running along the bank, 
 slipped ropes around the carcass and dragged it 
 through the water on to the nugger. Here it was 
 skinned ; and the meat, being cut into strips, 
 joined the rest in the dry ing- ground on the roof 
 of the living-nugger, and very unpleasant and 
 fishy was the smell that was wafted to us from 
 this, as well as from the skin. The best way to 
 skin a crocodile is to open the body at the side,
 
 THE MEAT HUNG OUT TO DRY.
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 191 
 
 as the belly and back form the best pieces of 
 leather for tanning. The crocodiles are thickest 
 near the villages, for they grow very cunning in 
 lying in wait for the children who come to fill their 
 water pots, or the girls at their washing. Once 
 they have seized their victim by a limb or a piece 
 of clothing, they drag him under and drown him 
 first ; then eat him piecemeal. 
 
 The Bahr-el-Gebel is broader and straighter than 
 the Bahr-el-Zeraf, and is lined on either side with 
 dark green papyrus, the feathery heads growing 
 as high as seven, eight or nine feet above the 
 water, and, reflected on the perfect mirror of the 
 oily surface, looked twice that length. Mirrored, 
 too, was the perfect sunset that dyed the river 
 with gold and scarlet, argosies of rose-caught cloud 
 in the serenity of gold-green space. There was 
 no need to look upward, a duplicate heaven lay 
 in the water, unrippled except where we had 
 disturbed it. It was wonderful as a revelation of 
 the magic of atmosphere and time. It is only 
 when such a vast canvas as a swamp or a desert 
 is spread before her that Nature, the artist, is 
 given her full opportunity. Then she makes of 
 these unfavoured wastes living jewels so fair that
 
 192 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 one forgets the unlovely day in the mystery and 
 beauty of its close, and in memory the swamp 
 and the desert draw a man's soul with an odd 
 affection, however he may abuse them when he 
 sojourns upon them. 
 
 Our little Habbania shikari was discovered 
 opening a piece of sackcloth in the twilight, smooth- 
 ing the sand contained therein, dimpling it with 
 his fingers, and gazing intently at it. I'Tow this is 
 a method of fortune-telling * practised by the 
 Arabs from Arabia to Morocco, and accordingly, 
 we bade him come on to the steamer deck to 
 tell fortunes for us. First of all he denied 
 being in possession of any sand, but when 
 pressed admitted being proficient in the art of 
 divination. 
 
 The method is simple. The inquirer first places 
 his hand, palm downward, on the sand, or holds 
 a handful to his heart. The sand is then levelled, 
 and the fortune-teller, using his fingers quickly 
 and at random, moves his hand from right to left, 
 touching it sometimes with two, sometimes with 
 three, sometimes with four fingers. This he does 
 seven times, so that the sand at the end of the 
 
 * Darb-er-Raml.
 
 CUTTING UP THE CROCODILE.
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 193 
 
 performance is dimpled in such a way as the 
 following : 
 
 1st line 
 
 ; 
 
 2nd line :::: 
 
 3rd line { 
 (thus for seven lines). 
 
 He then adds up the evens and odds, putting the 
 result at the left of the lines ; thus the first line 
 made up of three evens and four odds would result 
 in one odd, written by a single finger-point ; the 
 second line of four evens and three odds in an 
 even, expressed by two finger-points, and so on. 
 From these calculations he makes certain deduc- 
 tions, that the inquirer will be fortunate, travel, 
 make money, or continue in good health. I 
 asked him whether his own fortune in the sand 
 had been favourable. He replied No that his 
 inquiry had told him that his bullocks had been 
 taken sick and that his brother was ill. We tried 
 to comfort him by saying that it was probably not 
 true. He replied that when another brother had 
 died, he had seen it in the sand. 
 Night had fallen, and the air, laden with hu- 
 13
 
 194 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 midity and the vapours of the great marsh, was 
 cold and odorous of decaying water- vegetation. 
 We were in the heart of the mosquito country, but 
 these tormentors, protected as we were by veils, 
 gloves and mosquito boots, did not get much 
 satisfaction out of us. 
 
 The next morning found us still moving steadily 
 through the papyrus country. But, soon after 
 breakfast, the colour of the swamp changed 
 abruptly. A devastating grass fire had passed 
 over it, blackened fields of it swayed in the wind, 
 the graceful glory of plumed head and straight 
 green stem had been turned into a mere wisp of 
 fibre at the top of a charred straw. From the 
 funereal waste of burnt papyrus, we came to the 
 burning papyrus. The tall rushes were flaming 
 close to the water's edge, indeed, we were in some 
 concern at the sparks, though we kept in the middle 
 of the channel. It was a wonderful sight, flames 
 and smoke leapt sky-high, and a roaring, crackling 
 sound was emitted as the beautiful green papyrus 
 was licked up. The fire travelled at right angles 
 to the river. We were glad to leave it behind. 
 
 The expanse of reed now became occasionally 
 broken by ant-hills and a low tree here and there.
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 195 
 
 This was elephant country, and once a shikkari 
 raised a cry of " Fil ! " bringing us to an expectant 
 stop for a while ; but it was a false alarm, and in 
 any case it was too marshy to land. There was 
 little current ; the calm water reflected everything 
 on its motionless surface. So perfect was the 
 illusion that the night hawks, shaped like aeroplanes, 
 darting over the river in search of supper, seemed 
 to move in pairs, one above, one below. 
 
 As night came on, we came upon the experimental 
 station belonging to the Suddite Company. It 
 was too dark to see anything, but the big barges 
 upon which the party were encamped showed 
 lights, and the overseer got up from bed and came 
 over to us in a boat. 
 
 We went on shore the next morning to see the 
 sudd-cutting party at work. The papyrus and 
 grasses had already been cut down on the marshy 
 ground immediately by the nugger, and the sun- 
 bleached stubble gave fairly firm walking, though 
 in places the water oozed up above one's boots. 
 To right and left was the forest of high papyrus, 
 and on slightly higher ground in the centre of the 
 clearing was a heap of it drying in the sun, and 
 beside it a hand-worked machine, like a sheep's
 
 196 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 cake-crusher, to chop it up. The papyrus had 
 been cut by hand underneath the water by the 
 heterogeneous set of coloured ruffians who had been 
 brought from Khartoum for the purpose. It was 
 not an inviting spot in which to work, and there 
 was the constant danger of crocodiles and snakes. 
 However, the men were apparently busy enough, 
 and we watched them putting the dried papyrus 
 through the machine. The drying process takes 
 about a fortnight, and after it has been chopped, 
 the sudd is sent up to Khartoum. In the factory 
 there it is disintegrated to what is almost a powder 
 before it is ready to be subjected to the final pro- 
 cesses which are to reduce it into briquettes or 
 paper. We were informed that the cutting is 
 eventually to be done by motors working saws 
 underneath the water, and there is to be a factory 
 on the spot finally selected, instead of in Khartoum. 
 One of these motor saws was shown to us ; it was 
 not, however, working. The place was not without 
 flowers. There was a little group of acacias in 
 full bloom, and the morning glories, pretty slatterns, 
 twined themselves in and out where they could. 
 We went on the larger of the barges tethered to 
 the shore, and were greeted by smiles from the
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 197 
 
 women, some of whom were busying themselves 
 with making a species of porridge with water and 
 durra. This dish should really be made with milk, 
 but the one emaciated and oddly built cow on 
 shore was not apparently capable of producing 
 any. All the women wore their hair in the usual 
 fashion of a shock of tiny plaits. One girl was 
 quite pretty and bare to the waist without suffering 
 from modesty. Their gums and lips were dyed 
 blue, a piece of coquetry which did not enhance 
 the beauty of their appearance in European eyes. 
 A fat brown baby, who rejoiced in many wristlets, 
 anklets and amulets, proved to be a particularly 
 engaging person ; he smiled, played, danced, and 
 pretended to be shy just like any other baby, 
 and his mother was obviously bursting with pride. 
 We did not linger long, but got aboard again, 
 and by 10.30 had entered Lake No. The papyrus 
 here gives way to umm suf again, and the flat 
 wastes on either side were all but treeless. Little 
 brown islands floated on the water, the sky was 
 heavy and grey, and the air damp, hot, and op- 
 pressive. These suddscapes are mostly in tones of 
 silver and bronze ; the colour has been burnt and 
 washed out of them.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK (continued) 
 
 "TTTE were now in the Bahr-el-Ghazal, the River 
 of the Gazelle, that stream of many twists 
 and turns called by the natives " the handwriting 
 of the Englishman/' because of its sinuous course. 
 An Englishman on board had spent many months 
 in this district as inspector, and told me something 
 of the customs and superstitions of the inhabitants. 
 There are no rainmakers in the Bahr-el-Ghazal but, 
 and especially in the western districts, medicine 
 men and fikis, or religious mendicants and teachers, 
 exercise a strong influence over the inhabitants. 
 The fikis write charms against every evil that 
 threatens mankind, such as charms to ensure that 
 one will not be eaten by crocodiles, charms to 
 prevent a wife from being unfaithful, charms 
 to preserve cattle from disease, and so on. So 
 numerous grow these charms, that local sultans 
 
 198
 
 [5. Dunn, Esq. 
 
 THE GRAYE OF A NIAM-NIAM CHIEF IN THE FORESTS OF THE 
 SOUTHERN HAHR-EI.-GHAZAL, NEAR MERIDI.
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 199 
 
 usually engage a special attendant to carry 
 them. 
 
 The medicine men profess to heal by magic, and 
 their methods are impressive. They first build 
 a very thick zariba, or barricade, about a spot, 
 take the patient into it, and keep him there for 
 three days. Then they produce shards and stones, 
 which they pretend to have taken out of the body, 
 and exhibit them to the wondering relatives. 
 Whether the patient eventually dies or not, his 
 credulous friends are satisfied that the best has 
 been done for him. These medicine men are 
 brought into requisition for taking omens, and for 
 trials by ordeal by means of fire, crocodiles, and 
 similar tests. Divination by chickens is also 
 practised by them. 
 
 The dead are buried in different positions, accord- 
 ing to the tribe ; but an almost universal super- 
 stition is to point out a grave with doubled fingers, 
 lest the ghost of the deceased should burn off the 
 finger-tips. The tree of the village is, for some 
 obscure reason, usually considered sacred, and 
 this is why any important councils are held, or 
 oaths administered, beneath its shade. 
 
 Marriage customs, too, depend on the tribe.
 
 200 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 The Bundars (near relatives of the Niam-Niams) 
 marry by exchange, but the English inspectors are 
 doing their best to stop this custom, and tell them 
 that they must obtain a Government permission 
 to marry, or else, if there is subsequent trouble 
 due to a dispute as to dowry, or the wife's running 
 away, the Government will do nothing to help 
 them. Natives are very ready to apply for assist- 
 ance in the case of a runaway wife, so that the 
 prudent bridegroom often travels hundreds of 
 miles to get the proper equivalent of " marriage 
 lines." 
 
 The Ferogeh tribe, in the western district of 
 the Bahr-el-Ghazal, have their head-quarters at 
 Raga, which is also a Government station. This 
 tribe is composed of Moslems, who are said to have 
 come through from Mecca by way of Darfur, 
 conquering as they came. Their Sultan is the 
 most powerful in the district, and the Ferogeh were 
 never enslaved by the Dervishes, although their 
 neighbours, the surrounding Feratit tribes, were 
 constantly raided. Their Mohammedan principles 
 do not prevent them from taking as many wives 
 as they please, and the late Sultan had twenty- 
 five. Moreover, they have some curious customs
 
 [5. Dunn, Esq. 
 
 SULTAN YANGO, OF THE MEKIDI, A CHIEF OF A TRIBE OF ZANDES OR 
 NIAM-NIAMS (BAHR-EL-GHAZAL). 
 
 (Observe the plaited beard, about nine inches long. This was pulled off by an angry wife 
 about a fortnight after the photograph was taken.)
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 201 
 
 which remind one of the practices of the 
 Sabians. 
 
 For instance, in their villages there are five or 
 six tukls in a hosh or enclosure, and on New Year's 
 Day each hosh is beaten furiously with clubs or 
 staves to chase out the devils. When the devils 
 are supposed to be expelled, the whole village clears 
 out its fires, carrying every live ember or spark 
 down to the river, leaving no vestige of fire in 
 any tukl. The fire is thrown into the water, and 
 wood is kindled by rubbing sticks one against 
 another, the virgin fire so created being carried 
 back to the village in triumph. The men and 
 women in two separate bands, men together and 
 women together, then purify themselves by bathing 
 in the river. 
 
 At its junction with Lake No, the Bahr-el-Ghazal 
 is much narrower than the Bahr-el-Zeraf, and 
 game appeared so plentiful that had we stopped 
 for every herd of waterbuck, gazelle or white-eared 
 cob that we saw, we should never have got on at 
 all. But, more wonderful still, was a herd of giraffe 
 which moved literally in hundreds against the 
 sky-line. Even here, in this country of great 
 beasts, the giraffe had an oddly archaic look. It
 
 202 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 was reported that a certain giraffe of snowy 
 whiteness had been seen in the Bahr-el-Ghazal, 
 and a reward was offered for him alive or dead, 
 but we did not come across him. A giraffe is not 
 easy to transport when he is full grown. A certain 
 official of Khartoum had one sent him by some one 
 up river in the spring of 1911. The animal arrived 
 in the custody of two Arabs, who claimed large 
 payment. The unhappy recipient did not know 
 what to do. To send it down to the Cairo Zoo 
 would have cost a small fortune, and meanwhile 
 the giraffe ate him out of house and home with 
 its voracious appetite. I do not know what eventu- 
 ally happened to it perhaps it was killed. The 
 privilege of shooting a giraffe (in addition to a 50 
 licence) costs 20 ; to take him alive out of the 
 Sudan means paying an export tax of 24E. 
 
 Hippos abounded, and we also saw many whale- 
 headed storks, who moved about with an air of 
 antediluvian dignity, secure in the fact that the 
 law of the land forbids sportsmen to shoot at them. 
 We twice came to a halt that the guns might go 
 ashore, and on one occasion, instead of leaving 
 the boats, as the heat was excessive, I stayed to 
 watch our Arab fisherman. This Sphinx-like in-
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 203 
 
 dividual supplied us daily throughout the trip with 
 fresh Nile fish, and never wasted an opportunity. 
 No matter why we had stopped for wooding, or 
 game, or disaster, he went gravely to the end of 
 the nugger, cast out his net, and drew it in after 
 a moment or two with its freight of fish. The net, 
 which was circular and weighted with lead, was 
 thrown forwards by a swing of the left shoulder, 
 spreading as it fell, and when the string was drawn 
 became a trap inside which the captives struggled 
 and flapped as they were dragged on board. Then 
 he squatted to make his selection, hurling the 
 useless fish aside with unconcern as to whether 
 they fell into the water or on to the bank. 
 
 We had our camp beds brought on deck in 
 order to enjoy the coolness of the night, and so 
 few mosquitoes were there that our nets were 
 scarcely needed. The crew slept where they 
 listed, and if any one awoke at midnight, about a 
 dozen mysterious bundles were visible lying here 
 and there on the deck floor, so closely shrouded 
 that they looked like corpses tumbled out of 
 coffins, or huge white chrysalides. Just before 
 dawn the " corpses " came silently to life, and each, 
 as he rubbed his eyes open in the faint light, turned
 
 204 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 his face Meccawards and went through the prostra- 
 tions of the morning Namaz, for the bahari are 
 devout fellows, and precise in their prayers, as 
 becomes good Moslems. Then the chatter began 
 on the nugger and the pleasing smell of coffee 
 arose as the women brewed it in the little earthen- 
 ware pots, and served it out in small handleless 
 cups. Thus their day had begun. Our method 
 of beginning with morning tea, the queue at the 
 bathroom, elaborate dressing in a hot cabin, and 
 plentiful breakfast, was in direct contrast ; for, 
 in spite of our surroundings, with the usual fatuity 
 of the English, we persisted in living at hotel 
 pitch. The excellent Italian chef contrived several 
 courses for each meal ; tinned vegetables were 
 cooked with such skill as to disguise their origin ; 
 and all the luxurious fictions of civilisation were 
 kept up, although the crocodile slept on the bank, 
 the elephant, lion and hippopotamus roamed in 
 the scrub beyond, and a people, so simple that 
 they scorned even the figleaf apron of their fore- 
 father Adam, peered at us from the ant-hills. 
 
