The Bongo and the Niam-niam are alike greedy of bits of clothing, but the Dinka are utterly indifferent to anything of the sort. The women, on account of their proficiency in housekeeping, play a large part in the Khartoom slave-trade, but they give their masters infinitely more trouble than the slaves of any other race. The men that were captured, in days now gone by, were one and all converted into soldiers by the Government, and, even to this date, so large a majority of the dark-skinned troops of Egypt consists of men of the Dinka, that their well-formed persons, their tall stature, and their innate courage, would be missed very considerably from the ranks. Adam Pasha, who at the time of my visit had the military command in the Soudan, was himself a Dinka by birth. I must be allowed to pass lightly over, as an equivocal topic, the religion of a people whose dialect I was unable adequately to master. It seems to me like a desert of mirages, or as a playground, where the children of fancy enjoy their sport. The creed of the Dinka apparently centres itself upon the institution to which they give the name of the Cogyoor, and which embraces a society of necromancers and jugglers by profession. Other travellers have recorded a variety of marvels about their sleight of hand, their ventriloquism, their conjurations, and their familiarity with the ghosts of the dead; but of these I shall defer all I have to say till I come by-and-by to speak generally about casting out devils. [Sidenote: DINKA CHARACTER.] Before we leave the Dinka we must not omit to recall their virtues, in order that we may fairly estimate the charge that has been laid against them of cruelty in war. It is affirmed that they are pitiless and unrelenting in fight, that they are never known to give quarter, and revel in wild dances around the bodies of their slaughtered foes: a whole village will take their share in the orgies which one of the community will start, whenever, either by lance or club, he has prostrated an antagonist. But, for my part, I am ready to certify that there are Dinka whose tenderness and compassion are beyond a question. One of the Bongo related to me, as a matter of his own experience, that he had been severely wounded upon an expedition which the Nubians had set on foot against the Dinka to steal their cattle: he had laid himself down just outside a Dinka’s house, and the owner had not simply protected him against all his prosecutors, who considered themselves amply justified in proceeding to every extreme of vengeance, but kept him till he had regained his health: not content with that, he provided him with an escort back, and did not abandon him till he was safe and sound again amongst his own people.