The mills were three in number. Each was in a mud stable-like one-story building just large enough to hold the millstones and the track for the animals which turned them. The stones were similar to the old-fashioned grinding machines of our own country. They rested one upon the other and were so made that the grain flowed from a hopper on to the top stone. The motive power for each mill was a blindfolded camel, who moved around in a circle, turning the top stone. The camels were driven by black boys, who sat on the bars of the mills and rode there as they whipped them along. The flour so ground was fine. Picking up a handful, I tasted it and found it quite good. [Illustration: The Shilouks are among the most powerful Sudanese tribes. The men are usually over six feet tall and well formed. They stiffen their hair with grease and clay and then cut it into fantastic shapes much as a privet hedge is trimmed.] [Illustration: When the Khalifa ruled he feared education and had all the books in his dominions destroyed. Hence not one Sudanese in a hundred can read and write. But the natives respect learning and those at Gordon College are good students.] CHAPTER XXIV GORDON COLLEGE AND THE WELLCOME LABORATORIES Away up the Nile valley, so far from the Mediterranean that it took me four days by steamship and railroad to reach it, almost within a stone’s throw of where whole tribes are going naked, and near the site of what was one of the slave centres of Africa, the English have built up a school that is turning out native teachers and judges, government clerks and bookkeepers, mechanics of all sorts, and within certain limits, civil engineers. It has already several acres of college buildings, including large dormitories, well equipped classrooms, a library, a museum, and one of the most remarkable research laboratories of the world. I refer to Gordon College, which was founded just after the Battle of Omdurman and named in honour of the great general who was killed in sight of where it now stands. The idea was suggested by Lord Kitchener, and the money was contributed by the people of England. The amount raised was seven hundred thousand dollars, to which has been added the munificent gift of Mr. Henry S. Wellcome, an American, who has established the famous Wellcome Laboratory as a part of this institution. It was through a note of introduction from Sir Reginald Wingate to Dr. James Currie, the president of the college, that I was taken through it and given an insight into its workings and possibilities. The institution stands on the bank of the Blue Nile at the southern end of Khartum, between the British barracks and the palace of the Sirdar. It is a handsome structure of dark red brick of Moorish architecture, built around three sides of a square, with the front facing the river. At the back are beautiful gardens and an experiment plantation where Dr. Currie is testing whether tea and certain other shrubs can be successfully grown.