Shillelagh

“ When the rain falls, then the grass sprouts, the millet grows, the cattle thrive, and the people have food to eat. Drought brings famine and death in its train.50 Nyakang is said not only to have brought the Shilluk into their present land, but to have made them into a nation of warriors, divided the country among them, regulated marriage, and made the laws.51 The religion of the Shilluk at the present time consists mainly of the worship paid to this semi-divine hero, the traditionary ancestor of their kings. ”

“ His hair grew away flat and sparse from his round brow; on his cheeks three moles, jet-black in their centre. Handsome one called his hairless face: the nose delicate, the lips negroid in their thick pout, the left eye red, streaked with bloodshot, the eyes' brown brightness very beautiful and strange, with a sideward stare wild as that sideward stare of the race-horse; and the lids had a way of lifting largely anon.
He passed through Lagden Dip orchard into the old homestead, into the dining-room, where cowered the old Hogarth, smoking, his hair a mist of wool-white. ”

“ The Shilluk villages are about a mile away from the channel of the Nile, to avoid being flooded during the rains. The Dervishes kidnapped many thousands of the flower of their youth for military service. The Rek is a delightful old gentleman, and presented Captain Hayes-Sadler with an order not unconnected with crocodiles. The Shilluks are a most moral people, and live contentedly under an ample code of laws admirably suited to their social condition and mode of life. Any attempt to interfere with the belief and customs of such a people seems unwise. ”

“ Yet “in the political, religious and personal life Nyakang takes a far more important place than Juok. Nyakang is the national hero, of whom each Shilluk feels proud, who is praised in innumerable popular songs and sayings; he is not only a superior being, but also a man. He is the sublime model for every true Shilluk; everything they value most in their national and private life has its origin in him: their kingdom and their fighting as well as cattle-breeding and farming. ”

“ So that is your name—not Eve—but Clodagh, who was a Poisoner, you see? She poisoned a poor man who trusted her: and that is your name now—not Eve, but Clodagh—to remind me, you most dangerous little speckled viper! And in order that I may no more see your foolish little pretty face, I decree that, for the future, you wear a yashmak to cover up your lips, which, I can see, were meant to be seductive, though dirty; and you can leave the blue eyes, and the little white-skinned freckled nose uncovered, if you like, they being commonplace enough. ”

“ I am for gathering together and husbanding. No idleness on the lands while I lord it here! Let every thrall do his sweating: everyone bring his share from land or sea. He who fails will know me better. I call a cheer! ”
Silence reigned. Malignity and a painful anxiousness contorted the face of Gurth. But, slowly, the men stood up and drank.
When a snore or two began to sound, he rose and glided across the courtyard. Frigga’s lamp, westering low, burned dim in the heavens. After passing three corridors, he tapped at a door, and was admitted into a chamber by old Gunhild, the vala of the burg. ”

“ If I did, how would you repay me, you Clodagh?"
She cocked her eyes, seeking to comprehend. God knows, at that moment I pitied the poor dumb waif, alone in all the whole round earth with me. The candle-flame, moved by the wind like a slow-painting brush, flickered upon her face, though every cranny was closed.
"Perhaps, then," I said, "I will teach you. You are a pitiable little derelict of your race, you know: and two hours every day I will let you come to the palace, and I will teach you. But be sure, be careful. If there be danger, I will kill you: assuredly—without fail. ”

“ They possess none of the gentleness of their animals, however, being wild and daring horsemen, much feared by their neighbours the Shilluks. According to the rough census taken by the Egyptian Government in 1871, after the reduction of the land, the Shilluk nation is one of the most numerous in the world in proportion to the surface of the cultivated land. ”

“ Wondrous little now cared I for the Countess Clodagh in her far unreal world of warmth—precious little for the fortune which she coveted: millions on millions of fortunes lay unregarded around me. But that thought, Be first! was deeply suggested in my brain, as if whispered there. Instinctively, brutishly, as the Gadarean swine rushed down a steep place, I, rubbing my daft eyes, arose.
The first thing which my mind opened to perceive was that, while the tempest was less strong, the ice was now in extraordinary agitation. ”

