194 " CREWE JUNCTION " OF THE NILE habitation. His villages are often a collection of beehives stuck on a treeless plain, and the idea of having a tree near one's front-door to provide shade does not seem to specially appeal to them.

Its absence may aid them in keeping free from mosquitoes.

In this instance it was different, and palm-groves not being too common, the fruit and the leaves, from which cordage is made, may have been the attraction. It was a quite pretty sight—the haycoloured roofs and dull red of the huts, amongst the green of the tall, handsome palms. The little girls were strolling down to the river with their water-pots, splashing and shrieking in the water ; lithe, naked men laboured at building a hut, or sat smoking their long pipes at ease, while the women had a certain dignity and ease of carriage which gave grace even to the patchy oxskin slung over one shoulder.

The population has increased enormously even in the last two or three years. In the old days few tukls (huts) would have been seen by the side of the river ; pheasants would just as securely rest by the lair of the fox. But now an almost continuous line of these buildings exists for scores of miles, and the cattle seem inimmerable, which the ravages of cattle disease in 1908 have not seriously affected.

At a spot by name Lul, where the ground rises considerably higher and farther away from the river than usual, was a long, low building of brick.