ABSENCE OF NATIVE REMAINS every one who had the will and the power to resist him in the smallest particular. Wars, small inter-tribal fights, and raids undertaken for the purpose of obtaining women or cattle were carried on perpetually, and such influence as was possessed by the local medicine-man, or magician, certainly leaned to the side of the man who had the largest body of warriors. It is not unreasonable to assume that every now and then a king would arise who succeeded in making his power felt over a large tract of country, and when such an event happened a comparative state of peace would exist for perhaps a generation. But the strong man would be conquered ultimately by one stronger than himself, or be driven from his seat of power by a son or nephew who rebelled with success, and then in the fights which followed men would be killed, women and children carried off as slaves, crops destroyed, huts burned, and a whole province laid waste. In spite of all this, however, a certain number of men must have earned a living by trade and barter, and the produce of one district, or at least certain articles, such as skins of animals, feathers, gold, and various kinds of wood, must have found ready buyers in another. Fighting and trading have always been the chief occupations of tribes in the Sudan, and when war failed to give them employment, they devoted themselves diligently to the haggling and bargaining which never failed to give zest to the business of buying and selling. Unfortunately the ancient Sudani kings who were not influenced by foreigners have left few monuments behind them, and when we consider the conditions under which they must always have lived, this fact should not surprise us. The largest city in the Sudan can never have been more than a large collection of palm-leaf houses, either round with pointed roofs, or square with flat roofs, and in most places the government buildings, under which we may group palaces, forts, and temples, have usually been made of crude brick. We are now able to trace historical facts connected with the relations which have existed between Egypt and the Sudan back for a period of some six thousand years, and these show that of all the remains of ancient buildings which now exist in the Sudan, not one-tenth are the result of pure Sudani suggestion or enterprise. Many archaeologists have imagined that we shall find in the Sudan the ruins of purely native buildings and monuments which will enable 511 I