Everywhere, beyond a question, domestic cleanliness and care in the preparation of food are signs of a higher grade of external culture, and answer to a certain degree of intellectual superiority. I have travelled much in Europe, where the diversity of the external conditions of life is greater than in any other quarter of the world; I have had much opportunity of observation, and I am sure that I do not err in the conclusion that I draw. Not the size of the houses, nor the dimensions of the windows (for these are variously influenced by climate), not the clothing (for Sards, Dalmatians, and Albanians, incontestably the least civilised of Europeans, are the most magnificently attired of all), but cleanliness and choice of food not only at once disclose a real distinction between nation and nation, but constitute a measure of the degrees of civilisation in individual provinces and districts. Now both these qualities, I aver, are found among the Dinka to a greater extent than elsewhere in Africa. First, as to the food. [Sidenote: DINKA MEALS.] In culinary matters the Dinka are certainly superior to the Nubians, and I should have little hesitation in pronouncing them even more expert than either the Arabs or the Egyptians. Their farinaceous and milk foods are in no way inferior to the most refined products of an European _cuisine_. The reaping, threshing, and sifting of the sorghum and penicillaria grain (the durra and dokhn of the Arabs) are brought to perfection by their female slaves, who subsequently granulate the meal like sago. In seasons of scarcity their talent for cooking has led them to the discovery of various novelties in the way of food. Like the tribes of Baghirmi, the Musgoo, and Adamawa, they make a preparation, very much in the Indian fashion, from the farinaceous germs of the Borassus palm. They extract all its native bitterness by soaking and washing, and succeed in producing a fine meal, which is purely white. The substance procured from these germinating seeds has a look very similar to the root of the Florentine iris. They treat the tubers of the Nymphæa in very much the same way, and render them quite edible. With the choice cookery corresponds also the decorum of their behaviour at meals. They certainly, in this point, more resemble ourselves than any Orientals. They do not all dip their hands at once into the same dish, like the Turks and Arabs, but assist themselves singly. A large dish of cooked farina is placed upon the ground, around which the guests recline, each with his gourd-shell of milk, or, better still, of butter, at his side; the first pours his milk only on the part which he touches, and when he has taken enough, he passes the dish to the next, and thus they eat in succession, but quite separately. The Dinka repudiate the Oriental superstition that envious looks can turn the food to poison, and have no fear of the “evil eye.”