252 WHERE LIVES PRIMITIVE MAN from their persistent object of terror, until quite a drove had been accumulated. For two hours the birds failed to devise a means of escape, going directly ahead, though passages opened at intervals on either side. Eventually, when a more obvious opening appeared, by mere chance, certainly not by intelligence, they took the direction it did not suit us to choose.

The Egyptian artillerymen had done good work in the cutting of timber during our absence.

Splendid examples of the fine physique of the Egyptian fellahin, for a few extra piastres they were only too glad to slave at the work, getting through treble the amount that the sailors contributed. As they were paid according to the quantity which each individual brings in, an extraordinary stimulus was given to their exertions.

Fine men tliat they are—and ours appeared to be of particularly good class— their heaviness contrasted strangely with the alert quickness of the slight savages on the banks, however lazy the latter in reality were. The complete nudity of the blacks naturally gives the better opportunity of appreciating the build of their figures, and in some cases of finely-formed men the modelling, proportion and outline of their figures, with one exception, are admirable. There is in these better examples a grace and cleanness in the chiselling, and a satisfying definition of the muscles under the skin ; as with the antelopes, fat enters not into suggestion, nor the horrid over-development which at present