120 



NORTH-EAST APEICA. 



They possess none of tlie gentleness of their animals, however, being wild and 

 daring horsemen, much feared by their neighbours the Shilluks. According to the 

 rough census taken by the Egyptian Government in 1871, after the reduction of 

 the land, the Shilluk nation is one of the most numerous in the world in proportion 

 to the surface of the cultivated land. It possesses about three thousand villages, 

 each containing from fifty to two hundred families, and the whole nation comprises 

 a total population of at least one million twelve hundred thousand, a density only 

 to be equalled in the suburbs of European industrial towns and districts. There 



Fig. 39. — Shilluk Type. 



are few other countries where nature provides so abundantly for all the wants of 

 man. The towns on the bank follow in succession at intervals of less than half a 

 mile, like one huge city. Seen from the river, these collections of huts, all similar 

 in form, resemble clusters of mushrooms, the white cylinder of the building topped 

 by a spherical grey roof heightening the illusion. In the middle of each village is 

 a circular open space, where the villagers assemble in the evening, and seated on 

 mats or ox-hides, smoke native tobacco in large pipes with clay bowls, and inhale 

 the fumes of the fires lighted to keep off the musquitoes. To the trunk of the 

 tree standing in the middle of this square are hung the drums, so that the public 



