=II. The Sudan Family.= These occupy almost the entire Sudan country, which is the widest part of Africa, south of the Sahara Desert, and extends from the Atlantic Ocean to the Abyssinian highlands on the east. “The whole Sudan is full of animal excitement. There is never a dull hour for man or beast. All is conflict, noise and motion. Even at night there is no repose or solitude.” Most of the great rivers have their source in this region, in which also are found many lakes teeming with life. Over much of this area, nature provides all the necessities of life; literally so, since clothing is not so classed, the climate favoring the unchanging garb of nature. The Sudan country is divided into geographical zones named after the chief product of each. The equatorial and torrid belt—the so-called Banana Zone—abounds in fruits as well as game; next above is the Millet Zone, with its combined trees and grain-fields, millet, sorghum, etc., providing edible vegetation corresponding to our wheat, corn, and rice; next above is the Cattle Zone, a prairie-country, rich in grasses, its fertile lands inviting agricultural pursuits; above this, and blending into the Sahara Desert, is the Camel Zone of which no further mention need be made. The estimated 80,000,000 people of the Sudan Family are divided into three fairly distinct types: (1) The Negritians, a primitive and numerous negro race which claims our chief interest because it provided most of our American Negroes. (2) The Fellatahs, a mixture of Negritian and Berber, the latter a branch of the Hamitic family. This mingling has produced a fairly distinct ruling class. (3) The Arab toward the eastern section of the Sudan, who also intermingled with the Negritians, and became the ruling class of the region to the eastward. Each of these types, with its many tribes, inhabits sections of the three climatic or geographical zones of the Sudan—the so-called Banana, Millet, and Cattle Zones—and, since the climate and products of the zones determine the main characteristics of the people, we follow the zones in studying the people. The characteristics of life, as well as the industries, everywhere vary with the changing physical geography of a people’s habitat; it is natural, therefore, to find a general and decided ascent in industrial life from the tropical Banana Zone up to the more temperate Millet, and again up to the Cattle Zone.