150 AN EXCURSION TO LUR.

Fig-trees, planted and cultivated everywhere in the east, are not found here. The few bark cloths occasionally seen come from Unyoro, and only people in good circumstances can afford to buy them. Salt also is brought from the same country, though some is obtained here by burning grass and washing the ashes. Saline earth is said to exist farther northwards, in the district of Chief Boki. The only domestic animals visible were sheep and goats; the cows were perhaps out grazing with neighbours in the mountains. ‘The goats are fine, slim, tall animals, but rather short in the body, and short-haired ; the sheep are large, and resemble the thick-tailed breeds of the lower Nile (Sudan). No dogs were to be seen. The language is very similar to that of the Shuli and Shefalu, which is spoken in the neighbourhood of the rapids of Karuma and Tada, and it is quite identical with the idiom spoken in Wadelai’s and Rokéto’s districts. As many of the people here speak Kinyoro, I was able to make myself understood without the aid of interpreters, and in spite of the limited time, I managed to compile a small vocabulary, which reveals the almost complete conformity of this language with the Shuli. I tried afterwards, in Fatiko, to compile a Shuli vocabulary also, and have already alluded to the great similarity existing between this language and that of the Shiluk, which, however, is only known to me from the small Jur (Shiluk) vocabulary in Dr. Schweinfurth’s excellent collection. The hypothesis of a great Shiluk migration to the south, which I venture to put forth, is chiefly supported by the really surprising similarity of the languages, manners, and customs of the three peoples above mentioned, and is the more probable because Dr. Schweinfurth reports the existence of members of the Shiluk family in the Bahr-el-Ghazal territory, so that their presence here is not surprising, nor is this an isolated instance. The Shuli themselves say that their forefathers came from the north. It is to be hoped that later and more competent inquirers will succeed in throwing a clearer light on this most interesting subject.

Here also the name Lur or Alur was given as a general name to the country south of the Madi district as far as and beyond the true Mahagi marked on Mason’s map, and the district here is named M’svar or Kasvar (probably Mason’s