Keeping contact minimal between Egyptians and Sudanese in his ac- counts of the Sudan, the author also set up a racial scale by which he mea- sured Sudanese tribes, which depended on how savage their customs were. People of Sennär, for example, practiced a frightening magic, in which they could turn themselves into wolves.Though such devilish practices were not appropriate for discussion, the author wrote coyly, presenting them in his book made certain his readers knew that people from Sennär were not at all like Egyptians. The blackest of all tribes, the Dinka and the Shilluk, lived way beyond the pale, worshiping pagan idols and wearing hardly any clothes. And yet, page after page, the author asserted that indissoluble links existed between Egypt and the Sudan based on Islam.

Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Coloni…, loc. 752