Although grouped as Negroes proper, very few of the Nilotic peoples present the almost ideal type of the blacks, such as those of Upper Guinea and the Atlantic coast of West Sudan. The complexion is in general less black, the nose less broad at the base, the lips less everted (Shilluks and one or two others excepted), the hair rather less frizzly, the dolichocephaly and prognathism less marked. Apart from the more delicate shades of transition, due to diverse interminglings with Hamites and Semites, two distinct types may be plainly distinguished--one black, often very tall, with long thin legs, and long-headed (_Shilluks, Dinkas, Bari, Nuers, Alur_), the other reddish or ruddy brown, more thick-set, and short-headed (_Bongos_, _Golos_, _Makarakas_, with the kindred _Zandehs_ of the Welle region). No explanation has been offered of their brachycephaly, which is all the more difficult to account for, inasmuch as it is characteristic neither of the aboriginal Negro nor of the intruding Hamitic and Semitic elements. Have we here an indication of the transition suspected by many between the true long-headed Negro and the round-headed Negrillo, who is also brownish, and formerly ranged as far north as the Nile head-streams, as would appear from the early Egyptian records (Chap. IV.)? Schweinfurth found that the Bongos were "hardly removed from the lowest grade of brachycephaly[213]," and the same is largely true of the Zandehs and their Makaraka cousins, as noticed by Junker: "The skull also in many of these peoples approaches the round form, whereas the typical Negro is assumed to be long-headed[214]." But so great is the diversity of appearance throughout the whole of this region, including even "a striking Semitic type," that this observer was driven to the conclusion that "woolly hair, common to all, forms in fact the only sure characteristic of the Negro[215]."