The Shillook tribe inhabits the entire left bank of the White Nile, occupying a territory about 200 miles long and about ten miles wide, and which extends right to the mouth of the Gazelle River. Hemmed in by the Baggara on the west, it is prevented by the river from extending itself farther eastward, and only the lower course of the Sobat has any of the Shillooks for its denizens. Their subjection to Egyptian government, which was completed in 1871, has caused a census to be taken of all the villages on the left bank of the Nile, which resulted in an estimate of about 3000. Taking the character of the villages into account this would give a total of above a million souls for this portion of the Shillooks alone. Now the Shillook land, which lies upon the White Nile, has an extent of hardly less than 2000 square miles, and when the number of heads upon this is compared with those in the populous districts of Europe we are justified in reckoning from 600 to 625 to a square mile; a result altogether similar is arrived at from a reckoning based on the estimate of there being 3000 villages, each village having huts varying in number from 45 to 200, and each hut averaging 4 or 5 occupants; this would give a total of about 1,200,000. This, in fact, is an estimate corresponding entirely with what the Mudir of Fashoda, who was conversant with the details of all state affairs, had already communicated to me in 1869. No known part of Africa, scarcely even the narrow valley of the Nile in Egypt, has a density of population so great; but a similar condition of circumstances, so favourable to the support of a teeming population, is perhaps without a parallel in the world. Everything which contributes to the exuberance of life here finds a concentrated field—agriculture, pasturage, fishing, and the chase. Agriculture is rendered easy by the natural fertility of the soil, by the recurrence of the rainy seasons, by irrigation effected by the rising of the river, assisted by numerous canals, and by an atmosphere ordinarily so overclouded as to moderate the radiance of the sun, and to retain throughout the year perpetual moisture. Of fishing there is plenty. There are crocodiles and hippopotamuses in abundance. Across the river there is a free and open chase over wildernesses which would advantageously be built upon, but for the hostility of the neighbouring Dinka. The pasture lands are on the same side of the river as the dwellings; they are just beyond the limits of the cultivated plots; occasionally they are subject to winter drought, and at times liable to incursions from the Baggara; but altogether they are invaluable as supplying daily resorts for the cattle.