42 SPORT AND TRAVEL PAPERS 



accompany us in search of the royal beast, but there was no 

 energy about it, and therefore it always proved fruitless. The 

 women, of course, had to do all the heavy work, staggering 

 under ponderous waterskins, which it was their duty to fill at the 

 well and carry back to the village. The young children run 

 about naked, but afterwards wear a loincloth, or a cotton sheet 

 wound round the loins and thrown over their shoulders, accord- 

 ing to the condition in life of their parents. The children's 

 heads are always shaved on both sides, leaving a narrow strip 

 of hair across the crown of the skull ; this is supposed to be a 

 preventive against ophthalmia. 



Why does this population not increase more ? These villages 

 have, no doubt, existed a great many centuries, and are probably 

 no bigger now than they were long, long ago ; nor does it seem 

 likely that their number has increased, or is increasing, judging 

 from the enormous tracts of country utterly deserted, and without 

 a sign of a village or any human habitation. Probably the 

 fevers raging here during the wet season, when the whole district 

 becomes a swamp, kill off a great number of the children, and 

 of the grown-up people too ; for, although at that time the 

 villages are moved up on to the hills and plateaux, the malarial 

 poison claims many a victim. It is a favourable thing, however, 

 that the population does not increase to any very appreciable 

 extent, for, living as it does simply and solely on and by the 

 flocks, without any industry and with no trade, it is very neces- 

 sary that there should be plenty of space to allow of these large 

 flocks to be frequently shifted about, a sine qua non where food 

 for them is so very scarce, consisting, as it does, solely of the 

 scanty foliage of trees and bushes, scattered sparsely over the 

 parched country. 



On the third morning after our arrival the village was on the 

 move in search of fresh pastures to a place a few miles higher 

 up the river. This shifting of the community is a very simple 

 affair ; the huts are rapidly taken to pieces, the matting is rolled 

 up, the sticks and poles tied together, and then everything is 

 ready for removal on some beast of burden, camel, ox, cow, or 

 donkey. The female members of the sheikh's family travel in 

 gaily decorated " shugdoofs " on camels, and are attended by 

 several servants on foot. A " shugdoof " is simply a mat hut 

 placed upon a camel, in which the fair occupant reposes, shel- 



