Any one familiar with the peoples of the great African desert could see by the slashes on his cheeks that little Mahmoud sprang from a tribe of husbandmen on the banks of the river in the neighborhood of Khartum.  No one knew how he came to be at the Barrage; but there was an impression that he had come down-stream with the flotsam and jetsam of the last high Nile
    For his years Mahmoud was small; he was fourteen, but looked no more than eleven.  The engineer in charge, Jarvis, who had an eye for color, insisted that the boy was black and tan... (The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, v.66, 1903)