“ Shillong is a lovely little station nestling away amongst the Khasia Hills, in the midst of pine woods, and abounding in waterfalls and mountain-torrents. The climate is delicious all the year round, and the riding and driving as good, if not better, than any hill-station in India. ”

“ The country of the Shilluk is almost entirely in grass, hence the principal wealth of the people consists in their flocks and herds, but they also grow a considerable quantity of the species of millet which is known as durra. But though the Shilluk [pg 018] are mainly a pastoral people, they are not nomadic, but live in many settled villages. The tribe at present numbers about forty thousand souls, and is governed by a single king (ret) , whose residence is at Fashoda. His subjects take great care of him, and hold him in much honour. ”

“ Of Clodagh was my gasping dream. I dreamed that she let fall, drop by drop, a liquid, coloured like pomegranate-seeds, into a glass of water; and she presented the glass to Peters. The draught, I knew, was poisonous as death: and in a last effort to break the bands of that dark slumber, I was conscious, as I jerked myself upright, of screaming aloud:
'Clodagh! Clodagh! Spare the man...!'
My eyes, starting with horror, opened to waking; the electric light was shining in the cabin; and there stood David Wilson looking at me. ”

“ From the interior, which is flat and hill-less, one sees no sea — only the inner rim of the sandhills, or the top of the cliffs. Ascend the dune at any point, and an apparently boundless expanse of sea meets the eye. Sylt is reached by steamer from Hoyer on the mainland, or, better, from Wyk, the capital of the neighboring island of Führ. It has a population of about three thousand, industrious, well-behaved, even wealthy. But the people are greatly scattered, and I know no place where one can walk so far and meet so few people as Sylt. Westerland is the only place of fashion ”

“ Hurtmann and most other explorers of this region of the Nile consider the Shilluks as the typical representative of the group of Negro nations whose domain is bounded south by the Bantu, east by the Galla and other Ethiopian races, north by the Nubian and Arab tribes, and south-west by the Niam-Niura. The Shilluks are, moreover, by far the most numerous of these groups, and have migrated most frequently to all the surrounding regions. They are said to have come from the south-east plains watered by the Sobat affluents ”

“ The stature of the Shillook is very moderate, and, as a general rule, is short compared with that of the lank, and long-legged Dinka.
Like most of the naked and half-naked Africans they devote the greatest attention to the arrangement of their hair; on every other portion of the body all growth of hair is stopped by its being all carefully plucked out at the very first appearance. As has been already observed, amongst the men the repeated application of clay, gum, or dung, so effectually clots the hair together that it retains as it were voluntarily the desired form ”

“ I found that they are in their own country, quite as idle as they are in captivity abroad; they may be seen loitering about, but never by any chance at work. During the hot season they do not sleep in their huts, but in the open air, old and young congregating together like a herd of cattle. The Shilluks walk about in a state of complete nudity, and only when they are married cover their loins with a strip of cotton-stuff. The majority of them wear merely a piece of calico of the size of a hand to cover their nakedness. Their women are very ill-used. ”

“ They partake also of the skilfulness of the Shillooks in obtaining resources for livelihood in various ways: they pursue the chase, they practise fishing when they have the chance; they are industrious in tillage; they thoroughly appreciate the value of cattle, and would like to possess it, although in their new settlement they can boast little more than a few kids and goats. To have a well-stocked poultry-yard, and to possess that friend of man, a good dog, is essential to the satisfaction of a Dyoor household. ”

“ At the present day he still keeps up considerable state and exercises much authority; his decisions on all matters brought before him are readily obeyed; and he never moves without a bodyguard of from twelve to twenty men. The reverence which the Shilluk pay to their king appears to arise chiefly from the conviction that he is a reincarnation of the spirit of Nyakang, the semi-divine hero who founded the dynasty and settled the tribe in their present territory, to which he is variously said to have conducted them either from the west or from the south. ”

