74 "AHAI OW MAZADA!"

away, they sang a weird song, and advanced, still singing, toward me, the old Sheikh-priest, for such he appeared, intermingling his rough voice with the not quite unmelodious tones of the women.

Four yards away they all stopped, and crouched, or knelt, on their knees, and then came a performance for all the world like the responses in our English Church service. With wonderful vigour and emphasis the Sheikh, Buz Nyal by name, recited a short sentence jolted out in a tone so severe that he might be intending to devour the maids. His congregation replied with a somewhat more lengthy response, and, just as happens in church, slightly before the end of their sentence Parson Buz Nyal had begun his next invocation.

It was for all the world like, " We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord." I found it impossible to avoid a comparison with the situation at home, where the clergyman holds a somewhat similar sway over the feminine mind. Here on the part of his subjects was an obedience amounting to as near adoration as is possible to the undeveloped native mind, and on the Sheikh's part a masterful domination—influence is too weak a word—which was meekly submitted to.

Buz Nyal wore the spiked rings and bracelets with which the Nuers lacerate disobedient wives' backs (of the latter there seemed to be plenty) ; his nails were exceedingly long, as are those of the Chinese ; his hair long and fuzzy, growing as though he were running full speed and leaving