The New British Empire of the Sudan 255 



A Cobbler on the Street, Khartum 



of moderate height with spreading leafy 

 tops and to a great degree entirely free 

 from undergrowth. The utter absence of 

 every representative of our fir, spruce, 

 cedar, or balsam also conveys an unusual 

 impression. While the African forests 

 contain an abundance of trees always 

 in green foliage and the multi-colored 

 tints of our autumn are never known, 

 there is not a solitary example of the 

 beautiful "evergreen" which adorns every 

 Adirondack slope and flourishes, dwarfed 

 and stunted, to the farthest Labrador. 

 Wooding stations, each very much like 

 those which have gone before, fill the 

 time, but do not break the monotony, 

 until Fashoda, after we have been at sea 

 almost a week, is reached. By tins time 

 we are in the heart of the Shillook 



country, and the Arabs and their little 

 veneer and fringe of European civiliza- 

 tion seem as far away as Paris or Madi- 

 son Square. 



TH£ shiixooks 



The Shillook, tall, lithe, and usually 

 wearing only a string of beads, fre- 

 quently not even that, is a true child of 

 nature. With head plastered with red 

 mud and body with wood ashes, he toys 

 with his murderous spear, surveying the 

 newcomer, and one is inclined to treat him 

 with every outward appearance of re- 

 spect. Shillooks are plentiful long before 

 reaching Fashoda ; but this is their capi- 

 tal, and about a mile south of the port is 

 a large collection of their tukhls, or 

 houses, among which the king makes his 



