CAIRO TO KISUMU them and the towers are covered with Arabic carvings. The building is named after Khedive Abbas Hilmi who, I am told, furnished much of the money for its erection.

Khartum has also a big Coptic church as well as one built by the Church of England and the schools and chapels of the United Presbyterian Mission of our country. So, you see, notwithstanding its position on this far-away part of the globe, it has abundant religious facilities.

I have been interested in watching the women doing construction work here in Khartum. Wherever new houses and business blocks are going up, the masons and mechanics have their women helpers. The labourers come from all parts of the Sudan, so that the women of a halfdozen tribes may be working on the same building. The wages are far beyond those of the past, and, although they are still but a few cents a day, here in Central Africa they mean riches.

These women labourers are strapping black girls, straight and plump, and so lightly dressed that one can see all the outlines of their forms. Some have but a thin sheet of blue cotton wrapped loosely around the shoulders with another wound about the waist so that it falls to the feet. The upper garment is off half the time, leaving the girl bare to the waist. Her plump bust shows out in the bright sun as she raises her arms high to steady the load on her head. These African natives, both men and women, pull out all the hair on their bodies, going over them once a month for this purpose. This custom is common in many parts of the world. It is done among some of the Indians of the Amazon, among the Jewesses of Tunis, who are shaved from head to foot just before marriage, and among 172