264 WHERE LIVES PRIMITIVE MAN eventually reached, on its borders were the few huts, quite irregularly placed, a little clean-swept space in front of the low door. Ancient Angelina sat, undisturbed by the coming of the stranger, gently rolling her gourd of beastly milk from side to side to make still more beastly butter. Near her is the smooth-sided hole in the ground wherein the corn is placed for crushing, for, in common with the Shilluks and Dinkas, the Nuers do not generally grind their corn as do the Arabs, but crush it laboriously with a heavy pestle some 6 feet long. Lack of concentration would appear to be a limitation of the Nuer in contrast to the Dinka, for Angelina would have to shout over a space of two or three hundred yards to the next few huts were she to see the robber Dinkas coming.

Here and there were deep holes of stagnant water, ideal breeding-places for mosquitoes and abominations, but still beloved of duck. Shrieks followed the report of my friend's twelve-bore, and amazement the fall of a mallard from a height by the mysterious power of the white man's magic ; but recovery was quick on the object of our sport being seen in our hands, and a demand for niaow became observable as a feminine guide led us by the difficult track to our floating home.