“ Even before the millet is reaped the people cut some of the ripening ears and thrust them into the thatch of the sacred hut. Thus it would seem that the Shilluks believe themselves to be dependent on the favour of Nyakang for the rain and the crops. “As the giver of rain, Nyakang is the first and greatest benefactor of the people. In that country rain is everything, without rain there is nothing. ”

“ Course west the whole day; saw giraffes and one ostrich on the east bank. On the west bank there is a regular line of villages throughout the day's voyage within half a mile of each other; the country very thickly populated. The huts are of mud, thatched, having a very small entrance—they resemble button mushrooms. The Shillooks are wealthy, immense herds of cattle swarm throughout their country. The natives navigate the river in two kinds of canoes-one of which is a curious combination of raft and canoe formed of the Ambatch wood, which is so light, that the whole affair is portable. ”

“ Hansen says not this, but the neighboring Reisehoog, was the residence of Finn; but in a matter of this kind even the wisest may err, and we prefer to believe that we have stood where Ekke told his love-woes to the king, and have seen the heath where the queen sang the weird baby-song which Dorret Bundis heard as she lay crouching above.
Sylt is very nearly the paradise of an archæologist. Lift your eyes where you will on all that fragrant plain, remains of long-vanished races meet them in those most permanent of all historical monuments, mounds and barrows. Each has its tale. ”

“ But while the Shilluk hold their kings in high, indeed religious reverence and take every precaution against their accidental death, nevertheless they cherish "the conviction that the king must not be allowed to become ill or senile, lest with his diminishing vigour the cattle should sicken and fail to bear their increase, the crops should rot in the fields, and man, stricken with disease, should die in ever-increasing numbers." To prevent these calamities it used to be the regular custom with the Shilluk to put the king to death whenever he showed signs of ill-health or failing strength. ”

“ A stranger and probably more ancient version of Ekke's wooing is also preserved in Sylt. Long, long ago, when the Frisians first came to Sylt, they found there a race of little people, whom they drove to the empty waste to the north of the island. There these little folk, who wore red caps and had stone axes, who had no money but were always merry, who worked none and stole all they could, lived in hills and holes. They danced by moonlight on the mounds and sang. Their head was King Finn. ”

“ Sigurd’s eyes were looking far away, as men, after a long night of storm, watch for morning. The goad which was urging Gurth was the necessity to be far — at once — far from the burg! and to be known by all men to be far.
Before nightfall he had forty of the men on board the Skidblednir, a swift dragon. Below decks, alone with Ditlew, he smuggled a phial containing a green liquid in the Berserk’s hand.
‘‘There is enough for two,” he said; “if you fail, you had better drink the rest."
Ditlew and others rowed to shore, and the Skidblednir moved down the fjord. ”

“ Roger Peyton had gone off to Hot Springs, and Douglas van Tuiver was in New York; so little by little the storms about Castleman Hall began to abate in violence. Sylvia was absorbed with her baby, and beginning to fit her life into that of her people. She found many ways in which she could serve them—entertaining Uncle Mandeville to keep him sober; checking the extravagrance of Celeste; nursing Castleman Lysle through green apple convulsions. ”

“ Bob Shiller in shirt sleeves sat on the veranda.
"They's a right smart o' dust to-day, Bob," said McHale. "S'pose we sorter sprinkle it some."
"We'll go into one of the back rooms, where it's cooler," proposed Shiller.
"Oh, I'd just as soon go to the bar," said McHale. "Might be some of the boys there. I like to lean up against the wood."
"Well——" Shiller began, and stopped uncertainly.
"Well—what?" McHale demanded.
"Just as well you don't go into the bar right now," Shiller explained. "You had a sort of a run-in with a feller named Cross, hadn't you—you or Casey? ”

“ His risk of arrest here, round about his old home, was enormous, and he drew the Bedouin kefie well round his face, skulking from the station to the “Fen”, northward, where he got an urchin to buy him a paper lantern in a general shop, and now trudged up to Priddlestone, then down through meadows to the beech-wood, the night rough with March winds.
It was not the winds, however, which made him draw close his Arab cloak, but his approach to the elm: there, one night, he had seen a naked black man! there had fallen the Arab Jew. ”