Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/164

 They possess none of the gentleness of their animals, however, being wild and daring horsemen, much feared by their neighbours the Shilluks. According to the rough census taken by the Egyptian Government in 1871, after the reduction of the land, the Shilluk nation is one of the most numerous in the world in proportion to the surface of the cultivated land. It possesses about three thousand villages, each containing from fifty to two hundred families, and the whole nation comprises a total population of at least one million twelve hundred thousand, a density only to be equalled in the suburbs of European industrial towns and districts. There

are few other countries where nature provides so abundantly for all the wants of man. The towns on the bank follow in succession at intervals of less than half a mile, like one huge city. Seen from the river, these collections of huts, all similar in form, resemble clusters of mushrooms, the white cylinder of the building topped by a spherical grey roof heightening the illusion. In the middle of each village is a circular open space, where the villagers assemble in the evening, and seated on mats or ox-hides, smoke native tobacco in large pipes with clay bowls, and inhale the fumes of the fires lighted to keep off the musquitoes. To the trunk of the tree standing in the middle of this square are hung the drums, so that the public