ry fostering their native savagery. Others, settled on
the Black Land, gradually became civilized, and we have found of late
considerable remains of those of their generations who, if not anterior
to the times of written records, were at least contemporary with the
earliest kings of the first historical dynasty.

[Illustration: 066.jpg NEGRO PRISONERS WEARING THE PANTHER'S SKIST AS A
LOIN-CLOTH.]

Their houses were like those of the fellahs of to-day, low huts of
wattle daubed with puddled clay, or of bricks dried in the sun. They
contained one room, either oblong or square, the door being the only
aperture. Those of the richer class only were large enough to make it
needful to support the roof by means of one or more trunks of trees,
which did duty for columns. Earthen pots, turned by hand, flint knives
and other implements, mats of reeds or plaited straw, two flat stones
for grinding corn, a few pieces of wooden furniture, stools, and
head-rests for use at night, comprised all the contents. Their ordinary
pottery is heavy and almost devoid of ornament, but some of the finer
kinds have been moulded and baked in wickerwork baskets, which have left
a quaint trellis-like impression on the surface of the clay. In many
cases the vases are bicolour, the body being of a fine smooth red,
polished with a stone, while the neck and base are of an intense black,
the surface of which is even more shining than that of the red part.
Sometimes they are ornamented with patterns in white of flowers,
palms, ostriches, gazelles, boats with undulated or broken lines, or
geometrical figures of a very simple nature. More often the ground is
coloured a fine yellow, and the decoration has been traced in red lines.
Jars, saucers, double vases, flat plates, large cups, supports for
amphorae, trays raised on a foot--in short, every kind of form is found
in use at that remote period. The men went about nearly naked, except
the nobles, who wore a panther's skin, sometimes thrown over the
shoulders, sometimes drawn round the waist, and covering the lower part
of the body, the animal's tail touching the heels behind, as we see
later in several representations of the negroes of the Upper Nile. They
smeared their limbs with grease or oil, and they tattooed their faces
and bodies, at least in part; but in later times this practice was
retained by the lower classes only. On the other hand, the custom of
painting the face was never given up. To complete