AMONG THE PAGANS OF THE SOUTHERN SUDAN 15 have established the doctor’s reputation throughout the district. .A small temporary school has been built, and is well attended.

At Opari, in the Acholi district, in the extreme south of the Mongalla Province, about 180: miles south-east of Malek, is a school which was opened some years ago for the children of the native police. Until recently it has been carried on by two Acholi Christians, part of a band of twelve from Uganda who volunteered in 1915 for work in the Southern Sudan, and to whose loyal help and faithful witness the Gordon Memorial Mission owes much. Now, however, it has been found advisable to place a European missionary at Opari.

‘Cross or Crescent?

In the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan a race-is being run between the Cross and the Crescent. Unless we at home realize that ‘‘ the King’s business requireth haste ’’ the Crescent will win, for the soldiers of the Crescent are many, and those of the Cross are pitifully few.

All the subordinates working under the British officials are Mohammedans; the local magistrate is almost invariably a Mohammedan, and in that.office he is brought into close touch with, and exercises a powerful influence over, the natives in his district. A large number of the people have been recruited into Sudanese battalions and into the native police force, both of which are officered by Mohammedans who are aggressive supporters of their faith: Arab traders are streaming into all parts of the country, spreading the faith of Islam wherever they go.

The pagans do not love the Arabs. They have not yet forgotten the misery and cruelty which they suffered at their hands during the Mahdi rule; yet to them the Mohammedan stands for a civilization but little removed from that of the white men. Although in accepting the faith of Islam they are vaguely conscious of getting only the second best, if the best is not forthcoming, they will embrace any religion that promises social uplift, and Islam is an infinitely easier faith than Christianity.

The Government has decided that the people of the -