 
 
 We came to a stop early, so that the men might 
 shoot before the great heat of the day. Large
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 205 
 
 blue, sweet-scented water lilies floated on the 
 river, and a white-flowering tree grew close to 
 the bank where they landed. For the rest there 
 was the usual tangle of bleached grass varied by 
 miserable trees, and near the water a fringe of the 
 tall dignified papyrus. The two guns brought four 
 fine heads of white-eared cob between them, and 
 reported that the herds were so tame that even 
 after they had been fired upon they did not move 
 away, but lifted surprised heads and mild eyes 
 from their cropping. 
 
 About midday the river became friendlier in 
 appearance, and here and there woods descended 
 to the water's edge. This was succeeded again by 
 papyrus country, broken occasionally by lonely 
 dom palms and calm lagoons like liquid mirrors. 
 In the afternoon we came on a group of some thirty 
 or forty Nuers on the bank. Some of them had 
 crowded on to an ant-hill, so as to get a better 
 view of us ; figures as straight as their spears and 
 almost as lean. We landed for a minute : the 
 ambatches and dug-outs moored to the bank 
 showed that they had paddled down from a village 
 near by. They were wild and unkempt-looking 
 creatures, all armed, some men carrying several
 
 206 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 spears at once ; and they did not look very friendly. 
 A trader, an Arab living at the station above, was 
 with them and acted as our interpreter, for these 
 men could speak nothing but their own dialect. 
 Through this medium we learnt that they had 
 come on a hippo hunt, and when we tried to buy 
 a particularly fine spear, we found that its owner 
 did not understand the use of money, except as 
 metal to be beaten into spear-heads. Why, there- 
 fore, should he accept it in exchange for his spear ? 
 Neither did these Arcadians deign to accept the 
 beads which we tendered instead, beads being the 
 usual currency when money is not understood. 
 They said that they did not wish to part with 
 their spears and that they had no wants except 
 cattle-hides. If we had cattle-skins to dispose 
 of, they could offer durra in exchange. I was 
 surprised at a cattle-owning tribe being in want of 
 skins, but I was told that they never kill their 
 cattle, and only get a skin when an animal dies 
 from natural causes. 
 
 One man, apparently their headman, acted as 
 spokesman through the interpreter, the other 
 gaunt, shock-headed skeletons crowded round and 
 listened, their lower jaws falling open with amaze-
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 207 
 
 mentj and their brows deeply wrinkled as those of 
 monkeys. Clothes, they wore none ; though one 
 or two men had adorned themselves with the skin 
 of a small animal of the size of a stoat. Others 
 boasted a string of beads, others wore nothing but 
 a single bead secured round their waists by a strip 
 of hide-like string. Brass bracelets in fifties at 
 a time seemed to be fashionable, and wooden beads 
 the size of a small walnut. Their coiffures would 
 have won a gasp from the most tousled impresario. 
 Some wore their hair fixed into a harlequin peak 
 or horn stiffened into shape by means of a paste 
 made of clay and cow's dung, which process after 
 a month is supposed to colour the hair red. Others 
 had seemingly passed through this stage, and their 
 heads were an unkempt mop of yellowish red. 
 One man, perhaps just emerged from the harlequin 
 chrysalis, wore one lock in a straight, soaring, 
 brush-like tuft, the rest of his hair being matted 
 closely to his head. 
 
 A few of their women had accompanied them, 
 and these were plumper and comelier than the 
 men. The unmarried girls were stark naked, the 
 matrons covered their hips and breasts with skins. 
 I presented one smiling dame with a bead necklace,
 
 208 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 but the headman came forward and took it out of 
 her hands for himself. I remonstrated with him 
 by means of the interpreter, whereupon he hung 
 it around the woman's neck with a good grace, 
 postponing his intention of annexing it till we 
 were out of sight. 
 
 We steamed on drowsily into the heat of the 
 day, which became sultry. Ninety-eight in the 
 shade is cool when one sits in a house, but in the 
 semi-shelter of a covered deck it was sweltering, 
 even when the canvas wind-awnings were kept 
 soaked with water by diligent natives. We passed 
 herd after herd of gazelle and waterbuck, but 
 did not stop for them, nor trouble to shoot the 
 leisurely hippopotami that raised dripping flat- 
 skulled heads to gaze at us. The crocodiles were 
 fired at, but we did not wait to pick them up 
 the one crocodile skin we already had was trying 
 enough to the nose when the wind blew across 
 from the nugger. 
 
 An hour before sunset every one on the boat 
 awoke into activity and excitement, for a herd of 
 " Mrs. Gray's " cob was seen peacefully grazing 
 close to the bank. The pretty and rare creatures 
 were scarcely alarmed, but the steam escape which
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 209 
 
 whistled inopportunely sent most of them trotting 
 off gently. The rest went on feeding without 
 fear. The ground was very marshy ; such an 
 opportunity was not to be resisted, however, and 
 after exploring the banks in a small boat, Captain 
 
 D and Captain N found a tongue of hard 
 
 ground. They tossed for first shot, and as Captain 
 
 D won, he climbed on to an ant-hill, which lifted 
 
 him above the grass, which stood seven feet high, 
 and taking aim at 320 yards, shot the creature 
 he had selected, a fine buck, stone-dead. We 
 who were watching saw the whole performance, 
 but when the shikaris were sent into the long 
 grass to hunt for the animal's body, it had grown 
 so dusk as to make it a difficult task to find any- 
 thing in the high growth and swampy soil. We 
 directed them as well as we could by pointing the 
 direction from the deck of the ship, but they were 
 only able to see us by leaping upwards or standing 
 upon any ant-hill they might come across. Be- 
 sides, they were often wading waist deep in water, 
 which did not render their task easier. It was our 
 little fortune-telling Arab who eventually found 
 the fallen buck, and raised a joyful shout ; the 
 others then joined him, and by the last rosy light 
 14
 
 210 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 of sunset they bore the carcass over the swamp 
 and on to the boat, the Arabs singing songs of 
 triumph in chanted chorus. We celebrated the 
 death of the Mrs. Gray after our fashion with 
 champagne at dinner, and before long the poor 
 beast was skinned and the rails of the nugger 
 decorated with strips of dripping red meat, after 
 our chef had selected what he wanted. 
 
 Perhaps the smell of fresh blood attracted the 
 mosquitoes, for they came in their legions. The 
 sportsman is limited to one Mrs. Gray. 
 
 " It is a good thing," said one of the three women 
 passengers on board, as she slew three at a blow, 
 " that we are not limited to one mosquito ! "
 
 CHAPTEK XVII 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK (continued) 
 
 T WAS awakened in the night for as usual I 
 slept in the open by a terrific grunting, 
 snorting and splashing, close, as it seemed, to 
 my head. When I rubbed my eyes open I realised 
 that it was caused by a difference of opinion be- 
 tween two hippopotami who were fighting each 
 other in the rushes by the bank. In this part of 
 the river the reis did not venture to travel by 
 night for fear of missing the channel. I would 
 have given a great deal to witness that 
 uncouth combat, but as it was pitchy dark and 
 very hot, I lay still instead and listened. If the 
 hippopotami were the principal performers in a 
 strange duo-concerto, there was a vast orchestra 
 to accompany them. The frogs in this marsh of 
 leagues and furlongs kept up a continual croaking, 
 
 harsh, strident, discordant, as if each frog of many 
 
 211
 
 212 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 millions were striving to produce an individual and 
 assertive note. Above this hovered a thin, faint 
 veil of sound, so continuous as to be almost a 
 silence the hum of the night-flies, the mosquitoes, 
 the sand-flies, and the multitude of insects that 
 live in the miasma and flourish in the rotting 
 vegetation of the Great Bog. Occasionally there 
 were other noises, rustlings as of trodden rushes, 
 the squelching mad$ by some big creature at its 
 watering, the cries of night-birds, mysterious 
 coughs, splutterings, or cracklings, which told us 
 that the sudd was as awake by night as it was by 
 day, and that under cover of the darkness the 
 life of beast, bird, and reptile proceeded as though 
 we had never intruded into their sanctuary. 
 
 At dawn every one was astir while the sky was 
 still petal-pink and dusky, and before seven Captain 
 
 N and Captain A put ashore in the 
 
 dinghy to endeavour to get their Mrs. Gray apiece. 
 
 Captain N killed at once, and his shikari 
 
 was so overjoyed, that he burst into loud shouts 
 of " Taala, Taala ! " (Come, come !) though Captain 
 
 A was stalking the buck he had picked out 
 
 at a small distance away. For this piece of in- 
 discretion the too exuberant shikari was severely
 
 ^1 o 
 
 o S 
 
 2* 
 St 
 
 K
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 213 
 
 reprimanded when he reached the boat, and his 
 comrades promptly made a song about his mis- 
 behaviour which made him abashed for some time 
 
 after. However, Captain A was soon equally 
 
 successful, killing his buck by a shot in the neck, 
 and the animals were dragged on board by the 
 men with rejoicing. The horns of the one measured 
 28 inches long and 19 inches span, and of the other 
 29J inches long and 16 inches span. To have shot 
 three good head of these rare animals within 
 twenty-four hours was considered an achievement. 
 The aspect of the banks now changed rapidly ; 
 they became thickly wooded in fact, so different 
 was it to the barren sudd country we had left 
 behind us, that we might have easily imagined 
 ourselves in the Thames, with fat pasture land 
 running down to the reed-fringed water. Had 
 such an illusion existed, it would soon have been 
 dispelled, for every now and again we came on 
 Nuers, slim gentry daubed with clay and naked 
 save for a bracelet of elephant ivory, standing on 
 the ant-hills which are the conning towers of this 
 district, to watch us pass. We were in need of 
 fuel, and the bahari, when questioned if a wooding 
 station were near, replied with true Sudanese
 
 214 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 vagueness, " Baid shwoya " (A little far). It is 
 almost impossible to get a Sudanese to calculate 
 a distance. 
 
 Euphorbia trees grew plentifully by the river 
 (these trees yield the poison with which the warrior 
 envenoms his arrows) ; and by them grew the 
 tamar hindi or tamarinds, with their vivid green 
 foliage. Sunbirds flashed crimson, teal flew up 
 in whirring flocks, landrails, peewits and long-legged 
 water-birds, disturbed by our churning wheel, rose 
 as we passed or watched us from the banks. The 
 atmosphere was less lethargic ; we had left the 
 region of desolation behind us. 
 
 At one o'clock we steamed past a picturesque 
 village (Ghabat-el-Arab). Its outskirts were com- 
 posed of small huts constructed like mole-hills, 
 of mud with holes on the top through which 
 the householder crawls down into the dwell- 
 ing. There were tukls too, and by the water's 
 edge grew the village tree, in the shade of 
 which many of the inhabitants were seated. The 
 wooding station was below, in the Bahr-el-Arab, 
 so we turned off into that river, and came to a halt 
 by the familiar stacks of logs. There was a crowd 
 of women on the banks, chiefly natives of Omdur-
 
 THE HARLEQUIN COIFFURE OF THE XUER WARRIOR. 
 (The other warrior has dyed his hair red.)
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 215 
 
 man, sent up with their husbands by the Govern- 
 ment, and these squatted on the ground and 
 offered cakes of tamarind, honey, durra bread, eggs, 
 and so on, in exchange for money, meat, and other 
 eatables. One little woman told us that she was 
 a Dinka from a village up-country, and that years 
 ago she had been carried off by slave-raiders and 
 sold in Alexandria. Under our rule she returned 
 to Omdurman, married and came up-river with her 
 husband. She wore a lump of crocodile musk, 
 much prized on account of its perfume, as the 
 central ornament of a necklace. 
 
 Some Nuers, with their usual contempt for work, 
 leant up against the pile of wood and looked on, 
 some with their hair moulded into a horn, others 
 wearing the usual Golliwog tangle. I was told by 
 
 Captain A , who has had a great deal to do 
 
 with this tribe, that the three deep furrows in the 
 forehead which give the braves such an anxious 
 expression, are due to incisions made in the skin, 
 as the wrinkles so formed are considered an adorn- 
 ment. One man wore a rope anklet, this being a 
 sign of mourning for a relative. Another, an aged 
 man who was the headman of the village we had 
 just passed, bore in his hand a stick crooked at
 
 216 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 both ends the kuggur magic stick or wand of 
 authority of his tribe. It was decorated with 
 rings of white metal and brass, and was altogether 
 an impressive object. When I approached him 
 to inspect it, he held up one hand sideways for 
 some time in greeting, the other being engaged 
 with a big knobkerry or bludgeon, and several 
 spears. His wife, naked except for a fringe around 
 her waist, bore his pipe and squatted at his side. 
 His attendants stood like slim black statues, the 
 left foot supported against the right knee, which is 
 the custom of all the riverine people, and gives 
 them a resemblance to water-birds. 
 
 The ceremonial stick to which I have referred 
 is brought into requisition for public fetes, such as 
 a village marriage ; and a wedding was probably 
 the cause of its appearance in this case. It is 
 accredited with magic properties, and represents 
 the luck of the tribe. 
 
 The wooding process had been much enlivened 
 by the antics of one huge black porter, who, ex- 
 cited by merissa, performed a comic dance, to the 
 huge enjoyment of our baharia ; and as we had 
 dispensed largesse in the form of blue beads, we 
 left a very smiling crowd behind us when we
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 217 
 
 steamed away, this time with the current, for we 
 had reached the farthest point of our journey, and 
 now were homeward bent. 
 
 But we stopped for a few moments at Ghabat-el- 
 Arab, tempted by its beauty. It was a cleanly 
 little village, and the straw tukls were well built, 
 many of them being decorated by an ostrich egg 
 placed on the roof. The people seemed friendly 
 and interested ; a crowd of them stood under the 
 sacred tree as we landed, men and women to- 
 gether. The women were for the most part clad 
 only in the string fringe about the loins, but a few 
 of the married women wore goatskins behind em- 
 broidered with cowrie shells and fastened to their 
 waists like an apron worn backwards. A few less 
 coquettish but more sophisticated ladies wore a 
 loin-cloth of blue cotton, and flung a tobe of the 
 same material around themselves at the approach 
 of a stranger. 
 
 One mother, wearing a string fringe or rahat, 
 was crooning to her baby in front of her tukl, a 
 bonny, plump man-child of a month old, its neck 
 hung round with charms. She was pleased to 
 hold it up that we might admire it, for motherhood 
 is the same all the world over, and black babies
 
 218 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 have just the same tricks and instincts as their 
 white cousins. I noticed that a straw palisading 
 divided the village into twisted streets, and that 
 these alleys often ended abruptly in a blank wall 
 or zariba, possibly in order to mislead an attacking 
 
 force. Captain A said that if the local Sultan, 
 
 an old friend of his, had happened to be in the 
 village, he would have had to submit to a spit in 
 the face, as that form of salutation is considered 
 a great honour. The ordinary mode of greeting 
 a friend is to hold up the hand as high as the 
 head, with the five fingers spread, or to embrace 
 his shoulders, clasping each alternately.* Once 
 is not considered enough, the ceremony must be 
 repeated many times before the demands of 
 politeness are satisfied. 
 
 The thermometer had registered 100 in the 
 shade during the day, and at night, so hot was it, 
 that I found it in my heart to envy the hippos 
 which were to be heard gambolling and snorting 
 in the water. 
 
 The next day was equally hot. We sighted 
 
 * " The attitude of respect differs in each of these (Nuer) tribes ; 
 in one it is sitting, in another crouching with bent shoulder, and 
 BO on " (Captain O'Sullivan's Report).
 
