Transport.Donkeys or mules are the best transport animals all round, though camels do very well as long as their feet do not get sore. All the transport animals available for purchase, or otherwise, are those that come in from Abyssinia, and the supply is a very fluctuating one.
(d) Dinkas on the White Nile.
The Dinka country on the White Nile, extends from Jebelein southwards to about 10 miles south of Kodok, along the right bank; it is uninhabited, however, except by Nomad Selim, north of Karshawal.
The Dinkas, or Jange, as they are called by the Arabs, have no Mek like the Shilluks, but each section is separate and independent under its own sheikh, consequently, they were never able to unite to defend themselves against the depredations of slave traders and the Dervishes, who found them an easy prey. Many of their sheikhs at the present time are men who have been slaves in Cairo, and who have been repatriated either by Gordon or the present Sudan Government. Thus it is that, whilst the majority of the men are stark naked, one here and there meets a respectably dressed old man carrying a sunshade.
The women ordinarily wear a goatskin apron in front and another behind, but the unmarried girls are usually content with a string of beads.
The men mould their hair, mixed with red mud, into fantastic shapes, and sleep on a bed of cow-dung ash, with which their bodies are covered. The women do not usually thus disfigure themselves, and sleep on hide mats.
The Dinkas are remarkable for their height and slender limbs and figures. They are not, however, of such fine physique as their neighbours the Shilluks.
They are unenterprising and ignorant to a degree, and so unprogressive and rigidly conservative that any such up-to-date innovation as the introduction of donkeys[83] for transport purposes, an innovation admitted by themselves to be most desirable, is not adopted simply on the pretext that it was not the custom of their fathers and forefathers.
They consequently always walk, the men carrying long narrow bladed spears and a knob-kerry, and the women a large basket on their heads containing their food, etc.
During the dry season the Dinkas desert the hinterland of the river, and descend with their flocks and herds to live near its banks, where the now dry marshes afford excellent grazing.