150 MAN IN THE SUDAN haired Asiatic Ethiopians with the curly-headed ones of Africa, who differed only in this respect and in that of language, thus involving people from both sides of the Red Sea. That this deduction is not unopen to doubt is evidenced by Mr. Stuart Poole's mention of the description in the Septuagint of the " land of Gesem (Goshen) in Arabia " as applying to an Egyptian province on the Arabian side of Egypt ; so that the term " Asiatic Ethiopians " might in like manner apply to the inhabitants of that part of Africa adjacent to Asia. Herodotus speaks also of their habit of covering themselves with red earth—a practice of Kordofan Nubas of to-day, in common with some of the negroids. The long bows of these folk were of palm-wood, and their arrows were tipped with stone " of the sort on which they engrave seals," probably the desert agate, still in such everyday use for the making of beads.

The difference in colour, which dates from earliest history, between the descendants of these ancient inhabitants of the Nile, the Nubas and Barabras, is great ; and the same difference exists between the more primitive species, the brown-yellow bushman and Hottentot and the black northern pigmy.

Sir H. H, Johnston holds that the Nubas are negroid ; but Gleichen is positive of the contrary, in spite of their blackness of skin.

To possess a black skin does not necessarily mean negro descent, though it might be collateral with it ; but its occurrence is arbitrary in regard to its