 GHABAT-EL-ARAB.
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 219 
 
 some Mrs. Gray during the morning, but as our 
 limit had been reached, there was no object in 
 landing for them. Our real hope was to get 
 elephant. We had been for many days in elephant 
 country, and though we had seen plenty of spoor, 
 and had several false alarms, we had not yet come 
 into direct contact with that monarch of big game. 
 Therefore there was great excitement when one of 
 the shikaris, scanning the brown, scorched tangle 
 of underwood about lunch-time, gave vent to a 
 long thin cry of " Fil ! Fil ! " 
 
 We all came scrambling up the stairs to the top 
 deck armed with field-glasses, and, sure enough, 
 against the horizon in the universal yellowy brown 
 of the scrub some miles away, something was 
 moving faintly visible, something big. It was 
 undoubtedly a herd of elephants. Lots had already 
 been drawn as to which two of the three guns should 
 land, for it is not wise to hunt the wild elephant 
 
 in large parties. Accordingly, Captain A and 
 
 Captain N , being the fortunate ones, started 
 
 at once with their shikaris. Captain N had 
 
 never been on an elephant shoot before, but 
 
 Captain A was an old hand. It is a form of 
 
 sport not unattended by grave danger, so we who
 
 220 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 were on the boat listened attentively for the 
 shots. In the meanwhile I went on shore. The 
 ground was grey and deeply cracked by drought, 
 and the vegetation consisted of low sunt trees, 
 thorns and tall bleached grass, the whole sucked 
 dry and colourless by the sun. Cocoons hung 
 on the low twigs and on the grasses, and there 
 were innumerable spoor of wild beasts. 
 
 After about an hour or an hour and a half we 
 heard five reports in succession. We waited 
 anxiously. Then followed silence for half an 
 hour, then eight shots close together. This we 
 could not altogether understand, and consequently 
 were relieved when after another half-hour had 
 passed one shikari returned with the information 
 that they had come upon the herd, which con- 
 sisted of fifteen animals, and that they had success- 
 fully killed one bull elephant. He had come for 
 more men to help in cutting up the animal. The 
 men started at once, and soon afterwards I followed 
 them with two shikaris as guides. We had to 
 traverse the forest of sunt trees, the deep fissures 
 and stiff blackened grass and tangle of thorns 
 making it difficult going ; besides these obstacles 
 dried elephant footmarks a foot deep were traps
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 221 
 
 to trip the unwary. After a quarter of an hour 
 we plunged into a marsh, thick with coarse rushes, 
 the muddy water surging up to our waists as we 
 ploughed our way through. 
 
 The dead elephant lay in the thicket beyond, 
 and when we had crossed the marsh to terra 
 firma on the other side, and emerged soaking and 
 muddy, our nostrils were assailed by a revolting 
 stench. A few steps further brought us to the 
 spot. The carcass was on its side, and seemed 
 enormous as it lay thus prone and inert. The 
 sides were somewhat fallen in, owing to the removal 
 of much of the inside, and our little Habbania Arab 
 was actually at work inside the horrid cave of the 
 belly, literally covered with blood from head to 
 foot, and very gleeful. The animal was already 
 half -skinned, but I was obliged to withdraw from 
 the sickening sight to a little distance, and started 
 back at sunset over the marsh again. The tusks, 
 or sinoon, had already been hewn off and conveyed 
 to the boat ; and the men that accompanied me 
 back bore away the ears, each the size of an hotel 
 
 doormat. Captain A and Captain N told 
 
 us that they had come across the herd early in the 
 proceedings, and saw them all quietly cropping
 
 222 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 grass with their trunks and stuffing it into their 
 mouths. The attacking party got down wind 
 behind an ant-hill and wounded one bull, the 
 whole herd starting off pell-mell through the wood. 
 A little while later the guns came up with the herd 
 again, sought the shelter of another ant-hill, and 
 fired. They were well down wind, but the wounded 
 animal, infuriated, somehow scented their where- 
 abouts, and charged them at close quarters. 
 
 Captain N said he had rarely experienced a 
 
 more paralysing feeling than that caused by the 
 sight of the huge creature when it thundered right 
 at them with lifted trunk ; but a second well- 
 placed bullet from Captain A 's rifle brought 
 
 him down, and several more finished the work. 
 
 An elephant judges where his enemies are entirely 
 by smell, as his small eyes are very short-sighted, 
 and his trunk twists this way and that as he sniffs 
 
 the air to get wind of the danger. Captain A 
 
 told me that on one occasion an elephant suc- 
 ceeded in getting hold of his shikari, and seizing 
 the unfortunate man in his trunk, battered him 
 to a shapeless mass against the trees. The natives 
 display great prowess in killing elephants ; indeed, 
 a girl will say to her lover, " I will not believe that
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 223 
 
 you are a brave man until you have killed an 
 elephant." One brave gallops backwards and 
 forwards on horseback in front of the animal 
 until it is bewildered, then another darts forward 
 swiftly, hurls his spear at the one vital spot, and 
 kills the elephant. That they can manage to 
 worst such an enormous and dangerous animal 
 with nothing but dexterity and their spears to 
 aid them, and that they contrive to drive their 
 feeble weapons into the thick hide, is little short 
 of a miracle. 
 
 It is strange how, if game has been killed, no 
 matter how deserted and uninhabited the forest 
 has seemed before, some natives will spring up as 
 if from the ground in time to come in for a share 
 of the meat. 
 
 As if by magic, during the afternoon some Nuers 
 had appeared and had watched proceedings from 
 the top of an ant-heap ; likewise a reverend-looking 
 whale-headed stork from another. The Nuers 
 offered to help our men, and accordingly, at about 
 half -past ten, two of them walked out of the scrub 
 to the boats, bearing the elephant's feet on their 
 heads. Their yellow mops of hair, protruding 
 teeth, and black, naked bodies, did not give them
 
 224 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 a very taking appearance, but they were well- 
 disposed, and sat down on the bank to watch us. 
 We offered them a present of beads, but they re- 
 fused them ; probably the beads were out of 
 fashion, for the Arab traders say that the natives 
 will not look at beads which have been the rage 
 only a short while before, so quickly do the modes 
 change. The merchants, therefore, must keep in 
 touch with the vagaries of the season if they wish 
 to sell their goods. Money, too, was refused by 
 the ingenuous pair, but they were delighted with 
 a present of a glass bottle, a coat-button and some 
 brass wire. The button was forthwith made into 
 a pendant. Half an hour later we started again 
 down river, the new meat adding considerably to 
 the odours from the roof of the living-nugger. 
 Strips of black elephant hide were spread out to 
 dry on all sides, the scooped-out feet were set out 
 to be sun-cured the next morning, and every time 
 the wind blew across we were reminded unpleasantly 
 of the smell of slaughter-houses.
 
 CHAPTEK XVIII 
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK (continued) 
 
 rpHERE is always something depressing about 
 a return voyage : a demoralised feeling, an 
 inertia, prevents one from keeping a satisfactory 
 log ; and I cannot find much worthy of record in 
 my notes of our second journey through the sudd, 
 back to Lake No. We were persecuted by serut 
 flies, and killed some white-eared cob, but on the 
 whole lost interest. We reached Khor Attar, 
 where we had wooded on the way up, at about ten 
 o'clock one glaring, flaring forenoon, the tem- 
 perature being already 92 in the shade. The men 
 took off the elephant tusks in order to scrape them 
 on shore amid a group of vaguely attracted 
 Shilluks, undraped as ever, their faces plastered 
 with pink clay, their plumed spears in their hands, 
 one foot drawn up so as to rest on the other knee 
 in their favourite attitude. A little farther on 
 15 225
 
 226 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 there was a little crowd and a certain air of com- 
 motion, and this drew me towards the village, 
 where, in front of one tukl, there was a strange 
 collection of objects. Large white flags, one bear- 
 ing the Star and Crescent, another an inscription 
 from the Koran, and the rest as blank as handker- 
 chiefs, were flapping idly beside the little straw 
 dwelling ; a rebabi or Sudanese fiddle was placed 
 on a chair ; many native drums, pots and pans, 
 gourds, earthen braziers for the burning of incense, 
 and what not, strewed the ground. Finally, two 
 women were squatted beside this assortment of 
 bric-a-brac, cleaning and cutting up two sheep, 
 while yellow pariah dogs, their mien apologetic 
 and wistful, prowled about in hope of catching the 
 scraps of offal which the busy, smiling dames 
 occasionally tossed to them with their blood-stained 
 black fingers. 
 
 When cleaned, the sheep were hung on a hori- 
 zontal bar, ready for roasting. 
 
 On inquiry, I found that these apparently festive 
 preparations were for funeral celebrations that 
 night, a woman having died. A great diluka was to 
 be held that night, and seas of merissa were to be 
 drunk ; the revelries, dancing and drinking to be
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 227 
 
 kept up for three days, it being the custom to 
 celebrate the death of a person in much the same 
 manner as his wedding. 
 
 At half-past twelve we arrived at Taufikia, but 
 did not stop. Blasts of wind, so hot that they 
 seemed to issue from the mouth of a great furnace, 
 reduced us to a state of great irritation. There 
 were troops stolidly drilling, and English officers 
 patiently grilling, and thinking no doubt with 
 fierce anticipation of summer leave. I noticed 
 many crocodiles lying together in sixes and sevens 
 on the bank, dozing in loathly fashion, or slipping 
 into the water at our approach. The crocodile 
 has the same slow furtiveness as the cockroach and 
 other vermin. We dealt out death to a few of 
 them. At four o'clock, as if by miracle, a few 
 drops of rain fell, the shower continuing for five 
 or ten minutes, the first I had seen for several 
 months. It scarcely wetted the decks, but we 
 enjoyed it bareheaded. Shortly afterwards we 
 passed a pretty village called Wau not to be 
 confounded with the larger Wau in the Bahr-el- 
 Ghazal. 
 
 The night was heavy, as if with impending rain, 
 and about eight o'clock the next day there was
 
 228 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 a sharp downfall, which did not, however, freshen 
 the air. The day was damp and grey and English- 
 looking, and the White Nile became transformed 
 into a dingy current flowing dismally through a 
 miserable country. Truly it is only the magic 
 of light and atmosphere that makes the beauty 
 of Africa. Crocodiles and hippos abounded ; they 
 apparently appreciated the change of weather. It 
 was still steamy and hot, as if we were in a forcing- 
 house. 
 
 Soon after we had passed Jebel Ahmed Agha, 
 the wind changed round from south to north, 
 and the river became so rough that we shipped a 
 great deal of water. In order to prevent the nugger 
 from being swamped, we had to turn into the 
 bank and to abandon the idea of progress till the 
 next day. That too, when it dawned, proved to 
 be very windy, and we made but slow headway 
 against it. At Renk wooding station, which is 
 considerably below Renk, we stopped for fuel, and 
 our little Habbania Arab left us to return to his 
 home and children. We gave him presents of 
 money, beads and jewellery, and in consequence 
 he was one beam of delight as he bade us farewell, 
 saying many times, " Mabrouk ! Mabrouk ! "
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 229 
 
 (Good luck ! ). He had certainly proved himself an 
 excellent and enthusiastic shikari, and a chit to 
 that effect joined the collection of precious papers 
 tied up in his turban. 
 
 In the course of a conversation at lunch about 
 the railway to El Obeid, which, as I have men- 
 tioned in an earlier chapter, has brought the 
 
 Government within reach of Darfur, Captain A 
 
 told us that one sheikh is said to have made the 
 remark, " Ali Dinar would be wise to return and 
 take a pension while he can ! " This would seem 
 to show that in native opinion the days of the 
 Darfur Sultanate are numbered since the coming 
 of the railway. 
 
 Ali Dinar, Sultan of Darfur, is a picturesque 
 tyrant whose dominion holds good over territory 
 as big as England ; and many tales are current 
 about him. He has a large standing army, and 
 four thousand cavalry, and so exacting is the state 
 kept up by this dusky monarch that those who 
 approach him must prostrate themselves to the 
 ground and touch the dust with their foreheads 
 on pain of instant death. In cruelty, Ali Dinar 
 outdoes even the Khalifa. A certain merchant 
 sold an English spring mattress to a native Sultan
 
 230 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 in the Bahr-el-Ghazal, and the fame of this article 
 of luxury spread abroad even unto the kingdom of 
 Darfur. Thereupon the merchant received shortly 
 afterwards a letter from Ali Dinar, asking why 
 the bed had not been offered to him, as he could 
 have paid twice the sum. The merchant has- 
 tened to reply that he would himself bring a similar 
 bed to Darfur without delay. Accordingly he 
 set out, but no sooner had he arrived, after many 
 days' toilsome journey, than he was summoned into 
 the presence of Ali Dinar, violently reproached for 
 having given first choice to a negro potentate 
 instead of to an Arab Sultan, and then cut up 
 into several hundred pieces. 
 
 This amiable person has a harem composed of 
 four hundred wives besides other women, and 
 from these he selects twelve to be in special atten- 
 dance every night. These twelve are marshalled 
 into an enclosure in which there are three houses, 
 and four women are placed in each house. For 
 fear of assassination, no one outside the enclosure 
 is allowed to know in which house the Sultan has 
 deigned to pass the night, and none of the four 
 women in the house he so honours is permitted to 
 close an eyelid until the day has dawned and their
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 231 
 
 lord has left the enclosure. Should they do so, 
 the penalty is death. In addition to these pre- 
 cautions, a guard of twenty men is stationed 
 within the enclosure, and an outer guard is on 
 duty to protect him in case he wishes to leave the 
 enclosure during the night. Like the Commander 
 of the Faithful, Ali Dinar has a habit of wandering 
 about at night, and eavesdropping under cover 
 of darkness, so that he may learn what his subjects 
 think of him. If by chance he overhear an ad- 
 verse opinion, woe to that man who has delivered 
 it, for ways of death are many in Darfur. 
 
 In appearance he is a negroid Arab of powerful 
 build ; his eyes are somewhat bloodshot, and he 
 wears a beard. He is the descendant of a long 
 line, his forefathers having been Sultans of Darfur 
 for four hundred years. He is a vain man, and is 
 said to use a European bath, not for purposes of 
 cleanliness, but that once a week it may be rilled 
 with fat, in which he lies up to the neck, so that 
 he may become strong. He is, of course, immensely 
 rich, and pays a yearly tribute to the Anglo- 
 Egyptian Government. 
 
 . . . 
 
 The afternoon had been terribly hot and sunless,
 
 232 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 and the wind, which was strongly against us, was 
 as hot as a living flame. Bush fires roaring up 
 into the sky did not lessen the heat. "It is a 
 wretched country, and not worth keeping/' wrote 
 Gordon in his journal. The late King Leopold is 
 said to have remarked that he would not accept 
 the Sudan if it were served to him on a silver 
 salver. Yet every mile now brought us nearer 
 Khartoum, the seat of the government which has 
 made optimism a watchword. That the Sudan is 
 worth keeping, even at a cost, has been proved. 
 Its wretchedness is being fought inch by inch by 
 resolute Englishmen with but small success, it is 
 true, yet progress is steady, and must tell in the 
 end. But nothing on earth can make it a white 
 man's country. 
 
 We were seated quietly at dinner that evening, 
 when a sudden scrunching and grating sent us all 
 to our feet, and then on to the upper deck to see 
 what had happened. We had struck a rock ! In 
 this part of the river there is only one submerged 
 rock, and that almost a tradition, but we had been 
 unlucky enough to run on to it. Had the river 
 been lower the damage might have been serious, 
 but as it was, no harm was done. As the nuggers
 
 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 233 
 
 were shipping a good deal of water, however, 
 almost drowning the unfortunate donkeys and 
 live-stock, we grounded ourselves, and waited in 
 hope that the wind would go down. The next 
 morning was no better, and after ploughing our 
 way against the gale for a little while, we were 
 forced to put into shore again, close to Jebelein. 
 The men made use of the enforced halt to go ofl 
 and shoot gazelle in the desolate-looking marsh- 
 land, which gave forth a disagreeable stench. 
 
