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246 The National Geographic Magazine 



No radical or reactionary attempt is 

 made to interfere with social customs or 

 old, familiar usages. For example, if the 

 young Arabs wish to convey food to their 

 mouths with their fingers, like their an- 

 cestors for generations and their families 

 today, they are permitted, but they are 

 taught that the washing of hands before 

 and after eating is imperative. 



THE UNION OF THE TWO NILES 



The union of the two Niles, or, rather, 

 the refusal of the two currents to unite, 

 never fails to attract attention and is a 

 phenomenon which has had many expla- 

 nations. For miles the waters of the two 

 streams flow on distinct and repellent, 

 as though a physical barrier separated 

 them, and one can trace the division as 

 far to the north as one can see — the Blue 

 Nile, with its somber, almost black 

 waters, hugging the eastern bank and 

 taking about a third of the width of the 

 stream, while the turbid White, laden 

 with the light-colored soil 2,000 miles to 

 the south, keeps steadily on its way, as 

 though the new neighbor were unworthy 

 of notice. 



Omdurman may be reached in two or 

 three ways from Khartum, but the best 

 is by the little two-mile-and-a-half two- 

 foot steam tram, which, starting from the 

 Mosque square in the heart of the town, 

 winds its way through the market gar- 

 dens, melon and durra patches, whose 

 owners, with their families, are sunning 

 themselves against the walls of their Nile 

 mud houses in the windy and chilly 

 morning, to the ferry landing, whence a 

 steamer with the inevitable barge soon 

 puts you on the other side. 



THE MARKETS OE OMDURMAN 



The gum market at Omdurman is the 

 greatest of its kind in the world. Here, 

 exposed to the full rays of the morning 

 sun and spread out on acres of mats, are 

 heaped the treasures of the trees of the 

 Kordofan desert, brought hundreds of 

 miles on the backs of camels. In one 

 corner of the great inclosure, sheltered 

 by an awning of mats, groups of kneeling 



women are sorting the gum, picking it 

 over, rejecting all foreign matter, gather- 

 ing pieces of like size and quality that it 

 may be more readily graded, and using 

 nothing but eyes and hands for the pro- 

 cess. Here is the raw material which 

 makes the gum as applied in the arts and 

 sciences in a thousand different ways — 

 on every envelope, postage stamp, in con- 

 fectionery, etc. 



The silversmiths are among the most 

 interesting artisans of Omdurman, and 

 to them practically the whole of one 

 street is given. A charcoal fire as big as 

 a half bushel, half buried in the ground 

 and blown by a crude, antiquated bellows 

 (one was nothing more nor less than an 

 old canvas bag with a hole at one cor- 

 ner, which an Arab boy regularly lifted 

 and lowered, and with good effect, too), 

 an anvil set in the earth, and a few small 

 hammers constitute the workman's entire 

 stock of tools, and with these he turns 

 out very presentable wrist and ankle orna- 

 ments, bracelets, and finger rings, and 

 other articles which touch the barbaric 

 fancy of the Sudanese women. Little 

 originality or variety, however, is ex- 

 pressed in the designs, and the workman- 

 ship, while creditable, considering the 

 tools with which it is done, would not be 

 accepted in the shops of London or New 

 York. The Omdurman smiths are, how- 

 ever, fully alive to the value of their 

 wares, and hunters of bargains are sure 

 to be disappointed. They know the worth 

 of the raw material in every article they 

 fashion, and, remembering this, have a 

 bottom figure which is immovable. 



Still another interesting business center 

 of the great Sudanese metropolis is the 

 cattle and camel market — an extensive 

 corral filled with live stock, except horses, 

 which are the exclusive possession of the 

 British officers. As we stood on its walls, 

 surveying the busy and picturesque scene, 

 the Arab dealers and drivers, in their 

 white turbans and long blue gowns, mov- 

 ing to and fro among the animals, to the 

 south a long string of a hundred or more 

 gum-laden camels from Dongola crossed 

 the near horizon, reflected in the glaring 



