The daily gazette., 1877-09-26
BLACK, BUT coME1Y.
THE NUBIANs THE FINEST RACE
IN EGYPT-THE FULL-BLOODED
AFRICAN,

ID ~ L
IN EGYPT-THE FULL-BLooDED
AFRICAN.
From the Philadelphia Press.
The Nubians are the finest race in
Egypt, and are in every respect a pecu-
liar people. They are black, but it is a
lustrous sable not unpleasing to the eye.
They have handsome, expressive coun-
tenances, bright eyes, well-shaped heads
and high foreheads. The hair naturally
curls in ringlets. They are the best
looking specimens of the negro branch
of the human 1 have ever met. They are
naturally intelligent, and are good
humored, and very agreeable in their
manners. They have the appearance of
people relspsed from a state of civiliza-
ton to their present semt-barous condi-
ton, Their favorite dress is nudity in
the female sex a string of bead-embroid-
cred cloth about the lions. They live on
or near the banks of the Nile, and from
its waters they draw their chief subsist-
ance. They swim-men, women and
children-liKe ducks have no fear of
crocodiles, and often seek a fight with
them, being very dexterous in the use of
the knife, and rarely fail to plunge it in
to the the throat of the monster.
In this part OF the Nile the crocodile
yet abounds. Steamboats, and the rude
treatment they have received from the
hands ofstrangers have driven them from
below the first cataract into the less fire.
quenGed waters Of Nubia The Nublans
have an ingenious way of catching the
crocodile on land. 1t is the custom of
the animal to crawl out of the water on
to the sand banks In the middle of the
river, and their, with their family, to
take their siesta. The Nubians in these
places dig pit, cover 1t with bushes
and a sprinkling of sand as if the wind
had drifted 1t there. The crocodlles are
no sooner gathered on this fragile than
it gives way and they fall Ainto the pit
beneath, AS they cannot extricate them
selves they are eaisly killed. Their skin
is used as shields, and sometimes they
are care stuffed in order TO be sold to
travellers. The Nubian's favorlte arms
arejavelin anda shleldof hippopotamus or
crocodile hide.
Further South, in Kordofan, SEMINAR,
and Darfour, appears the full blooded
African, with his coal-black skin, woody
hair, thick hps, and gross features. He
is naturally barbarian with savage in
stincls, with few wants to supply, and
living off whatever nature places within
his reach. His gods are the work of his
own hands, rude idols of wood and stone
to whom he offers in sacrifice, the cap
tives he has taken in battle. He is per-
petually at war, for he loves the smell
of blood, and he has little sence of
humanity. He hunts his fellow black
men in the jnngles, or he overpowers
them in their stockaded, mud-built viii
lagos at night, links them together in
droves, and sells them to the slave ira
derS, Col. Gordon, whom the Khedive
has appointed Governor of Soudan, has
full power to break this cruel traffic.
Not long since he wrote to him to lIss all
AZ N he
choose, to put an end to it. This Will be
difficult to do, for beyond the confines of
Dartour are the great slave hunting
helds, where internecine war eternally
relgns, and where, Notwithstanding mas
SacreS, and disease, the human race
seems to multiply, as it were, from the
fertilization of the earth with its own
blood.
Unhealthy as the climate is in the den-
ser parts Of Africa, where land and
water contend for the mastery, where
the people live an amphibious existence
among the morasses, or in the forest
wilds, it Is strange that epidemics are
rare. The contagious maladies that
sweep off whole populations elsewhere
are comparatively unknown, where it
might reasonably be supposed they would
most prevail. Egypt may now be con-
sldered to extend to the Equator The
whole country has not been explored or
open to intercourse to that point, but it
acknowledges the supremacy of the Khe-
dive, and in course of time we shall
be made acquainted with all of its pro-
ductions, Darfour, which is SAID to have
a popul alton of 5000 900, has been in a
state of insurrection. Col. Gordon by
the adoption of polite measures, put
down the movement, and peace now
reigns.