Sowarab and Hauwawír, but intermarry with the Monassír. The Sheikh of the northern section, Wad el Fezari, lives at Bir Ghirir, near the Merawi-Shendi Road.

The Ghubush, a small settlement on the left bank of the Nile opposite Berber, are all fakirs, or religious men. They are an offshoot from the Bedayríah, and came originally from Kordofan. They were allowed a subsidy by Muhammad Ali, and afterwards by the Egyptian Government, but they all joined the Mahdi, and one of their number, Muhammad el Kheir, became Emir of Berber after it fell.

The Meyrifab, a small semi-nomad tribe on the right bank near Berber, are of doubtful origin. They speak Arabic, and are sometimes classed as Já'alin, but the Ja'alin repudiate them; their name does not seem to come from an Arabic root, and it seems a question whether they are not of Bíja origin. It is said that, contrary to Arab custom, they never marry slaves.

The Awadiyeh and Fadníyeh are two small nomad tribes of pure Arab blood, living in the desert between the wells of Jakdúl and Matammeh; they are often incorrectly classed as Já'alin, but do not belong to that tribe; the former is more nearly allied to the Robatab. They have large numbers of horses and cattle but no sakiehs; the horses are of the celebrated black Dongola breed, and some mounted men of the former tribe charged one side of the square at Abu Klea with much spirit. The Sheikh of the Awadiyeh is Beshír Wad ed Dabba, and of the Fadníyeh, Muhammad Wad el Feki ez Zein.

The Battakhin occupy the banks of the Blue Nile near Khartúm; and it was with them that General Gordon fought most of his battles near Khartúm. Their Sheikh, El Obeid, inflicted the crushing defeat on General Gordon's troops on the 4th September, 1884, which was the proximate cause of the journey of Colonel Stewart and the consuls, and which virtually sealed the fate of Khartúm. Bruce calls them "a thieving, pilfering set," but none of them were met with by the Nile Expedition, and I can only suggest that they are like the Já'alin, of mixed Arab and Núba descent.

The Shukriyeh is a large tribe of nomads between the Atbara and the Blue Nile; the name is of Arab formation, but nothing is known of the history of the tribe. They remained neutral under their Sheikh, Muhammad Aud el Kerím, and have always held aloof from the Mahdi and the western Arabs.

The Baggarah tribes of Kordofan, so called from their being great cattle owners and breeders, are true nomad Arabs; they have intermarried little with the Núba, and have preserved most of their national characteristics. The date of their appearance in the Súdan is uncertain; they appear to have drifted up the

Nile Valley and to have dispossessed the original Núba population and driven it to the hills. The Dughaim was, as we have seen, on the left bank of the Nile between Assiút and Assúan in the 14th century, and the Jeheineh in Upper Egypt in the 15th century; of the other tribes we have no record. The true Baggarah tribes use oxen for saddle and pack animals; they carry no shield, and their arms are the lance and the sword. The men are perfect types of physical beauty, with fine heads, erect athletic bodies, and sinewy limbs; they are hunters and warriors, and are much superior to the indigenous races in mental power. They constituted the real fighting force of the Mahdi, and charged the English squares at Abu Klea and Gubat with the greatest determination. It was these tribes that destroyed Hicks' army, captured Obeid, and inflicted most of the defeats on the Egyptian Army; and their decision to follow the Mahdi out of their own country to Khartúm caused the fall of that place. The Baggarah have never been properly studied, and even the names of the tribes are uncertain; those best known are :—

Hawazma or Hawazim.-South of Obeid. Sh. Nawwai.

Kenana. South-west of Abu Haraz; fought at Abu Klea and were almost annihilated; in 1821 they were south of Sennár.

Dughaim.-Borders of Darfúr; lost heavily at Abu Klea.
Habanieh.

Beni Jerar.—South-west of Khartúm. Sh. Ibrahim Wad el Melia.

Mahalia.

Bedayriah.-North-north-west of Obeid.

Hadiyat.

Rizegat.-South-east of Dara.

Hamr.-West of Obeid, are really not Baggarah, as they own large herds of camels, and used to be carriers of goods between Darfur and Obeid. They have a blood feud with the Kabbabish. Jawamíah.-Lost many men at El Gubat.

Jalídat.
Majanín.

Fedayan.

Howara.-Sh. Abdul Kadi Abu Hasneh.

