378 FROM NORTH POLE TO EQUATOR. 



about all day, or the dough whose leavening they had to super- 

 intend, or the grinding-mill over which they have exerted their 

 young strength. All hasten to the bank of the river. The boys 

 are naked; the girls wear only their tasselled aprons. Laughing 

 and chattering they go; like black ants they swarm on the golden 

 yellow sand, running over and between the dark rocks. Those who 

 are to chase stand picturesquely grouped, until the fugitive gets the 

 requisite start. He gives the sign for the chase to begin, and they 

 are all at his heels. Like a gazelle he speeds over the sandy plain 

 to the nearest rocks, and like hounds in full cry his comrades give 

 chase; like a chamois he climbs aloft upon the rocks, and not less 

 nimbly do his pursuers follow; like a startled beaver he plunges 

 into the stream to hide himself by diving, to escape by swimming, 

 but there too they follow excitedly, both boys and girls, kicking 

 like swimming dogs, halloing and screaming, chattering, laughing, 

 chuckling, like a flock of gabbling ducks. For long the result re- 

 mains undecided, and it not unfrequently happens that the bold 

 fugitive swims right across the broad river before he falls into the 

 hands of his pursuers. The parents of the merry company look on 

 from the banks, and rejoice in the agility, courage, and endurance 

 which their children display, and even the European is compelled 

 to admit that he never saw creatures more joyous or more vigorous 

 than those slim, dusky, sleek-skinned Nubian children. 



From boys who play thus boldly come the men who dare to ply 

 the boatman's craft among the rapids, to steer their boat down the 

 river hurrying through the valley, with rushing, swirling, boiling, 

 raging waves, and even to sail upwards against these. On many of 

 their journeyings they do not even use a boat, but trust to frail 

 floats of dhurra-stems, or swim with the help of inflated, air-tight 

 skin-bags. These Nubian boatmen and swimmers have looked 

 danger in the face so firmly, and so often, that the waves have 

 never whispered either myth or saga in their ears. They know of 

 no nixies or water-sprites, of no genii, good or bad, and the pro- 

 tecting powers whose help they ask before or during dangerous 

 journeys have but the solemn might of fate, none of the spite of 

 fickle spirits. Thus the saga is dumb in the rapids, in " the Belly of 