 That night brought us to Kosti, and the next 
 day to El Dueim. Twenty-four hours after we 
 had left Dueim, I was awakened at dawn by the 
 creaking song of the sakya, familiar and monoto- 
 nous, from the bank above. We had completed 
 our journey, and were once more in Khartoum, 
 once more back in civilisation. 
 
 The hot season exodus had already begun, some 
 going home to Europe, others to the Lebanon in 
 Syria or to Cyprus, where many Anglo-Egyptians 
 find health and cool breezes in the summer camps 
 on high places ; others, less fortunate, to the hill 
 stations of Erkowit or Sinkat in the Sudan itself. 
 For the Sudan has summer resorts (the expression 
 must be used comparatively), these being situated
 
 234 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 in the hills which command the Red Sea coast. 
 They are reached by the Port Sudan railway, and 
 of the two, though more inaccessible owing to the 
 fact that it is distant from the railway station 
 by some hours of camel or tonga, Erkowit is the 
 pleasanter. The Governor-General has a house 
 there, bungalows have been built and are to be 
 hired for the summer at low rates, there is a small 
 golf course, and shrubs and trees break the sandy 
 monotony of the hills. And, of course, there is a 
 view many views of the sun-dried hills and 
 valleys in air as clear and rare as ether, for Erkowit 
 is 3,800 feet above the sea-level. In the neighbour- 
 hood there is shooting gazelle, ibex, wart-hog, 
 and so on. 
 
 A few, for all cannot go on leave at once, remain 
 to sweat away the hot months at their ordinary 
 posts, in a temperature which rises to 115 and 116 
 in the shade during the daytime and remains 
 stifling through the night. In the dog-days of 
 Khartoum that company of white men is small 
 and quiet, for the white women have gone to 
 other climes, the visitors have long since fled, and 
 the heat does not leave one much energy for small 
 talk or games. It is only when the North wind
 
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 TO THE SUDD AND BACK 235 
 
 begins to blow that the heavy oppression of damp 
 heat is lifted ; for the South wind brings with it 
 the moist vapours and intolerable heat of Central 
 Africa ; it bears on its wings the miasma from the 
 great Sudd region, and the fevers which breed in 
 it. There the rains have begun, the sullen tropical 
 rains that wash the soul of any white man who 
 may be forced to linger in the country ; the 
 steaming, soaking, pitiless rains of the tropics, 
 which smite the earth as with living swords.
 
 SOMETHING ABOUT THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE 
 
 " FOK " 
 
 T HAVE said in a former chapter that I would 
 later on discuss the Dinkas by themselves, 
 and this seems the proper chapter for such a dis- 
 cussion. The principal Dinka tribes are the 
 Abialang Dinkas, inhabiting the eastern side of 
 the Nile from Karshawal to Melut, their territory 
 embracing Niel ; the Eueng Dinkas, who have their 
 home in the Sudd district about Tonga, Khor Atar 
 and Lake No ; the Gnok Dinkas in a small territory 
 from Taunkia to Abwong, near the Anuak country ; 
 the Shish or Honey Dinkas on the western bank 
 of the Bhar-el-Gebel between Shambe and Bor ; 
 and the Twi Dinkas, who are settled in a wide 
 district extending roughly some hundred and 
 twenty miles north of Bor on the east bank of the 
 Bahr-el-Gebel. 
 Of these the Northern Dinkas are beginning 
 
 236
 
 PEOPLE WHO LIVE " FOK " 237 
 
 gradually to lose their primitive simplicity, their 
 unsophisticated manners and their strictness to- 
 wards the moral observances. For in the eyes of 
 the Southern Dinka, to wrong a man's honour in 
 the person of his wife is a crime deserving of death, 
 while such an offender, in the North, will get off 
 with a bribe of cattle. In neither case is the woman 
 punished. In short, many of their laws, based 
 upon the most fundamental principles of property- 
 protection and tribal growth, would serve as 
 models for the code of an ideal State managed by 
 eugenists. No tolerance is shown, the eye and 
 the tooth are rigorously exacted, but however 
 extreme the penalties may seem to us, it is im- 
 possible to deny the soundness of the bases upon 
 which their code has been raised. 
 
 Religion does not enter into their laws as a 
 deciding factor. Common sense and the inherited 
 instinct of healthy development do. The Dinkas 
 wear but little clothing, modesty and shame 
 would be words incomprehensible as applied to 
 consciousness of the body ; yet the morality of a 
 Dinka village would put the morality of any 
 country village in rural England to the blush. 
 And this is not due to any vague and ill-defined
 
 238 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 ethical sense ; it is due to the fact that hard 
 experience has taught them that human life is 
 wealth, just as, in a lesser degree, cattle are wealth ; 
 that woman is a valued property ; and that an 
 offence against a woman is an offence against the 
 race. The tribe which possessed healthy children 
 would later possess able warriors, and the tribe 
 which protected its women would have those 
 children. 
 
 Their religion is simple. They are Theists, in 
 fact they have the same root idea of Theism as the 
 Chinese. There is a Supreme Spirit, they say, 
 called Dengdit, who rules all things both in heaven 
 and earth, and is accredited with beneficence and 
 benevolence. According to the tales and legends 
 collected by the British missionaries at Bor, the 
 first man and woman, the Adam and Eve of Dinka 
 tradition, were called Gurungdit and Abungdit. 
 In time, Abungdit, during her husband's absence, 
 gave birth to twin boys. One baby was very 
 beautiful, his skin being black, soft and glossy ; 
 the other was as red as raw meat or as the English ; 
 in fact, Abungdit thought him not to be compared 
 in any way to her black offspring. So she decided 
 to keep the black baby for herself ; and on her
 
 PEOPLE WHO LIVE " FOK " 239 
 
 husband's return, gave him the red-skinned child ; 
 concealing his brother in her hut, and not telling 
 any one of his existence. 
 
 Abungdit presented the red child to Dengdit, 
 who, to quote directly from the tale, 
 
 " started him in life with many good possessions, 
 cattle, guns and many kinds of splendid food and 
 clothing. At last the little black child began 
 to ask his mother for gifts, but she could give him 
 nothing but a spear. Seeing that he could get 
 nothing more from his mother, he decided to go 
 and ask his father Gurungdit for good things like 
 those of his brother. So he journeyed to hia 
 father's hut. 
 
 " But when Gurungdit saw the black child and 
 found that he had been thus deceived, he was very 
 wroth, and refused to listen to the request. ' Then/ 
 said the child, ' I will sit here at the door till you 
 grant me what I ask/ So every night, when 
 Gurungdit went to bed, there sat the little black 
 child still. At last, wearied by his importunity, 
 Gurungdit gave him one little cow-calf. And 
 that is why the Dinkas have only cattle and spears, 
 while the English have guns and clothes, many 
 kinds of food, and in fact all the good things of 
 life." 
 
 These stories are so interesting, that I am
 
 240 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 tempted to quote more of them. They are usually 
 regarded as secret by the Dinkas, and one old man 
 in the tribe is appointed to hand on the tales to the 
 youths of the rising generation. Arabic-speaking 
 Dinkas rarely relate any of the genuine legends, 
 but if asked to do so, often invent a story for their 
 hearers. But the missionaries occasionally glean 
 them from Dinka boys, who, as Bishop Gwynne 
 writes, " will sometimes stop in the middle suddenly 
 as if they remembered that they were speaking 
 forbidden words." 
 
 I reprint those which were given by the mis- 
 sionaries to Bishop Gwynne, in the hope that they 
 will collect more of this valuable material, so 
 important to those who will in the future study the 
 folk-lore of Central Africa. 
 
 " Long, long ago there was no fire. When the 
 Dinkas caught fish they cut them in pieces and 
 placed them in pots in the sun. When the heat 
 caused the fat to melt, they would drink the 
 liquid fat and eat the flesh raw. One day the 
 Dog was hunting far away in the forest. A great 
 storm began, and he was soon wet and shivering 
 with the cold. So he crept into a hole for shelter. 
 And this hole was by chance the home of the Snake, 
 and in it was a fire. The Dog liked the warmth
 
 PEOPLE WHO LIVE "FOK" 241 
 
 and crept backwards gradually towards the fire. 
 * Nephew/ said the Snake, for the Snake is uncle 
 to the Dog, ' you will burn yourself/ ' Uncle/ 
 replied the Dog, ' Very good/ So he crept farther 
 back, until at last his tail caught fire. So he was 
 terrified and sprang from the hole, and as he fled 
 through the forest the grass and bushes burst 
 into flame. The Dinkas then saw a red glow on 
 the horizon, and went out with broken potsherds 
 and gathered the still glowing charcoal and carried 
 it back to the villages. And now, when a man is 
 angry with his dog and would beat him, one 
 standing by will say, ' Don't beat the dog. Did 
 not the Dog bring the fire, and the fire give you 
 good foo* ? ' 
 
 Another resembles our nursery rhyme, " Hey- 
 diddle-diddle." 
 
 " The first cow of all fell down from Heaven and, 
 falling head foremost, struck the earth with its 
 face, breaking its front teeth. And that is why a 
 cow has only one row of teeth in front. A dog 
 stood by and, seeing the cow thus fall upon its 
 face and break its teeth, laughed so heartily that 
 to this day his mouth stretches back through his 
 cheeks to his ears." 
 
 THE HAWK AND THE ROPE 
 
 " In the far back ages there was once a rope 
 16
 
 242 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 suspended between Heaven and Earth. Up this 
 rope men would pass to Heaven, and down it the 
 Angels would descend to Earth. So there was 
 constant communication between Heaven and 
 Earth, and men knew and talked with God. But 
 one fateful day the Hawk, an evil bird, passed 
 through the air and bit the rope through with its 
 beak. And since that day there has been no 
 communication betwixt Heaven and Earth, and 
 now men know not God, nor what goes on in 
 Heaven, nor how they may win an entrance." 
 
 " THE VULTURE AND THE ATOIT 
 
 " Once upon a time a man asked the question, 
 ' What happens to a man when he dies ? ' A 
 Vulture overheard the question, and taking a 
 porridge-stirrer (a stick fitted into the section of 
 a backbone), he dropped it into the river. The 
 porridge-stirrer disappeared beneath the surface, 
 but later on, because of the buoyancy of the wood, 
 it rose to sight again. ' That/ said the Vulture, 
 ' is what happens to man. First he passes out of 
 sight, and afterwards he rises again.' But the 
 Atoit, a little bird with a pale blue breast and 
 head, and a crimson spot over either ear, con- 
 tradicted the Vulture. He took a piece of broken 
 potsherd and dropped this into the river. It 
 plunged beneath the surface and, sinking to the
 
 PEOPLE WHO LIVE " FOK " 243 
 
 bottom, stayed there. ' That/ said the Atoit, 
 ' is what happens to man when he dies/ So the 
 Dinkas hate the little bird that gave them no hope, 
 but they love the Vulture that tried to tell them 
 of a better fate." 
 
 And Captain O'Sullivan, formerly Governor of 
 the Upper Nile Province, tells the following story 
 collected from a Dinka : 
 
 " In the days of the great Sheikh Aiwel, the big 
 chief, when we were a powerful tribe, a discussion 
 arose as to where the Sun went at night and left 
 the world cold. Aiwel was a great man and 
 inspired ; he was born of an old woman who had 
 never had children and was beyond the age of 
 child-bearing, and his father was the " waters of 
 the great river (the Nile)." And Aiwel said, ' Why 
 do you talk so much of it ? it is only necessary 
 to go and see. Direct a party to follow it on its 
 course each day, and one day they will find its 
 place of rest/ So some of the young men were 
 appointed to find out, and they went, and were 
 absent for very many moons, for they could not 
 return without the knowledge for fear of the anger 
 of Aiwel and the laughter of their sisters ; but 
 one day a few old men came into the Dinka country, 
 and asked for their relations, some of whom were 
 dead ; these proved to be the survivors of the
 
 244 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 young men who had followed the Sun ; and they 
 told the people of their journey, and how they 
 had followed until those left alive came to the 
 end of the land, ' where there was very great water 
 which was salt, and each night they saw the Sun 
 sink into this water far off, and so it was cooled 
 like a hot spear-blade which is dipped into the 
 river, and so we have come back to tell our chief 
 Aiwel/ " 
 
 Like all primitive peoples, the Dinkas are 
 extremely superstitious and credulous. In common 
 with most of the tribes of the Southern provinces, 
 they believe firmly in rain-makers namely, that 
 a magic power is embodied in some people which 
 enables them to induce, or withhold, a rainfall. 
 The power is said to pass from father to son, and 
 a long drought is unhealthy for a man of rain- 
 making blood, for he may be accused of wilfully 
 withholding rain, and may be killed in order that 
 it may fall. This frequently happens, and the 
 murder is not looked upon as a crime, but as a 
 necessary step for the common weal. The rain- 
 makers finish by believing in themselves. In an 
 official report Captain Owen, now Governor of 
 Mongalla Province, tells an anecdote of his own
 
 PEOPLE WHO LIVE " FOK " 245 
 
 dealing with a rain-making sheikh in the Uganda 
 Protectorate (not a Dinka, of course). 
 
 ' When I was serving in the Uganda Protectorate 
 at Gondokoro in 1900 a deputation of Sheikhs 
 visited me and asked me to imprison Sheikh Leju . . . 
 on account of his having held up the rain. Leju 
 lived in the hills, had had plenty of rain, and his 
 crops were three feet high, whereas the Baris in 
 the plains had very poor crops. It so happened 
 that Leju came in to see me a few hours after the 
 other Sheikhs had left. I informed him of what 
 had happened, and told him he was an old ' fool ' 
 to pretend he could bring or stop the rain. He 
 declared he had the power, and to prove it said 
 rain would come that afternoon, and so it did, 
 a very heavy downpour commencing about four 
 o'clock, and lasting some two hours." 
 
 The crops in the Dinka districts are entirely rain 
 crops, indeed it is looked upon as somewhat impious 
 to irrigate by means of shaduf, so that it is a very 
 serious matter if the wet weather delays. Con- 
 sequently, when people displease them and the 
 rain-makers threaten to withhold rain, great con- 
 sternation is aroused. The whole thing is a mixture 
 of bluff, fear and lies, and so is much of their 
 supposed magic. For instance, one night, the
 
 246 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 headman of one village goes into another with 
 which his people are at enmity or because 
 he wishes to wreak a private grudge upon a 
 villager ; and ties a frog by one leg to a stick. 
 The villagers find it in the morning, are much 
 dismayed, and at once surmise who the offender is. 
 Wiseacres recommend a counteracting charm ; 
 accordingly the headman of the first village may 
 discover a morning afterwards a headless snake 
 secured to a stake within his JiosTi. Hs is afraid, 
 and so the game goes on. The spell-makers who 
 advise these childish pieces of ritual magic end, 
 like the rain-makers, in themselves believing what 
 they impose on others. 
 
 It is certain, however, that their " witch- 
 doctors " do support their claims to extra-Dinka 
 wisdom in curious ways. Just before Halley's 
 Comet was due to appear, a Dinka witch-doctor 
 named Wai, in the Aliab district, prophesied that 
 six days after the new moon, fire or a fiery spear 
 would come down from Heaven and destroy those 
 guilty of having shed man's blood. Hence he 
 went about preaching peace and urging men to 
 friendliness with one another. He attained such 
 fame on account of his mission, that Dinkas from
 
 PEOPLE WHO LIVE " FOK " 247 
 
 far and wide came to visit him. He gave out that 
 he was possessed of the Supreme Spirit, Dengdit, 
 never left his hut while the sun was up, and insisted 
 that visitors should walk three times round his 
 two huts the same way as the sun, before they 
 were permitted to sit down and converse with 
 him. He was supposed, of course, to possess 
 miraculous powers. When seen by an English 
 official, he appeared very friendly, and accepted a 
 gift of tobacco. This same comet, when it ap- 
 peared, very nearly produced trouble in another 
 province, Sennar, as, contrary to Wai's view of 
 its mission, the Arabs of that district regarded it 
 as a call to arms in the cause of Mahdiism, for, 
 according to tradition, most events of importance 
 have been heralded by comets. The Government 
 was obliged to act quickly in order to prevent a 
 serious uprising. 
 
