Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-07-06
GIANT RACE.

On thebanks of the Blue Nile. some 200
miles from it's mouth and in a region so
inaccessible that even the all-penetrat-
ing Brton has been slow to reach it, Sir
William Garston has Just discovered a
colony of giants. They are endowed with
physical attributes such as would have
driven their old fairy-tale ancestors into
permanent retirement.
These giants are farmers. For genera
ton after generation thy have titled the
soil along the banks of the Blue Nile, and
titled 1t in spite of obstacles that make
the annual harvesting OF the Kansas cy-
cione seem like a summer in an amateur
garden. The old family homesteads Of
the Nile giants have a most annoying ha-
bit OF disappearing Internationally. This
pscullafity-cue to the uncertain4temper
Of the sluggish stream that flows by their
doorstecs-has caused the giants to ac-
qu.re amphibious habits. Instead Of
abandoning the region entirely and seek
ing a more trustworthy neighborhocd,
they have, with infinite patience and
forebearance, studied the wh.ms and ec-
ce.>tricities of the river. When tits high
they move up out of the wet and cultivate
the high lands. When It is low they move
ali that is portable onto the mud Is
lands that appsar the moment the stream
subsidies, and on these little mtid piles
they raise rice and grain and a really ill.,
credible amount of farm produce. The
alternating between the banks and the
middle of the stream is kept uptyear in
, and year out. ~ 4"
Sir William Garston, under secretary Of
the Egyptian public works department,
returned to Caro- recently from an eX-
tended journey up the Blue and White
Niles on the English gunboat Metemmeh.
He found the Shiilocks, as the tribe of
! Uil ~ 4 G i & nnIlnI q r A1nr~4 ~ D,l-~~ -.
the Meeting of the Waters. He asserts
that he was most favorably impressed
with the Shillocks. They are cookbook
ing. to begin with; and, better than that,
they are honest. Their most marked
physical characteristic is their tremen-
dously long arms, which hang below their
knees. They are men Of remarkable
bodily strength, and can endure fatigue
and hardship that would soon kill an
ordinary mortal. Sir William found that
hardly any Of them failed to be at least a
foot taller thar the tallest Englishman
IN the party, and many much larger than
that.
Their attire is conspicuous by it's alb
sence. When a Shillock giant has donned
his headgear he is ready for breakfast:
U no man ever stirs out without it, or
WITHOUT his spear in his hand. and this
weapon invariably is decorated lavishly
With ostrich feathers at the point.
The ShlllOck women are much smaller
than the men, and are inferior to them in
looks. They wear their heads closely
shaved and array themselves. winter and
summer alike, in skins, which they wear
after the style adopted by a Broadway
sandwich man.
The Shillock is not a religious man,
and, beyond some vague ideas of the de-
STABILITY of propitiating m%alevolent
spirits. he is influenced by no creeds
Whatever. His only modern vice is the
harmless one Of smoking, andHhe IN
dulges in that on a scale befitting his
stature. The pipe which he smokes will
hold comfortably a half-pound Of tobac-
GO, and when he becomes weary of hold