As far as regards the women—​I saw none except those whose short-cropped hair appeared stippled over with fresh-sprouting woolly locks, and resembled the skin of a new-born lamb, like the “Astrachan” of commerce. The women do not go entirely naked, but wear an apron of calf-skin, which is bound round their loins, and reaches to their knees.

Just like the Dinka, whose external habits, apart from their hair-combs, they would appear almost entirely to follow, every man amongst them ordinarily carries a club-shaped crutch, nearly three feet in length, with a heavy round knob at its upper end, but which tapers down to a point at the other extremity, so that it resembles a gigantic nail. Their only arms are their long spiked lances, of which (to judge from the equivalents taken in exchange) one is valued at a Maria Theresa dollar. Bows and arrows are just as unknown amongst them as amongst the neighbouring Dinka, whilst, on the contrary, amongst the Nueir they are the chief weapons.

SHILLOOK ANIMALS.

The domestic animals which the Shillooks breed are oxen, sheep, and goats, the same kinds as hereafter we shall find amongst the Dinka; besides these, they keep poultry and dogs; other animals are scarce, and probably could not endure the climate. Throughout the country dogs abound, in shape like greyhounds, but in size hardly equal to our pointers. They are almost always of a foxy-red colour, with a black muzzle, much elongated; they are short-haired and sleek, and have long tails, smooth as those of rats; their ears are tolerably long, the upper portion being flabby and ragged, and therefore drooping forward. Almost beyond example in their activity in leaping and running, so fleet are they that with the greatest ease they outrun the gazelle, and are everywhere of service in the chase; over the earth-walls ten feet high, and over ant-hills, they bound with the celerity of cats, and can jump three or four times the length of their own slim bodies. I kept a number of genuine Shillook dogs, which subsequently did very well in the farther interior, and increased considerably. Like all dogs of the Nile district, from the Egyptian pariah to the village cur of the Soudan, this breed is always found to be deficient in the dew-claws of the hind foot, which always exist in our European dogs. As a general rule, it may be said that the Shillook dog differs little from the races of the Bedouins of Kordofan and of Sennaar.

The only conception which the Shillook entertain of a higher existence is limited to their reverence for a certain hero, who is called the Father of their race, and who is supposed to have conducted them to the land which they at present occupy. In case of famine, or in order that they may have rain, or that they may reap a good harvest, they call upon him by name. They imagine of the dead that they are lingering amongst the living and still attend them. It is with them as with other uncultivated children of nature, that old traditions and veneration of ancestors supply the place of religious legends or ethic system.

Late in the evening of the 1st of February we left Fashoda, and proceeded, without using the sail, for the greatest part of the night along the left bank. At daybreak we arrived at the Egyptian camp. We were received with singing, shouting, and the braying of trumpets. I was conducted by the Governor to his tent, and whilst, hour after hour, we smoked our pipes in company, I related to him the most recent events in the political world. After talking to him about the sources of the Nile, and the campaign of the English in Abyssinia, I told him of the events of the “Seven Days’ War,” in return for which I was presented with a fine bullock and several sheep and goats. The encampment, as I found, consisted of some huts erected with straw in a very off-hand way, the irregular forms of which contrasted very disadvantageously with the symmetrical regularity which is so conspicuous in the dwellings of the Shillooks. Military tents and awnings of sedge completed the equipment of the camp. An ordinary thorn hedge with two loopholes, in which a cannon was always placed, protected the spot, which was close to the left bank of the river. In the Mudir’s verandah I also made acquaintance with the Shillook chief, to whom I before alluded, who had entirely surrendered to the Egyptian Government, and was now, as the Governor expressed himself, “coming to his senses.” There was no external indication whatever of his rank, except a miserable rag which hung about his loins, or the common sandals which he wore, might be considered such. His short-cropped hair had no covering; his neck had a row of beads, such as the heads of families are accustomed to wear, worth about a couple of groschen; and this was all the decoration he displayed. He retained now but a shadow of his former power; his better days were gone, days in which, attended by a council of ancestral state, he had swayed the sceptre of patriarchal dignity. Of all the negro races which occupy the entire district of the Nile, the Shillooks used to uphold the most perfectly regulated government, and to appreciate them thoroughly it is necessary to refer back to the earliest registries, which those who accompanied the expedition of Mehemet Ali left on record. But now this condition is all changed, and everything has disappeared which gave this independent and primitive people their most striking characteristics.

SHILLOOK SUBMISSION.

In the immediate proximity of the camp all was generally at peace; the Shillooks apparently submitted tamely enough to a Government which did not exercise any very tyrannical power, and which contented itself with demanding a supply of bullocks and a stated levy of provisions to maintain the troops. Notwithstanding this usual semblance of concord, the Governor was notoriously on terms of open enmity and feud with the Shillooks in the south. Kashgar, another descendant of the ancient reigning family, still maintained himself as an uncontrolled sovereign, and was able to render that part of the river extremely unsafe for navigation. Ever and again the Governor with his force, never more than 600 strong, was undertaking expeditions against them; but, as he himself told me, they never came to an actual engagement. Although the blacks, he said, might muster 20,000 or 30,000 strong, the second cannon shot was quite enough to make them scamper off, and leave their flocks and herds in the lurch; upon these the mounted Baggara, in the service of the Government, descended and made them an easy spoil. This nomadic race, from time immemorial, has ever, as I have already mentioned, been addicted to the plunder of cattle, and has always exhibited a preference for that occupation.

In another respect the situation of the Government here is far from easy. Not only are the Shillooks at heart at enmity to it, but it excites the hostility of the trading companies who ascend the river. Nothing indicates the circumstances better than the expression of a member of one of these companies. “The Mudir,” he said, “doesn’t like to attack the Shillooks; he takes care of them, and only wants a few of their bullocks; but we—​we should just like to annihilate them, devil’s brood as they are.” In fact, as the Mudir said to me, he only wanted the best of the Shillooks; the Shillooks know well enough that their “best” is their cattle, and this they are not really resigned passively to surrender, and so they go on and continue to be defiant, till they feel the grenades and rockets scorching their skins. For the future fortune of this favoured country I cannot anticipate much that is good. Whilst the Viceroy refuses to appoint Europeans as governors, like Munzinger in Massowa, his officers must fail in those qualifications which would be adequate for the successful administration of a newly-acquired negro territory. The visible retrogression of the Egyptian Soudan with respect to cultivation, confirms this unfavourable foreboding. Ismail Pasha centres all his hope upon the stimulating influence of a railway which shall connect Egypt with Khartoom, and very likely he may witness commerce enlarged to an unsuspected magnitude; one thing, however, there is which he cannot prevent, and that is the depopulation of the Shillook lands. Since they remain closed to European civilisation, and since the husbandmen in Egypt are sufficiently engrossed in acquiring fresh soil for their own tillage at home, there is no prospect whatever for any advantage to these lands, except it can be found in a large immigration of labourers from Asia.

JUDICIAL VERDICT.