A SCENE ON THE NILE BANKS. 239 island, where the stream flows at the rate of some twelve knots an hour. The correspondent of the Times wrote: — " The scene on the east bank as the steamer drew up to it was quaint and striking. Squatting here and there on the rocks were the native labourers in two great groups separated by the little band of English sailors, who looked square and solid by the side of the slightly built Nubians. The Esneh men, clad mostly in the blue galabieh of the fellaheen, brightened the uniform yellow and black of the background. The Dongolese could not be said to contribute much in the way of colour. Each man blacker than his neighbour, clothed, when clothed at all, in a few yards of dirt)' cotton cloth, with their bare bullet heads, some shaved, some with the wool cropped close, some with thick bushy hair hanging about their shoulders, their appearance was certainly not calculated to prepossess the beholder; but what they lacked in comeliness they made up in cheerfulness and lightness of heart, and while the Esneh men were dull, stolid, and sad, looking on the corvee but as one more act of tyranny and oppression, the Dongolese, accustomed to oppression all their lives, and not understanding any other existence, appeared to think themselves on a pleasure trip, where there was a little more to be got to eat, a little more money to be earned than at home, and nearly as little work to be done, and munched their doura and water, chattered to and chaffed one another, and held shrill and animated conversations with friends a couple of hundred yards distant, with the jovial insoticiance of children out of school. Like children did they steadfastly refuse to work until driven to it by the courbash, armed with which formidable instrument and a beltful of other weapons, some fifty Bashi-Bazouks stalked gravely hither and thither amid the various groups. When the Wakeel of Dongola, come from Haifa in the Nassif-Khcir, emerged from the steamer gorgeous in bright green coat and brighter scarlet trousers, a momentary silence fell upon the noisy crowd, and each man rose to his feet, while Colonel Grant, R.A., who had charge of all the labourers, advanced to meet him. After a few words of conversation, the wakeel gave an order to a subordinate, who passed it to a chief of Bashi-Bazouks.