 In each Dinka village there is a sacred palm tree, 
 and woe betide any one who touches it or plucks 
 a leaf from it. Not even the most aged men, how- 
 ever, can tell why the palm tree is reverenced. 
 
 I have spoken of the Dinka code of laws, but 
 this is somewhat misleading, as of course, none of 
 their laws are written, and, moreover, they are
 
 248 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 modified according to the special exigencies of 
 each tribe or village. The administration is left 
 entirely in the hands of the old men age being 
 highly respected by the Dinkas. 
 
 The Sheikh of a village is, in consequence, a 
 constitutional ruler that is, though in war he 
 leads the warriors, in questions of government 
 or justice he must defer to the advice of the old 
 men on his council. The heads of families submit 
 important family disputes to this council for 
 settlement, and must conform to its decision 
 even though it be adverse to their own in- 
 terest. 
 
 I have said that in cases of moral delinquency, 
 the guilty woman, being regarded merely as a 
 piece of property whose value has been feloniously 
 depreciated, is not punished, even though she 
 have acted as temptress. The man is, in every 
 case, looked upon as responsible and punishable. 
 Similarly, no woman can possess property, as she 
 is herself but a possession. Captain O'Sullivan 
 gives a list of a male Dinka's property as follows : 
 his wives, his unmarried sons, his unmarried 
 daughters, the children of unmarried daughters, 
 daughters whose marriage has been " broken,"
 
 PEOPLE WHO LIVE " FOK " 249 
 
 the children of such daughters, slaves, children of 
 slaves, cattle, corn, and all property earned by 
 people who are his property. 
 
 There are many somewhat curious features of 
 Dinka justice. A man who causes the death of 
 another of the same district, whether he kill him 
 by accident or malice prepense, has to pay a 
 death fine of so many head of cattle the amount 
 varying according to the locality. The ordinary 
 death fine is from twenty to thirty head of cattle 
 in case of accident, or in a case of premeditated 
 murder a blood feud sometimes ensues if the 
 council of elders is unable to arrange a payment 
 of cattle. The blood feud is rarely long pro- 
 tracted, the offender or his family pay the fine, 
 and peace is again observed. 
 
 If a girl or woman be killed, the fine imposed is 
 eight (or less) head of cattle if the man who killed her 
 be not her owner ; and if he be her lawful owner, 
 nothing is said, as the loss is looked upon as his. 
 But in fact, in the case of a girl being murdered, 
 her kinsmen often retaliate, or demand as many 
 cattle as would have been asked for her marriage 
 settlement ; and sometimes the matter is settled 
 by the gift of another girl to the injured family,
 
 250 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 any cattle due for her marriage payment coming 
 in to them instead of to her own people. 
 
 In contradistinction to the comparative leniency 
 of the laws against killing, crimes against women 
 are very severely punished, more especially by the 
 Southern tribes, seduction and similar offences 
 being visited by death. 
 
 Theft is rare, but cattle-lifting between tribe 
 and tribe is looked upon as a legitimate sport, and 
 no more a breach of honest conduct than similar 
 raiding by the Borderers in Scotland not so very 
 long ago. 
 
 Marriage between relatives is forbidden, and 
 any union in the forbidden degree is most strin- 
 gently punished, the forbidden degree being blood 
 relationship of any traceable kind whatever, no 
 matter how distant the cousinship, on either 
 father's or mother's side. But it is difficult to 
 understand how the rule can be adhered to strictly 
 in a tribal community. Should an unmarried girl 
 bear a child by a man coming within the prohibited 
 degree, however remotely, they are not allowed 
 to marry, and the child becomes the property of 
 the mother's father or guardian. Should she 
 eventually marry some one else, the child becomes
 
 PEOPLE WHO LIVE " FOK " 251 
 
 the property of her husband, who pays a few more 
 cattle than would be her marriage payment in 
 the ordinary way, for having the child thrown 
 into the bargain. Illegitimate children, in fact, 
 always become the property of the mother's father 
 or guardian, and are regarded rather as an asset 
 than as a drawback by a subsequent suitor, as 
 they are handed over to him with their mother 
 when he marries her, becoming his children by 
 adoption ; and he gladly adds more head of cattle 
 to his payment for that privilege. In short, up 
 to a certain age the mother of a child, whether 
 legitimate or illegitimate, is worth more cattle 
 than a childless woman or virgin. 
 
 The whole thing is perfectly logical when viewed 
 from the standpoint that women and children are 
 property just as cattle are property, the only 
 difference being that the former are property of 
 a more valuable description. It should be added, 
 however, lest the outsider should think that women 
 are treated as mere chattels, that no girl need marry 
 a man against her will. 
 
 I could wish that I had more space to devote to 
 these interesting tribal laws, but from this brief 
 survey it will easily be understood that English
 
 252 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 inspectors who attempt to interfere in tribal 
 disputes must walk warily and take every tra- 
 dition into consideration, for the root idea at the 
 bottom of Dinka justice is totally different from 
 that upon which our code is founded, owing to 
 intrinsically alien conceptions of what is property. 
 I cannot leave the subject, however, without 
 referring to the laws of atonement, so oddly remi- 
 niscent, as Captain 'Sullivan observes, of the 
 practices of the Israelites (even now in vogue in 
 Tunis), to which some Dinka customs, such as the 
 laws regarding widows (see Deut. xxv. 5 and 6), 
 bear close resemblance. In order to enforce their 
 authority at some remote period, the elders of the 
 tribe must have had recourse to this device for 
 punishing crime. They persuaded the people that 
 the wrath of the Divine Being, Dengdit, was caused 
 by certain breaches of tribal law, such as a marriage 
 between relatives, so they ordered sacrifices of a 
 bull, cow or cattle, according to the gravity of the 
 offence, which were solemnly killed to appease the 
 offended Deity, at the same time a gift of cattle 
 being made to the family injured by the culprit ; 
 in the case of a marriage between relatives the 
 family injured would be that of the girl. Should
 
 PEOPLE WHO LIVE " FOK " 253 
 
 any disaster befall the culprit or his family after this 
 sacrifice had been made, it was held that the sacri- 
 fice was not sufficient, and other animals were killed. 
 
 Dinkas, like Shilluks, pay tribute in the form of 
 cattle or durra ; and in the more northerly dis- 
 tricts, such as Renk, are gradually growing accus- 
 tomed to the novel idea that if they are too poor 
 to own cattle and wives like their more fortunate 
 brethren, they may be enabled to earn some by 
 working for pay. 
 
 The Shilluks, too, are beginning to realise the 
 value of paid labour, and in the North are learning 
 to abandon their lordly idleness in order to improve 
 their condition. That is, improve it from the white 
 man's standpoint, for the morals and manners of 
 the negroid tribes do not improve when their 
 standard of living becomes more complex, and 
 contact with Arabs and whites certainly has a 
 deteriorating effect upon them in many ways. 
 The stern morality of their primitive state becomes 
 lax, they assume vices which were unknown to 
 them in their savage condition, and the civilisation 
 which teaches them to wear clothes and to use 
 money teaches them also much which will sap 
 gradually their vitality and self-respect.
 
 254 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 The Shilluk is, undoubtedly, of a higher racial 
 development than the Dinka. He is still loyal to 
 his Mek or King (see Chapter XIII), and regards 
 the Government as an interloper ; and, though 
 the Mek himself always bears out Government 
 authority, is inclined to assume a haughty attitude 
 towards foreigners. No Shilluk woman will marry 
 willingly an Arab, or Turk as he is known among 
 the tribes. Among the Shilluks, women occupy a 
 very high position ; certain religious ceremonies are 
 in their hands. As with the Dinkas, offences 
 against the honour of women are punished with the 
 utmost severity ; the extreme penalty is, however, 
 being gradually exchanged for forfeiture of pro- 
 perty in districts where Government influence is 
 paramount. A Dinka man wishing to espouse 
 a Shilluk maiden must pay more for her than he 
 would for a Dinka bride. Perhaps the reason why 
 the Shilluk considers himself superior is that he 
 is more courageous, for the Dinka, with all his 
 virtues, is somewhat of a coward. Besides, the 
 Shilluk woman, unlike the Dinka woman, is the 
 dictator in her household, and a case of wife-beating 
 is rare in a Shilluk village. 
 
 Of all the tribute-paying peoples " fok," the least
 
 IN" A SH1LLUK VILLAGE.
 
 PEOPLE WHO LIVE " FOK " 255 
 
 amenable is the Nuer nation. These gaunt, ash- 
 plastered phantoms who peered at us from their 
 ant-hills in the Sudd country are amphibious 
 creatures and often live where no white man can 
 follow them. Their Sheikhs, who are for the most 
 part aged men, may listen politely to the in- 
 spectors and promise to pay tribute, but the young 
 bloods, who have their own views on the subject, 
 drive off their cattle into the heart of the swamps 
 where no human being save those of their own 
 tribe can penetrate. Generations of swamp- 
 dwelling have taught them to pass lightly and pick 
 their way through morasses, in which the un- 
 accustomed plunge up to their necks in slime and 
 water. For some time they made their boast that 
 they were able to do without the Government, that 
 tribute-paying was only for Shilluks and Dinkas, 
 and not for them. Their kuguars would produce 
 and shake their spears at the Inspector, sometimes 
 spears would be thrown at him, and it was only by 
 using extreme tact and exerting great patience that 
 he and his small escort of police were able to go 
 into the Nuer country without a loss of face. 
 But some chiefs became so truculent that Govern- 
 ment has been obliged to send strong administra-
 
 256 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 tive patrols into the Nuer districts, and even 
 these cannot penetrate into the swampiest parts, 
 such as the sudd country between the Bahr-el- 
 Zeraf and the Bahr-el-Gebel, so that the Nuers who 
 inhabit them are discreetly treated as negligible 
 quantities. 
 
 It may be asked what right has Government to 
 interfere with these primitive tribes. The answer 
 of the official is that, as we profess to protect them 
 from slave and c&ctle raiding, settle inter-tribal 
 disputes, prevent acts of aggression by tribute- 
 paying tribes, and generally shield them from 
 disaster, we naturally expect some kind of return. 
 For the tribes are always squabbling and raiding 
 one another's cattle, indeed a foray is to the young 
 warriors the very spice of life, and without Govern- 
 ment protection the weakest would certainly go 
 to the wall.* 
 
 The Nuers are extremely ignorant, inflated with 
 conceit, and low in the human scale, according to 
 the officials, and are apt to regard leniency as 
 
 * (From Mr. K. C. P. Struve's report in 1909). " Cases have 
 occurred, too, where Government interference was resented by 
 both parties, as though one had tried to stop an inoffensive game. 
 The official's position resembles that of the referee at a football 
 match between two Welsh colliery districts."
 
 PEOPLE WHO LIVE "FOK" 257 
 
 weakness. Be this as it may, one thing is certain, 
 to expect them to work would be to look for figs 
 on a thistle. The possession of cattle is, to the 
 Nuer or Dinka, the main object of life. He has no 
 other needs. What use, therefore, are the white 
 man and the goods he may offer ? For food this 
 son of simplicity has the durra which is watered by 
 the rain, and the fish which he spears in the river, 
 supplemented by hippo or other meat when Allah 
 or Dengdit, or the tribal Equivalent, sends it. 
 Other necessities he has not. Money means nothing 
 to him ; a spear, when once purchased ; will last a 
 lifetime. Clothes are thought mere vanity, and 
 copper bracelets are sufficient for his adornment : 
 for amusement he is dependent upon no one. 
 Why should he work ? 
 
 Of course the answer to this is that as civilisa- 
 tion lays insidious hands on these savages, their 
 needs, at present so grandly few, will multiply ; 
 their life, now so simple, will become complex. 
 The thin end of the wedge is already inserted. The 
 Nuers and Dinkas know that for a good tusk pf 
 elephant ivory they may expect to receive from 
 ten to a score of cattle, and they are proud of their 
 herds. Other things will gradually follow. The 
 17
 
 258 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 women will play Eve to the trading tempter. As 
 soon as the women clamour for silver bracelets 
 instead of brass bangles, the magnificent idlers 
 their husbands will have to work for money to buy 
 them or commodities to offer in exchange for them. 
 Missionaries prepare the way for the trader. Edu- 
 cation creates other needs and desires ; the Serpent 
 will offer the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, and 
 these naked Adams will begin to wear clothes, 
 incidentally needing the wherewithal to pay for 
 them. Once clothed, the desire of luxury will 
 creep in, they will covet strange foods, better 
 housing ; and, so closely does history repeat 
 itself, they will be driven from a state of idleness 
 and simplicity in the Garden of Eden of their 
 savagery, to toil, to bear the burden of civilisation, 
 to begin that weary race towards complexity 
 which ends in the long run in decadence. Poor 
 savage ! I am glad that I saw him in the dignity 
 of barbarism ! For when, to return to the Dinka 
 legend, Dengdit showers upon Abungdit's black 
 son the gifts which He has bestowed upon his white 
 brother, He will gradually withdraw that greatest 
 gift of all, contentment.
 
 CHAPTEK XX 
 
 BAGGARAS AND NUBAS 
 
 T HAVE already written of the fights between 
 the Baggaras of the plains and the Nubas 
 in the hills in Kordofan, and as I had the oppor- 
 tunity of talking with several officials who had 
 spent long periods in that part of the Sudan, it 
 has occurred to me that what I heard might well 
 be embodied in a separate chapter, for, of all the 
 peoples that inhabit the Sudan, these tribes are 
 perhaps the most interesting. The Baggaras 
 formed the flower of the Dervish army it was 
 the prostrate Baggara horsemen who strewed 
 the desert at the battle of Omdurman ; and just 
 as the Baggaras are the haughtiest and most 
 vigorous Arabs in the Sudan, the Nubas are, in 
 many ways, the most interesting and attractive of 
 the negroid tribes. Both dwell in Kordofan, there 
 is a bitter feud between them, both are courageous, 
 
 259
 
 260 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 both have lovable qualities. I never met an 
 official whose lot had been cast in Kordofan who 
 did not speak of both Baggaras and Nubas with 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 It is necessary, perhaps, to give a brief historical 
 review of the course of events which have brought 
 these two tribes together. 
 
 In early times, the North of the Sudan was 
 Christian, as is amply proved by the discovery of 
 Christian inscriptions and emblems in excavations 
 at Meroe and elsewhere. The Nubas were then 
 inhabiting the country west of the Nile, and were 
 a prosperous pastoral tribe. (It is probable that 
 the Nubians were originally a mixture of this 
 ancient tribe of Nubas and Egyptians.) The rich 
 plains of Southern Kordofan were held by them 
 after the annexation of the Sudan by the Moslems 
 in 1275, and during the dynasty of the Fungs, who 
 had their capital at Sennaar. Bit by bit the Arabs 
 began to establish themselves in the Sudan, taking 
 advantage of intertribal disputes, and marrying 
 into the negroid peoples amongst whom they had 
 settled. They soon became the ruling influence in 
 the Sennaar kingdom, though the Fungs continued 
 to reign and had conquered from the Blue Nile
 
 BAGGARAS AND NUBAS 261 
 
 to the Abyssinian frontier and North as far as the 
 Atbara. In the latter years of the eighteenth 
 century the Fungs began to lose power, and 
 the disorganisation of their rule encouraged 
 Mohammed Ali to send an invading force up into 
 the Sudan. In 1820 the first expedition pushed 
 up the White Nile and into Kordofan, its leaders 
 being inflamed by the hope of enriching them- 
 selves from Sudani gold-mines and by the capture 
 of slaves. 
 
