706 



The National Geographic Magazine 



solutely paralyzed, they said they would 

 rather lose the use of their hands alto- 

 gether than remove such a becoming 

 ornament. They said it had been there 

 from their earliest days and they would 

 stick to it. 



We experienced steamy hot, quite op- 

 pressive, weather on our next march 

 across flat, uninteresting country. We 

 saw a lot of giraffes near the road, but 

 I never fired at these animals for two rea- 

 sons : First of all, because it was forbid- 

 den by the government ; then because 

 they were too tame and their skins use- 

 less. 



There were beautiful birds flying 

 about — small green parrots in quantities 

 and tiny blue silky-coated humming-birds. 

 Upon the ground crawled a great variety 

 of beautiful lizards and chameleons of 

 wonderful gradations of tints, from the 

 richest and warmest cadmium yellow to 

 the deepest ultramarine blue. 



One beautifully shaped smooth-bodied 

 lizard in stripes of yellow and dark 

 brown was also noticeable, the yellow 

 blending into a faint blue, which gradually 

 got darker until it became deep and rich 

 toward the end of the tail. The most 

 common chameleons possessed bright yel- 

 lowish heads, dark-blue bodies, and a 

 yellow-ringed tail of light blue with a 

 black tip. There was then another kind 

 of rough-skinned chameleon in all shades 

 of vivid browns and greens. Dozens of 

 them played around me at the "Gemaiza" 

 tree, where I had stopped for my lunch. 



There were three wells here, thirty to 

 thirty-five feet deep, with putrid water 

 that stunk as we brought the bucket up to 

 the surface. 



More Dinka were to be found here, all 

 with four cuts on each side of the fore- 

 head ; men and women adorned with a 

 pointed leather tail behind. Some wore 

 quite a long tail, not unlike that of a mod- 

 ern dress-coat. Most of these tails were 

 made of tanned leather, but many peo- 

 ple wore tiny tails of antelope or water- 

 buck. Several women showed broad 

 bands of small white and red beads with 

 a fringe of rope just over the loins. 



Young men displayed two rows of par- 

 allel dots upon their skin running down 

 each side of the body directly under the 

 breasts, and eventually forming an angle. 

 All the men shaved the greater portion 

 of the skull, leaving a circular tuft of hair 

 at the back of the head, into which they 

 stuck porcupine quills or ostrich feathers, 

 as the fashion of day prompted them. 

 The women shaved a good portion of the 

 side hair and also part of the top of the 

 head. They plaited what remained into 

 tiny tresses, which they often smeared 

 with butter and red earth. 



Although we still found a few men 

 who covered themselves with ashes, the 

 custom was not so general here as farther 

 east. 



Dinka houses had a narrow mud wall 

 four feet high. A thatched roof., con- 

 structed separately, was placed bodily 

 upon this wall when completed. A small 

 open porch adjoined the front of the 

 house and several small peepholes were 

 to be seen around the wall of the hut. 



The fashion of wearing many rings in 

 separate holes all the way round the 

 curve of the ears was common among 

 these people. We fared badly for water, 

 as there was none on the road except at 

 these wells or in the small pools dug 

 by natives or by the government. Some 

 of these pools were only ten feet or so be- 

 low the level of the ground in sandy soil. 

 They contained a few inches of water, 

 possibly as much as a small wash- 

 basinful. 



After the hot marches, when we ar- 

 rived anywhere insatiably thirsty, espe- 

 cially in the evening, we generally found 

 natives sitting in these pools washing 

 their limbs and body. As this was the 

 only water we could find, it did not make 

 us particularly amiable towards the local 

 residents, and we had to face the problem 

 whether we would resign ourselves to die 

 of thirst or use it as best we could. I 

 do not know that boiling improved it 

 much. We generally disguised it into 

 strong coffee, but there was so much lime 

 in many of these wells that even the 

 strongest coffee brewed was hardly less 



