Formidable Sight

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30823, 7 August 1965, Page 12

Formidable Sight

rpHE voyage of six or seven 1 days by steamer through the Sudd region of the Sudan, where the White Nile winds its way to Khartoum was “one of the most exciting journeys in the world." said Sir Robert Howe, one of the last British governors-general before the Sudan became independent in 1956, speaking recently in the BBC World Service. “The Sudd is an enormous swamp of papyrus reeds. Hippos pop up round your steamer almost all day long, looking like mastiff puppies with their little ears. “In the Sudd live the Dinka, the Nua and the Shilock—the great cattle-owning tribes of the Sudan. The Dinka are usually around six or seven feet tall, and you see them standing on one leg crooning and singing songs to their cattle all day long. The first time I went to a Dinka camp, the local chief paraded his policemen: they were all seven feet tall to begin with, and most of them wore Guardsmen s bearskins, which gave them another foot-and-a-half as well. A really formidable sight.”