 But meanwhile, the existence of the Nubas had 
 been threatened from elsewhere. They had, as I 
 have said, originally dwelt in the grassy plains of 
 Southern Kordofan ; but the nomad Baggara 
 Arabs, filtering in from the West, coveted the 
 country for their flocks and herds, and being a 
 powerful and warlike tribe, drove the peaceful 
 and pastoral Nubas inch by inch into their hills. 
 More than that, they captured the unprotected 
 Nubas, who were and are a finely-built race, and 
 kept them as slaves or sold them to Egyptian 
 dealers. This was the state of things when the 
 Egyptians took over the Sudan, and the Egyptian 
 Government left the matter there. The slave- 
 raiding continued ; the unfortunate Nubas were
 
 262 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 driven more and more into their hills or gebels, 
 from which they would descend from time to time 
 on the Baggaras in the plains for reprisals, taking 
 their revenge where they could. Hill life is not 
 conducive to tribal unity, and the Nubas speak 
 many languages, all varying very widely. The 
 country became divided up, each sub-tribe being 
 apportioned a district ; and these Nuba districts 
 were not only constantly protecting themselves 
 against the Baggaras, but also against the aggres- 
 sions and raids of their Nuba neighbours. Gebel 
 made war on gebel, and sub-tribe on sub-tribe. 
 
 The Nubas, once so prosperous, having been 
 ousted from the plains, were now poor. They 
 terraced their hills, it is true, and sowed grain on 
 the rocky ledges, but this did not suffice. They 
 were often driven to sell their children into slavery 
 in exchange for durra to sustain life. 
 
 The gebels were practically impregnable, and 
 though the Egyptian Government succeeded in 
 attacks on small gebels, and in forcing a few to pay 
 tribute, they contented themselves for the most 
 part with leaving the Baggaras masters of the 
 situation, and in obliging them in return to pay 
 heavy tribute.
 
 BAGGARAS AND NUBAS 263 
 
 During Dervish times, the Nubas proved by no 
 means tractable to Dervish rule, and were treacher- 
 ously and cruelly treated, as is graphically described 
 in Slatin Pasha's " Fire and Sword in the Sudan " 
 and in Father Ohrwalder's account of his cap- 
 tivity. But during this period, the poor but 
 gallant Nubas gradually armed themselves, buying 
 the rifles captured by the Dervishes from the ill- 
 fated Hicks expedition, from the slave-dealers, who 
 received slaves in exchange, and taught the Nubas 
 how to use the fire-arms, unknowing that by so 
 doing they were themselves giving the Nubas the 
 means to protect themselves from slave-raiders. 
 
 When the Anglo-Egyptian Government took 
 possession, their first measure in Kordofan was 
 to stop the slave-raiding as far as possible, their 
 second to pacify the Nubas, who were now armed, 
 mistrustful of every foreigner, and secure in the 
 belief that in the fastnesses of their hills they were 
 absolutely safe. At first the headmen of the gebels 
 refused to visit any Government station, but their 
 confidence was gradually gained, and they are 
 now returning to agriculture; and the Arabs, 
 instead of raiding, carry Nuba produce on their 
 bulls to the eouks of the nearest towns.
 
 \ 
 
 264 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 As an illustration of the methods employed by 
 Government officials in dealing with the Nubas, 
 I must relate a story told me by an ex-official. 
 He was going through the Nuba country with a 
 small armed patrol in order to hear complaints 
 and settle disputes between rival gebels for the 
 Government gets its opportunity for asserting its 
 authority and establishing its claims when a single 
 native or a village applies to it for the settlement 
 of a grievance. It is gradually being understood 
 that the English do their best to judge between 
 person and person, village and village, tribe and 
 tribe, with impartiality ; and the Open Sesame 
 of the inspector among tribes that are recalcitrant 
 to authority is the cry of " Nahna mazulmin " or 
 " Ana mazloum," of those who think themselves 
 in need of protection or vindication. 
 
 As among the Dinkas, in the case of killing, 
 whether of man or woman or child or beast, 
 compensation can be demanded by the injured 
 people in the form of so much cattle. The fixed 
 rate of compensation, or blood money, among the 
 Nubas is seven head of cattle for a man, four head 
 for a woman, and three for a horse. There- 
 fore, when the Government acts as arbitrator,
 
 BAGGARAS AND NUBAS 265 
 
 in case of a quarrel between gebel and gebel where 
 blood has been shed, the whole thing must be 
 counted out in cattle. 
 
 In the case to which I refer, one gebel, which I 
 will call A., had had a quarrel with a neighbouring 
 gebel B. Moreover, Arabs complained that men 
 from Gebel A. had driven off their cattle. It was 
 impossible to say without inquiry whether Gebel 
 A. was entirely wrong. It was quite possible that 
 the Arabs had fully deserved to lose some of their 
 cattle. So the little expedition went to see. The 
 first night they camped under Gebel B., and the 
 Arabs came in to make their formal complaint. 
 Accordingly, a messenger was dispatched to Gebel 
 A. asking them to send responsible men to meet 
 the Government representatives, so that the matter 
 could be judged. The headman, a kugur, of 
 Gebel A. sent a messenger to say that he could 
 not come. 
 
 " Very well," said the Government envoy, " we 
 will go to your place," and some of the Government 
 party left the camp and set off for Gebel A., three 
 miles away, leaving the main party at Gebel B. 
 But the Nubas of Gebel A. were afraid, and refused 
 to come down when messengers were sent to them.
 
 266 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 Matters had reached a deadlock therefore until 
 one of the English officials, a subordinate, was 
 given permission to go and see what he could do 
 single-handed towards persuading Gebel A. that 
 nothing more than justice was intended. He rode 
 up to the foot of the gebel, attended only by 
 one policeman, dismounted and sat down. When 
 some Nubas came along, he chatted to them in a 
 friendly way, in order that they might see that 
 he had come on a peaceable mission. Finally the 
 headman approached, surrounded by an escort of 
 about a hundred men, bearing rifles. They all sat 
 down, Mr. X. and the headman in the centre 
 of a circle of warriors. It was easy to see that 
 the headman regarded his presence with the 
 utmost suspicion. He was trembling with fright, 
 although Mr. X. was really entirely at his mercy. 
 However, the Englishman began to explain that 
 the reason why he and his comrades had come was 
 to serve the interests of peace, and not of war. 
 The Government, he said, had the welfare of the 
 tribes at heart, they wished to protect the weak, 
 to see the tribes on friendly terms with one another, 
 and to deal out justice. Complaints had been 
 made, but they had heard only one side. Let the
 
 BAGGARAS AND NUBAS 267 
 
 headman, therefore, come in to the Government, 
 that he might give his side of the case, and a just 
 judgment should be given, and arbitration made. 
 
 But the headman would not listen to him. 
 " This/' he said, " was the old Dervish plan, that 
 when the headman of a gebel came into their 
 camp after their fair promises, he was killed, and 
 then the Dervishes took the hill while all was in 
 confusion." 
 
 " Did the Dervishes send an important Emir 
 into the midst of you as a token of good faith ? 
 Here am I, come into the midst of you, alone, to 
 show you that no treachery is intended." 
 
 But the terror of the old days had sunk deep. 
 ' When the Dervishes came," said the headman, 
 " they camped where you have encamped, below 
 the gebel of our enemies. How do I know that 
 you are not like the Dervishes ? You are friendly 
 with our enemies (of Gebel B.) : how shall I 
 know that you are not in league with them 
 against us ? ' 
 
 " I am in your power. If you think that I am 
 deceiving, it is open to you to kill me. If we 
 meant to betray you, I should not have come here 
 to put myself at your mercy."
 
 268 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 The headman thought. Then he said, " You say 
 you have come on a peaceful mission. Why have 
 you brought troops with you ? *' 
 
 " We have brought troops to chastise the unruly 
 and punish those who will not obey us." 
 
 All this conversation was carried on by means 
 of an interpreter, and as the headman really 
 seemed impressed, Mr. X. began to imagine that 
 he was persuaded. But, instead, they all jumped 
 up and began arguing most violently among them- 
 selves. When one man had finished haranguing 
 the rest, a second began, and so it went on for 
 some time, until Mr. X., who was growing hungry, 
 took out a biscuit and began to eat, at the same 
 time offering the headman a piece of it. 
 
 He refused, but explained politely, through the 
 interpreter, that he was a priest (kitgur), and that 
 priests never eat in public. At last he turned to 
 Mr. X., and with an obvious air of honesty, said 
 to him that his people advised him not to go, for 
 there was a legend in their tribe that the first 
 priest to go into land occupied by a foreign power 
 must die. 
 
 Mr. X. was at a loss as to what to say to this, 
 but the headman continued, " If you can persuade
 
 BAGGARAS AND NUBAS 269 
 
 those who sent you to camp on our hill instead of 
 on the gebel of our enemies, we will come and 
 discuss the matter as you wish." 
 
 The Englishman replied that he would do his 
 best to induce them to do so, on the condition that 
 four of the most important men would accompany 
 him as hostages back to the camp for the night. 
 
 The headman agreed readily, and added that 
 he would also send some sheep as a present. He 
 picked out the men from the crowd of warriors 
 around them, and the four braves looked some- 
 what crestfallen as they answered the summons, 
 nevertheless they came forward, and returned with 
 Mr. X. 
 
 It was settled to move the camp on the next 
 day as the headman had requested, but during 
 the intervening night the four hostages en- 
 deavoured to run away. When three of them were 
 re-captured, it transpired that the malicious Arabs 
 had told them that they were to be killed. One 
 man escaped, and long afterwards, when Mr. X. 
 was in that part of the country, sent him a present 
 of honey with the message that he regarded him 
 as a brother. 
 
 So the affair ended : the dispute was settled
 
 270 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 to the contentment of every one ; and through the 
 tact of the British official, an incident that might 
 have resulted in bloodshed became a means of 
 establishing friendly relations with a hitherto 
 recalcitrant gebel. I have related this incident 
 at such length because it is very typical of the 
 work done, not only in Dar Nuba but throughout 
 the Sudan.* 
 
 The religion of the Nuba resembles that of the 
 Dinka in that it is monotheistic, the Supreme 
 Spirit being named Bail. This Deity dwells above 
 the Earth, is almighty and beneficent ; giving and 
 taking away life, and ordering the course of events 
 in Earth and Heaven. There is a certain resem- 
 blance to the Dinka legend too about the Nuba 
 account of the first man and woman, Adam and 
 Hawa, for like Abungdit, Hawa, the Nuba Eve, 
 hid her black offspring from their father. Adam 
 and Hawa had seven brown-skinned children and 
 seven black, six of the black being boys and one 
 a girl. Adam wished to shave the heads of his 
 children, but Hawa concealed her black sons and 
 daughter. According to the interesting notes 
 which a former Government inspector handed 
 * See also Chapter XIIL
 
 BAGGARAS AND NUBAS 271 
 
 me,* the eldest black son, Tinhor, offended his 
 father by laughing at him (is this a distant relation 
 to the story of Noah and his sons ?) and was 
 punished by the decree that the black children 
 must be slaves to the brown. Later, the black 
 children escaped and founded the black races in 
 other lands. It is curious that in both this story 
 and the Dinka legend there is the same tacit, 
 almost pathetic, acknowledgment of the racial 
 inferiority of the black man, and the recognition 
 that his lot is different from that of his fairer 
 brother. 
 
 The Deity Bail, according to my informant, 
 entrusts the guidance of men's affairs and destinies 
 to lesser spirits the Arros. Each community, 
 district, or village has its own Arro, or tutelary 
 deity, and its own priests. The Arros were chosen 
 by Bail as his lieutenants from the departed spirits 
 of the first inhabitants. A large village or gebel 
 may have several Arros, and may include female 
 Arros, the number of the latter never being in- 
 creased. These Arros govern the community, and 
 deal out happiness and prosperity or sickness and 
 
 * I believe that these notes were, or are to be, published by the 
 journal of an Anthropological Society. If so, my apologies for 
 reprinting such interesting information.
 
 272 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 misfortune, acting as a body with a Chief or Sultan 
 Arro as president. They also concern themselves 
 with the well-being of the community in the next 
 world. The Arros obtain permission of Bail before 
 they punish or reward for good or bad actions, 
 through the Sultan Arro. In fact, the Arros re- 
 semble the patron saints of the Italian peasant, 
 who mediate between the Supreme Being and the 
 mortal. 
 
 This hagiocracy, or board of saints, is represented 
 again by priests or priestesses, each Arro having 
 his or her representative or pontiff. The kugurs 
 are greatly reverenced by the people, who accredit 
 them with supernatural gifts. When a kugur 
 dies, his place is filled by the Arro whose representa- 
 tive he is, and the Arro enters the body of a person 
 whom he has chosen as the dead kugur's successor, 
 causing him to fall down in a trance, and speaks 
 to the people through his mouth, after summoning 
 them by weird screams. The people are then 
 exhorted by the Arro to obey the new kugur; 
 the man recovers from his trance and is recognised 
 as filling a sacred office from that day forth. Some- 
 times impostors assume the trance, as, for instance, 
 some years ago, when a man simulated a trance
 
 BAGGARAS AND NUBAS 273 
 
 and announced that he had been chosen to replace 
 the chief kugur, who was still living. Some be- 
 lieved him, others did not, and the believers 
 brought him the usual offerings to bring the rains. 
 The original kugur said that no rain should fall 
 until the impostor was deposed. The rainy season 
 drew near, and the village was in the utmost ex- 
 citement as to which would be proved to have the 
 real inspiration. But though the season had come, 
 no rains fell. Day after day went by, the sky 
 remained cloudless, and the earth parched. Weeks 
 passed by, still there was no drop of the precious 
 rain upon which the whole annual supply of food 
 would depend. At last, terrified for their crops, 
 the apostates returned, and the people made their 
 gifts to the old kugur. Immediately, the rain fell. 
 The goods of the pretender were seized by the 
 people and given to the old kugur. 
 
 The trances are induced by starvation, drink, 
 and meditation. When the kugur admonishes or 
 preaches to his people, he throws himself into a 
 trance ; the Arro then avails himself of the kugur's 
 body, and speaks through his mouth. 
 
 In appearance the kugurs are usually ascetic, 
 spare and melancholy, as becomes their vocation. 
 18
 
 274 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 It is seldom, says my informant, that one meets a 
 smiling or chubby kugur. They wear iron brace- 
 lets on their arms, and rings on their fingers and 
 toes. Their staff of office is a wand or long-handled 
 axe, with iron rings round the handle ; and they 
 smoke pipes with long be-ringed stems. When 
 one kugur meets another, he clasps his shoulders, 
 hands and knees. The layman offers his shoulder 
 or upper arm to a kugur when he meets one, so 
 that it may be touched by the kugur's right hand, 
 while the kugur, by way of blessing, spits on the 
 Nuba's chest. The kugur, as seen in the story I 
 have related, does not eat in public, and when at 
 a public feast, touches the food to bless it. Very 
 often they will not eat away from their own hills. 
 They profess to work cures by spitting on the 
 sick person. 
 
 The Nubas do not pray for themselves, the 
 kugur intercedes for them, therefore it is to him 
 that they apply if they have a petition concerning 
 worldly affairs. Sin is punished during a man's 
 lifetime, and so there is no punishment to follow 
 in a future life. Murder and theft are the worst 
 sins, and unless restitution be made, the guilty 
 may expect bad luck to follow them. (This is
 
 BAGGARAS AND NUBAS 275 
 
 the same principle as the Sacrifice of Atonement 
 of the Dinkas.) Murder can be expiated by the 
 killing of the murderer by the murdered man's 
 relatives, or, supposing the murderer to have fled, 
 by the payment of seven head of cattle by his 
 relatives, the confiscation of his property, and the 
 destruction of his house and belongings by fire. 
 His grain is confiscated and given to the Mek if 
 the latter be not related to the dead man. If he 
 be, the grain is given to strangers or destroyed. 
 When once atonement has been made in these 
 ways, the guilty man can return to his village and 
 start life again. It is not murder to kill a man 
 belonging to a hostile gebel, nor is it theft to raid 
 his cattle. 
 
