A MOTLEY ASSEMBLY 205 unceasing. Often one wakes in the night to hear the familiar scrub, scrub, in the darkness—Mary Ann grinding her corn in the cool of the night.

Beside her may be seen an Arab who holds a gourd high in the air, so that whole, uncrushed grain may pour into his cooking-pot for boiling with soup, the wind carrying dust away in its fall.

This is another method of preparing the grain for purposes of food, and, being a man, he would starve rather than do feminine work at the grindstone.

On the sandal was an old Nuer lady, who had been living in a state of high culture at Kodok, having learned to wear clothes as an Arab. She was taking an opportunity, eagerly sought after, of visiting her relatives on the Zeraf. By her side was a man of ineffable ugliness, some of his frontteeth knocked out and others protruding, naked and black, his tufty hair red with cowdung and clay, projecting backward and upward.

Berberi and Sudani servants, with the amphibious bahari of the First Cataract, the tall, yellow, and slow Egyptian soldiers of our escort, a Greek engineer, and the Englishmen, made up a Noah's Ark in the way of mankind.

Game is very plentiful here, but there was little opportunity under the circumstances of the journey to bag any ; moreover, there was an unusual amount of water in the country for this time of year, which rendered it unnecessary for game to come actually to the river.

Here were the handsome, cobby waterbuck, with