 When a man has had his property stolen he goes 
 to the kugur, with gifts, asking him to discover 
 the stolen article or animal. The kugur then as- 
 sembles the people together, and solemnly curses 
 the thief, threatening him with dire calamities if 
 the stolen goods be not delivered up (like the 
 prelate in the " Jackdaw of Rheims "). A guilty 
 conscience and fear combined will generally lead 
 the robber to return what he has stolen, putting 
 it by stealth outside the kugur's house.
 
 276 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 The women are as a rule virtuous, but should a 
 woman deceive her husband, he may take the law 
 into his hands and kill her lover. Tale-bearing and 
 scandal are, however, looked upon with contempt, 
 and a man who cannot take care of his own wife 
 with scorn and pity. An Englishman once asked 
 an old Nuba what he would do if he found that 
 his wife was unfaithful to him. He replied that, 
 wh.,^ he was young, if he had discovered her 
 infidelity to be beyond all doubt, he should have 
 killed her lover, " but now," he concluded, " I 
 should beat her and chase him away." ' Why 
 so ? " asked the Englishman. " Because when 
 one has reached my age, one knows that no woman 
 is worth the life of a man." The moral crimes are, 
 contrary to Dinka social custom, looked upon as 
 venial. A Nuba may marry as many wives as he 
 likes. 
 
 The Nuba conception of the future life is more 
 generous than the Christian, in that a man expects 
 to meet his faithful dog, his goat, his horse and his 
 cattle in the next world as well as his kindred. 
 He expects to live with his wives as on earth, but 
 no children are born. Each community lives 
 happily a life similar to that they have led on
 
 BAGGARAS AND NUBAS 277 
 
 earth, under the government of the Arro, and no 
 strife or discord mar this Heavenly existence. 
 
 The inhabitants of Southern Dar Nuba do not 
 trouble their heads much with religion, and as far 
 south as Talodi there are no kugurs, only female 
 rain-makers or medicine women. They believe 
 the Supreme Being to be female, because produc- 
 tive (cf. the Kabbala). These women, or priest- 
 esses, " scry " by means of pouring grease into a 
 gourd of water, and discover thieves by this form 
 of crystal-gazing. Marriages are very free and 
 easy in the South, and divorces to be had without 
 the least difficulty. 
 
 The Northern Nubas have a ceremony corre- 
 sponding to baptism. The child to be named is 
 brought when it is a fortnight old to the chief 
 kugur, who kills a chicken and, dipping it into 
 a bowl of water, sprinkles the child and its relatives 
 with it. Then he takes the child into his Arro's 
 house or hut, spits on it and pronounces a name 
 over it which has been chosen by its parents. 
 
 The marriage customs are very interesting. The 
 usual price to pay for a bride is about eight head 
 of cattle. On payment of two, the bridegroom can 
 claim his bride. She does not live in his hut, but
 
 278 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 remains under her mother's roof until her first 
 baby is born. Then he completes half the pay- 
 ment, and takes her into his own house. The 
 remaining half of the marriage payment is made 
 when the children of the marriage are grown up, 
 out of the cattle paid for married daughters or 
 from earnings of the sons. Should the couple be 
 childless, half the agreed cattle are returned. 
 Cousins may not marry. 
 
 The Nubas are governed by Meks, or Kings, 
 aided by a council of old men, including kugurs, but 
 sometimes the kugur is the only ruler. As with 
 the Dinkas, old age is highly respected. 
 
 Of the Baggaras I have written in a former 
 chapter (See Chapter XI). They live in moving 
 villages, and are rich in flocks and herds, living a 
 simple pastoral life similar to that led by Abraham 
 and his tribe centuries ago. The Baggara girls are 
 very comely, do not veil, and seldom trouble to 
 cover the upper part of the body. They are free 
 of restraint, and even young maidens ride about 
 unprotected on their bulls. One inspector told 
 me that he used to derive much useful information 
 from these women, who are far more communica- 
 tive than the men, and liked to call on him, to
 
 279 
 
 sit and joke with him in his tent and discuss the 
 local news of the day. They dress their hair in 
 many plaits.* 
 
 A Baggara wedding is accompanied by curious 
 customs which are somewhat reminiscent of mar- 
 riage by capture. The bride-to-be goes out early 
 in the morning accompanied by a girl friend, and 
 hides either in the house of a neighbour or in the 
 bush. The bridegroom rides to a little distance 
 outside the village with his friends, accompanied 
 by a following of women, who utter the shrill 
 joy-cries called zagharit, sometimes going as far 
 as to the next village. Then they return, and a 
 big meal is prepared by the older women, while 
 the young maidens, stripped to the waist, and 
 holding the long ends of their silk firkas or sashes 
 in front of them and waving them in time to the 
 music, form in a line, and move round and round 
 a centre, only in the opposite direction to the hand 
 
 * The slave women think the long hair of the freed woman a 
 token that she is not pious. For when, in the beginning of the 
 world, all things woke in the long grass and, carrying offerings, went 
 to Allah to receive the breath of life, the long-haired woman carried 
 a basket of durra on her head like the short-haired, but it was only 
 half full. On the other hand, the long-haired women despise those 
 whose hair is crisp and short.
 
 280 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 of a clock, singing appropriate songs. In the 
 centre musicians beat the drums, and the young 
 men run behind and fire rifles over the girls' heads 
 into the air, sometimes forming part of an outer 
 rim, like the rim to the spokes of a wheel. 
 
 Later, comes the marriage feast and the " finding 
 of the bride," the bridegroom having been pre- 
 viously apprised in secret where she is. During 
 the festivities it is not supposed to be etiquette 
 for the bridegroom to eat very much. The 
 ceremonies finish by the bridegroom leading the 
 bride to the newly built hut or tent, around 
 which there are dances and beating of drums 
 for some time afterwards.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 SIMPLICITY AND THE SMILE SUPERIOR 
 
 ~1T)ES, the god of laughter whose squat little 
 figure is to be found so often amongst the 
 symbolic amulets placed in Egyptian tombs, was 
 of Sudanese origin. And very appropriately, for 
 the black man is on the whole a light-hearted 
 person, who laughs easily. But he is too simple 
 to understand humour in the European sense of 
 the word, and it is this very simplicity which often 
 presents a humorous side to the foreigner. The 
 humour of the negroid is too crude for the civilised 
 palate. Like the good-tempered fellow that he is, 
 he is always ready with a smile that shows his 
 white teeth, but he can see the laughable in situa- 
 tions or stories more Rabelaisian than Rabelais, 
 more Boccaccian than Boccaccio. Though in the 
 main kind-hearted, like some unimaginative child, 
 he can see exquisite funniness in the sufferings of 
 
 281
 
 282 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 some poor creature, and what to a European would 
 seem brutal will seem to him supremely amusing. 
 
 Some one denned humour as a sense of dispro- 
 portion. It is usually a consciousness of superi- 
 ority. The man who laughs is the man who is 
 secure in superior information, wisdom, wit or 
 sophistry. The naivete of the Sudani supplies 
 plenty of food for this kind of laughter. 
 
 For instance, there is the story of the agricultural 
 show at a village on the Blue Nile, where an ex- 
 hibitor walked away with his bull in high dudgeon 
 when he was awarded the first prize. When 
 questioned, he said that his bull was worth far 
 more than that ! A similar innocence was recently 
 displayed by a Sudani in Khartoum whose son 
 was ill. He met an English acquaintance, who 
 inquired after the invalid. The Sudani replied that 
 one of his friends had just given him a bottle of 
 medicine which he hoped would cure the lad. 
 " But your friend's illness may not be the same as 
 your son's ; you had better take your son to the 
 hospital and let them prescribe for him." " Oh/' 
 replied the man, " but the medicine came from the 
 hospital, so it must be all right ! " 
 Certain stories of this kind have become regular
 
 SIMPLICITY, THE SMILE SUPERIOR 283 
 
 club chestnuts, as, for example, the history of the 
 telegraph clerk in an outlying district of the White 
 Nile who, finding the desolation upon his nerves, 
 telegraphed to head-quarters, " Cannot stay here, 
 am in danger of life, am surrounded by lions, 
 elephants and wolves." The hard-hearted operator 
 at the other end wired back, " There are no wolves 
 in the Sudan." He received a second wire: 
 " Referring my wire 16th cancel wolves." 
 
 At distant stations, if a government official 
 dies, some one is usually sent to make an inquiry. 
 Accordingly, a wire was dispatched by a clerk at 
 a distant station to the authorities, " Station- 
 master dead ; wire instructions." The authorities 
 contented themselves with telegraphing back, 
 " Ascertain if dead ; and if so bury." After a 
 short while an answer came. " Have ascertained 
 dead by hitting on head with fishplate ; have 
 buried." 
 
 But the most amusing form of simplicity is, 
 perhaps, the Sudanese equivalent of babu English 
 in letters. A certain government official received 
 the following letter from a former employe, the 
 object of which appears at the end. The spelling 
 js unaltered :
 
 284 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 Esq. 
 
 " DEAR SiR, " KHARTOUM, 29/xi/1910. 
 
 :f Thanks to God the father of fatherless 
 to whom I should worship day and night morning 
 and evening at sunset and sunrise, repeating the 
 hottest prayers at dead of night for the great 
 and heavy obligations He owed me and saved 
 me from leading astray and brought me out of 
 darkness to light and blessed me by the honour 
 and acquaintance and fortune of serving under 
 you Your person that is ornamented with high 
 virtues and embellished with pearls of excellent 
 characters and seasoned with the nicest graces 
 and humanity. 
 
 " I weep for these excellent days and valuable 
 time I have had spent with you and hope it will 
 come back to me. How much I would express 
 the utmost desire and extreme anxiety of my 
 having the chance to be again with you Each 
 individual had a happy time that goes off and 
 remains in his memory so any time be with the 
 last period I passed with you I do not forget the 
 fruitful seeds of kind treatment fraternal and 
 mutual respects, that it was not direct between a 
 Junior and Senior as the case should be, which
 
 SIMPLICITY, THE SMILE SUPERIOR 285 
 
 had been flourishingly sown by your esteemed 
 hand rapidly grown out of croptime and reaped 
 very quick with the produce of golden fruits of 
 love and hearted regards and warm respectful 
 towards you. It was, Sir, the yield of land 
 that was ploughed with lively feelings and tender 
 sympathy. 
 
 " They say, reputation of great men's lives lives 
 after them but goods often entered with their 
 bones. But exceptionally your goods will remain 
 to-day and to-morrow, for ever and even for any 
 time that come. 
 
 "I, Sir, have nothing more to show my loyal 
 submission and gratitude except by my soal and 
 heart which were represented here on paper and 
 ink. 
 
 " Before closing my letter like to let you know a 
 piece of material change which is based on the fact 
 that our Department has been divided into two 
 parts, i.e. the Agricultural has been separated from 
 Lands and am was taken on the latter (Lands) 
 This new position gives me a great satisfaction 
 and it really due through your valuable recom- 
 mendations and excellent reports previously sub- 
 mitted in my favour to late Director Mr. .
 
 286 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 " I think, Sir, it would be a much more trouble 
 if it would be convenient in soliciting you to send 
 
 a word to your friend Mr. my actual Chief. 
 
 I would be glad if you would kindly do it please. 
 Anyhow I have the full hopes in knowing that you 
 will favour me with such request. 
 
 " My best regards to your noblesels, 
 " Yours humble and faithful, 
 
 "Lands Department." 
 
 Another gem of this order was given me by a 
 judge in Khartoum, who received the letter which 
 I append. 
 
 " SIR, 
 
 " I beg to bring to your notice the fol- 
 lowing 
 
 " I am a merchant by trade and has been such, 
 honest and reliable, for twenty years, and the 
 33 bills attached partially prove my statement. 
 
 " It is evident that a merchant is not invariably 
 on the side to gain but in the most of circumstances, 
 perhaps, loss is more or less indispensable ; in 
 the case of loss, should the merchant find no
 
 SIMPLICITY, THE SMILE SUPERIOR 287 
 
 financial supporter, failure is apt. This is the 
 case that surrounds me now. I could not find 
 assistance or support of any sort from my dealers 
 or merchant comrades at my present juncture. I 
 have dealt with these merchants and exchanged 
 business for some long time without the least 
 touch of honesty on my part. 
 
 " Backwardness in market which was general 
 on all merchants and loss sustained in my contract 
 for the supply of bread to the students of Omdur- 
 man School have in the years 1908 and 1909 
 caused me to suffer considerably financially. Such 
 facts are well known to all my creditors. 
 
 " On the other hand merchants with whom I 
 deal have put me to suffer too in a bad way of 
 business. They take their bills signed from me 
 and lodge them in the Bank and when the time of 
 payment is due I find it most necessary to refund 
 or interests are to be added to the debt, making it 
 worse and worse. It would then be wiser to dis- 
 pose of the goods by sale with lower prices to help 
 pay off the bills that become due, thinking that I 
 may have some ample time, later on, to make 
 good the loss already sustained. Not only this 
 kind of treatment but they have withheld their
 
 288 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 business hence, this result which I do not in any 
 way like. 
 
 " One should not like for himself but honesty 
 and truth. You will kindly notice that I not 
 encouraged to act in this way until I tried all 
 possibly supposed fruitful efforts but in vain. 
 
 '' Under these circumstances I hope as I beg from 
 our just lawyers to consider the case to my favour 
 so that my future may not be injured being a 
 supporter of a family of 16 souls. 
 
 " I have the honour to be 
 " Sir, 
 " Your obedient servant, 
 
 " Sgd. ." 
 
 An English lawyer practising in Khartoum told 
 me that he once received a letter addressed in 
 English to " the Notorious Solicitor " ; a dictionary 
 translation of an ordinary honorific in Arabic. 
 
 After all, why should one smile ? Without 
 doubt, the Englishman as he stumbles along in 
 Arabic makes infinitely funnier mistakes, though 
 the native preserves absolute gravity. And yet, 
 small things like these tickle the Englishman's 
 ribs, and fit into his conception of the country,
 
 SIMPLICITY, THE SMILE SUPERIOR 289 
 
 relieve the ennui of routine and enliven many a 
 wearisome business. They certainly enter into 
 the picture which one carries away from the Sudan 
 when one leaves it, do these tales of simplicity. 
 May this be my excuse for introducing so puerile 
 a chapter. 
 
 19
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 THE OUTLOOK 
 
 A HEALTHY baby puts on weight very slowly, 
 but regularly. It is not entirely a matter 
 for congratulation if its weight goes up with a 
 jump, in fact it may be as harmful to the child as 
 a decrease. So it is with a country. It should 
 gain in prosperity, but not by leaps and bounds. 
 Such leaps are usually due to false optimism, to 
 speculation and bogus values, and, like all feverish 
 impulses forward, are followed by dangerous re- 
 lapses. Hence Lord Kitchener, when he went up 
 to open the railway to El Obeid, while he registered 
 his satisfaction at the progress already made, laid 
 stress again and again on the admonition " steady." 
 
 The Sudan has been in the hands of the Anglo- 
 Egyptian Government for twelve years. What 
 was its financial position when taken over, and 
 what is it now ? 
 
 290
 
 VILLAGE SCENE, WHITE NILE.
 
 THE OUTLOOK 291 
 
 It had no position at all then. It was stricken 
 by famine and disease, depopulated, uncultivated, 
 devastated. Egypt came to the rescue. She 
 provided certain sums annually, and also grants 
 for various purposes, that something might be 
 made out of the ruin. She has continued her 
 annual grant ever since in fact, she has found all 
 the money for the administration of the Sudan, has 
 built her railways, met the yearly deficits, and paid 
 the expenses of conquest. It is true that that sum 
 has dwindled down to a hundred and sixty-three 
 thousand per annum when the amount paid back 
 by the Sudan Government for the partial main- 
 tenance of the Egyptian army in the Sudan is 
 deducted, but that is, after all, no inconsiderable 
 sum. In fact, at first sight it would seem that 
 the partnership was a very unequal one, Great 
 Britain merely using the Egyptian purse and giving 
 her no more real voice in the ruling of the purchase 
 than the late Empress Dowager of China gave her 
 colourless co-regent. It must, however, be taken 
 into account that Great Britain, if she has not 
 financed the Sudan, has given it of her best in the 
 matter of administration, and that the conquest 
 of the Sudan was at first, professedly, merely
 
 292 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 undertaken in order to preserve the peace of the 
 frontier, and to ensure to Egypt her water supply. 
 It was, in fact, linsurance on a large scale, not an 
 investment promising immediate profit. Its pri- 
 mary objects have already been attained. That 
 the Sudan will, eventually, not only cease to be a 
 financial burden on its Northern sister-country, 
 but become a self-supporting concern, can only be 
 a matter of time. Slowly and surely the annual 
 grant is decreasing. In 1899 the subvention in aid 
 of the civil expenditure of the Sudan was E149,000 
 more than in 1912. 
 
 Moreover, the trade returns have certainly been 
 satisfactory. Before the Dervishes harried the 
 land, the Sudan was an agricultural and pastoral 
 country. It is becoming so again slowly. It 
 should be the larder of Egypt. Egypt is already 
 drawing on the Sudan instead of upon foreign 
 countries as formerly, for her supplies of cattle, 
 durra and wheat. Every year over twenty thou- 
 sand bales of cotton are exported ; Kordofan 
 yields gum and sesame ; from the swamps and 
 thickets of the South come precious tusks of 
 ivory ; from the Bahr-el-Ghazal, wild gum ; and all 
 these products and others find their market in
 
 THE OUTLOOK 293 
 
 Europe. In short, the trade returns, like the 
 revenue, have been steadily mounting. 
 
 But that fact need give rise to no hysterical 
 pride when one considers the vast possibilities of 
 the country and how small is this result compared 
 with what it might be were the country properly 
 developed. The cotton cultivation is but ex- 
 perimental so far, though cotton has been grown 
 for years. The rubber, though favourably re- 
 ported upon, is less than experimental ; that is 
 to say, there is little, if any, cultivation of it 
 in the Sudan yet, though a concession has been 
 granted for the collection of the wild rubber in 
 the South. There are other possibilities, almost 
 as wide, waiting solely for enterprise and capital, 
 capital above all. 
 
 The Sudan is a vast untilled garden. Sir William 
 Willcocks recently pointed out that if five million 
 were expended on reservoirs, training works and 
 power stations in the Sudd region alone, at present 
 so useless and pernicious a district, the result 
 would prove " as profitable as a gold mine and as 
 permanent as water power depending on the 
 melting snows of the Alps." 
 
 The representative of the British Cotton- Growing
 
 294 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 Association who visited the Sudan this spring with 
 the idea of seeing what its possibilities as a cotton- 
 growing country were, reported that in the Gezira, 
 the " island " between the two Niles, there is a 
 huge country containing at least five million acres 
 of first-class cotton soil, a country as large as the 
 Egyptian Delta ; not to mention the cotton that 
 might be grown as rain-crops farther South, or 
 at Tokar and Kassala, where floods from the 
 Abyssinian mountains water the soil annually, 
 leaving a rich deposit. But for this purpose, 
 irrigation, railways, and commercial development 
 would be necessary, entailing an initial expenditure 
 of some twelve million pounds. 
 
 Now where are these millions to come from ? 
 Who will find the gold that is to transform the 
 Sudan from a useless waste into a profitable and 
 smiling paradise ? Certainly not Egypt. Mr. 
 Hutton, when reporting on the possibilities of the 
 country to the British Cotton- Growing Association, 
 used these words : 
 
 '' The reproach was thrown in my face that the 
 British Government do not even pay for the re- 
 pairing of the British flags which fly side by side
 
 THE OUTLOOK 295 
 
 with the Egyptian flags on every public building 
 in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. Is it reasonable, 
 is it fair, to ask the Egyptian Government to find 
 the money to enable the Sudan to compete with 
 them in cotton growing ? Let us ask ourselves 
 this question : Who is the individual who has 
 found the greater part of the money for the Govern- 
 ment of Egypt to hand over to the Sudan ? There 
 can be but one answer the bulk of the money has 
 been found by the struggling cultivator of the 
 Delta, and he is the man who pays for the repairing 
 of the British flag. Again I ask, is it reasonable, 
 is it fair for a wealthy country like England to stand 
 on one side and allow the burden to fall on the 
 shoulders of the Egyptian fellahin ? '' 
 
 I do not think that Mr. Hutton puts the matter 
 fairly. He appears to suggest that Egypt will be 
 asked to spend money from which no benefit will 
 accrue to her. But this is not so. The develop- 
 ment of agriculture and the consequent increased 
 prosperity must result in the further reduction 
 of the annual contribution, and ultimately the 
 Sudan will become a source of revenue to Egypt. 
 Assuming that the vision of a prosperous Sudan is
 
 296 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 not only a mirage over the sandy waste, money 
 spent by Egypt at this stage in irrigation and 
 other works is merely an investment of funds of 
 which the profits will, in due time, return to that 
 selfsame fellah of whom Mr. Hutton speaks with 
 such commiseration. But Egypt has other heavy 
 expenses to meet at the present time. The Delta 
 has to be drained at great cost, road-making has 
 to be carried forward, and the public purse is none 
 too full. Mr. Hutton is perfectly right in asking 
 Great Britain to come to the rescue and to provide 
 the funds so urgently needed for the Sudan. Both 
 countries would reap the benefit of such an under- 
 taking, and of the two partners, Great Britain is 
 considerably the richer. 
 
 Much has been said and written on the subject 
 lately, and it is only with diffidence that I venture 
 to mention a few elementary aspects of the question 
 in this chapter. I have noticed, however, that 
 there is a tendency to speak of Great Britain and 
 Egypt in the Sudan as if they represented two 
 separate foreign governments in working partner- 
 ship. But it should be remembered that the 
 Sudan is not a part of the British Empire any more 
 than Egypt is, and the administration under the
 
 THE OUTLOOK 297 
 
 Condominium Agreement is based on the idea that 
 Egypt and the Sudan shall benefit one another. 
 
 
 
 Mr. Button's scheme, however, is a more modest 
 one than the development of all the possible cotton 
 fields of the Sudan. He suggested that the British 
 Government should provide a million pounds as 
 a loan to the Anglo-Egyptian Government for 
 building railways and for irrigation to begin with ; 
 guaranteeing, on behalf of the British Cotton- 
 Growing Association, the same sum for commercial 
 development of the country. At the same time 
 a further loan from the British Government of 
 200,000 was requested, to be spent in experimental 
 and research work for the advancement of cotton- 
 growing in the Sudan. 
 
 Now, what is the position at the present ? 
 Granted that the commercial future of the Sudan 
 lies in cotton, what are the practical difficulties, 
 and how far have these difficulties already been 
 met? 
 
 Cotton can be irrigated by pumping, by rain or 
 by flood. Pumping is too expensive, rain is un- 
 certain, so that flood becomes the surest method 
 of irrigating the fields. The proposal for the
 
 298 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 Gezira at the present moment is to build a dani 
 over the Blue Nile at Sennaar which will raise the 
 level of the water in the river and fill a main canal 
 and a series of branch canals almost all the way to 
 Khartoum. To test the land, an experimental 
 pumping station was formed at Tayiba in 1911, 
 and the results of the year were excellent. Cotton 
 has, as I have said, been grown for years in the 
 Sudan ; the principal farms are those of the Sudan 
 Plantations Syndicate at Zeidab in Berber Pro- 
 vince ; of Mr. A. H. Capato and other smaller 
 enterprises in Khartoum Province. Hitherto, how- 
 ever, owing to the water difficulty and the expense 
 of pumping, they cannot be said to have been 
 very lucrative. But as far as quality is concerned, 
 Lancashire spinners could obtain no better. 
 
 The Gezira irrigation scheme, i.e. the dam at 
 Sennaar and the canal system, will, in course of 
 time, put 500,000 acres under cotton. Now there 
 is one difficulty to be faced in this scheme as well 
 as in every other undertaking in the Sudan. 
 Skilled labour is almost always imported, and 
 unskilled labour is difficult to get and ridiculously 
 over-paid. 
 
 Take, for instance, the Gezira scheme, since this
 
 THE OUTLOOK 299 
 
 is under discussion. The number of labourers 
 required to work one block of thirty feddans is 
 at least ten people, including women and boys. 
 Hence if an area of 250,000 feddans only be taken 
 (the whole plain is three million feddans), the 
 number of people required for such an area would 
 be nearly 100,000. Now the entire population of 
 the Sudan, old and young, women, children and 
 babies, does not reach the number of three million 
 at present, and of these only a small proportion 
 are workers. 
 
 Moreover, though the native can live in ease and 
 luxury according to his standards on 3d. or 4d. 
 a day, the rate of wages is so high that it ranges 
 between l\d. and Is. At the experimental pumping 
 station at Tayiba before referred to, as much as 
 two shillings a day (ten piastres) had to be offered 
 in order to procure labour, and even then it was 
 difficult. And the more exorbitant the rate of 
 wages, the scarcer labour becomes. The reason is 
 not far to seek. The Sudanese are accustomed to 
 slavery, that is, to forced labour. A system of 
 wages has its advantages and its dangers. When 
 the wage given is too high the native will only 
 work for a time sufficient to provide him with
 
 300 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 his year's expenses not a vast sum and that 
 is all. The training and experience of generations 
 are against the habit of acquiring wealth. In the 
 old times, to be reputed rich was to invite the 
 plunderer and the robber ; hence the native 
 developed the habit of earning enough for his 
 needs and no more, as a wage-labourer ; or of 
 working because he must as a slave or a soldier. 
 
 The Belgians in the Lado were wiser than we ; 
 they never permitted the wages to be high. A 
 story told by Lieutenant Grogan in his book is 
 so illustrative of the attitude of the native mind 
 towards wages, that I must quote it here from 
 memory. A certain Englishman informed his 
 cook that as his services for the past year had been 
 satisfactory, his wages would be increased to three 
 pounds a month. (He had been receiving 2 10s.) 
 The man was more puzzled than grateful, and 
 retired to think it over. It resulted in his coming 
 to his master and demanding six pounds, owing 
 him from the past year, his argument being that 
 he was worth no more now than when he was 
 engaged, so that the balance was due to him. 
 
 An attempt has been made to confront the 
 difficulty by the formation of a Labour Bureau in
 
 THE OUTLOOK 301 
 
 Khartoum and the provinces. But, although a 
 step in the right direction, this system of registered 
 labour has not proved successful up to the present. 
 It has been truly said that the officials who keep 
 the registers are the only people who work and the 
 so-called labourers refuse to do a hand's turn. 
 In many cases registered workmen have been sent 
 out under contract, and then refused to begin work 
 unless the agreed wages were raised. 
 
 When I was discussing this question with one 
 English official, he remarked, " There is another 
 solution, of course why should we not import some 
 of the thousands of the superfluous millions in 
 India ? They are industrious, the climate is suited 
 to them, they are excellent cultivators, and they 
 would make the desert blossom while we are 
 waiting for babies to be born and for the lazy to 
 turn over a new leaf." This suggestion may have 
 been brought forward before and conclusively 
 shown to be impracticable, but I mention it here 
 for what it is worth. Chinese labour was imported 
 into South Africa ; why not Indian labour into the 
 Sudan ? 
 
 The optimist says cheerily, " Wait till the popu- 
 lation increases. The children are swarming in
 
 302 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 the villages like lizards, and a generation or two 
 will work wonders." No doubt this is right. It 
 is to be hoped and expected that the attitude of 
 the native will change with time. The new 
 generation, with no memories of the troublous 
 times which have so effectually unsettled their 
 fathers, may offer more promising material. But 
 waiting is slow work, and if the cotton schemes 
 and others are to be carried out to the best ad- 
 vantage, labour on a large scale will be needed 
 before long. 
 
 On the other hand, it is possible that the difficul- 
 ties have been exaggerated. The native is not 
 absolutely blind to his own interests, and when he 
 sees that a scheme is taken in hand in earnest, he 
 may take a different view of the value of his own 
 work. It is hard to persuade the native that 
 industrial proposals are not mere " kalam," or, 
 as we should say, " gas " ; and until something 
 tangible is before him, it is not easy to gauge his 
 attitude.
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 KHARTOUM BIRDS 
 
 FROM NOTES SUPPLIED BY ME. BUTLER 
 
 PP ARROWS, similar to the English variety, but 
 brighter and smaller, fly in and out of the houses 
 in the town, and frequently build their nests in the 
 rooms. Yellow Sparrows, with bright canary yellow 
 heads and breasts, frequent the gardens and cultivation 
 in flocks, but do not enter the houses. Bulbuls, rather 
 smaller than a thrush, grey, with black heads, are 
 familiar garden birds ; their notes are loud and cheery, 
 if not very musical. Sun Birds, tiny little creatures 
 with curved bills and long tails, flit about the gardens 
 and feed on the flowers. The males are shining metallic 
 rifle-green, with crimson on the breast ; the little 
 females are dull greyish yellow. 
 
 Little Bee-Eaters love to perch on fences or telegraph 
 wires, from which they glide off after passing insects, 
 returning again to their posts. 
 
 Hoopoes, fawn-coloured, with cinnamon crests, and 
 wings and tail broadly barred with black and white, 
 flutter among the bushes, or walk daintily about, 
 probing the crevices in the sun-cracked ground with 
 their long bills. 
 
 303
 
 304 MY SUDAN YEAR 
 
 Senegal Turtle-Doves coo in the trees ; Namaqua 
 Doves are abundant in the gardens, beautiful little 
 doves with long tails like parroquets. 
 
 Fork-tailed brown Kites and black and white 
 Egyptian Vultures soar and wheel overhead, or sit in 
 rows on the sandbanks in the river. Along the river's 
 edge Pied Kingfishers hover above the water like 
 kestrels, or perch on some convenient stone or empty 
 boat. Now and again a V-shaped flock of Grey Cranes, 
 or of Demoiselle Cranes, pass over high in the air, 
 announcing their approach with loud liquid notes. 
 Ruffs, Ringed Plovers, Godwits and Sandpipers feed 
 upon the mud at the river's edge. Small grey and 
 white Terns wheel backwards and forwards over the 
 river, with an occasional big Black-backed Gull passing 
 among them. 
 
 Colies or Mouse-Birds fly about the gardens in little 
 flocks, and feed on the figs and dates. They are 
 queer little brown birds, with crests and very long 
 stiff tails. They cling and climb about in all sorts 
 of parrot-like attitudes. 
 
 Many familiar summer visitors to England may be 
 recognised in Khartoum in the winter Swallows, 
 Sand Martins, Redstarts, Lesser Whitethroats, Reed 
 Warblers, Willow Wrens, Garden-Warblers, CMff-Chaffs, 
 and so on. 
 
 On the open land near the town sandy-brown 
 Crested Larks are met with singly or in pairs. Quaint 
 little Finch-Larks, with chestnut backs and black 
 heads and breasts and white cheeks and collars crouch,
 
 APPENDIX 805 
 
 on the ground, and Yellow Wagtails, Pipits, and Short- 
 toed Larks feed in scattered flocks. 
 
 Tiny grey Palm-Swifts, with attenuated wings and 
 tail, are plentiful, and fix their nests to the hanging, 
 fan-shaped leaves of the Dom palms. 
 
 20
 
 PRINTED BY 
 
 HAZELL, WATSON AHD TOtEY, LD. 
 LONDON AND ATLE8BDHT.
 
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 Return this material to the library 
 
 from which it was borrowed. 
 
 
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