Ta'áysheh.-Darfúr. Sh. Abdullah of this tribe succeeded the Mahdi, and appears to be one of the most energetic of the Arab leaders.

Jeheineh. Darfúr; were in Upper Egypt in Macrizi's time, beginning of 15th century. A branch of the tribe, the Rufye or Rifaa is south of Sennár.

Ma'áli. Jámah.

III.-Núba.

The old Arab geographers divided the Núba country into Merys, Baku, and Aloa.1 Merys apparently extended from Assúan to the head of the cataracts at Hannek; Baku was the Dongola district, and Aloa was the Sennár kingdom, of which the dependencies reached down to the borders of Dongola. Selim el Assúani, as quoted by Macrizi, gives some interesting details of these countries; Merys, in which the Merysy language was spoken, was governed by a governor called the "Lord of the Mountain," who was appointed by the great chief of the Núba. Near Berber there was a Bíja tribe, Zenafej, which had its own language, and did not intermarry with the Núba, but which received a chief appointed by the Núba. On the Atbara, however, the Núba and Bíja intermarried and were called Deyhún and Nara. The king of Aloa resided at Souba, of which the ruins exist at Soba on the Blue Nile; he wore a gold crown, had a large army, and was possessed of much power. The people he ruled over were Christians, whose bishops were nominated by the Patriarch of Alexandria; their books were in Greek, which they translated into their own language, and they had many churches. I have mentioned these details chiefly to show that for several centuries there was a compact and strong Christian kingdom in the Súdan, founded and administered by Núbas, and also as tending to show that the Arab domination in Sennár must have been very brief, for the new Núba kingdom was founded there early in the 16th century. The Núba are an essentially agricultural people, and, as far as we know, indigenous to the country. They form the basis of the population of the Nile Valley from Assúan to Korti, and are widely spread over Kordofan, Darfúr, and Sennár. Between Assúan and Korti, the terms Núba and Bíja are still in use to distinguish the Rotana from the To-Bedawiet speaking people. Rotana, the name used to distinguish the Núba language, has passed into Súdan Arabic as a verb, and the people use it in the sense of "to rotan" in Turkish, English, &c. The Núba of the Nile Valley are divided into three sections-the Kenús, Mahass, and Danáglas, all speaking Rotana with certain dialectic differences; the dialects of the first and last agree more nearly with each other than they do with that of Mahass: and this last again more nearly ap1 See note, p. 4.

3

2 There is also a record of an important Núba embassy which was sent in great state to Baghdad by the Núba king Zakarya ibn Bahnas, under his son Fayrakeh.

Selim el Assúani says that Salha, the forefather of the Núbas, and Mokry of the Mokras, came from Yemen, and were descended from Hemyar; also that the Núbas and Mokras spoke different languages. The present representatives of the Mokras are not known.

proaches the language of the Núba of Kordofan, who represent the original stock.

The Kenús apparently take their name from the Beni Kens,' a branch of the Rabya tribe which entered Egypt with Amr, and took part in the conquest; some of the Aleykát also settled in the Kenús district, which extends from Assúan to Wady Halfa; and so also did the Bosniacs who came up the river during Sultan Selim's reign, and many Turks and Albanians since that time. In several villages the large admixture of foreign blood has greatly modified the Núba type, but in manner and habit the people are still Núba. The Mahdi was descended from a Beni Kens family which emigrated two or three generations ago to Dongola; he hence claimed descent from the Koreish tribe, but in feature and colour his family could not be distinguished from the surrounding Núba.

The Mahass, who claim descent from the Koreish are really of purer Núba blood than the Kenús and Danáglas; the reason of this seems to be that until the recent operations all traffic, or nearly all, up the Nile went by the left bank and hardly touched Mahass. The Mahass repudiate all relationship with the Kenús and the Danáglas, but on the other hand they claim kinship with the Ja'alin, and I heard from other sources of a Mahass settlement in the Já'alin country not far north of Khartúm. The Mahass never marry slave girls as the Kenús and the Danáglas do, and this has also tended to keep their blood pure.

The Danáglas or Dongolese were, before the Memlúk invasion, always governed by the Zubeir family, of which the present representative is Tombol ibn Zubeir, the Melik of Argo, and were tributary to Sennár. They have a large admixture of Arab, Turk, and slave blood, but except in Ordeh, where Rotana is not spoken, they are Núba in type and language. The Danáglas are great agriculturists, and they have followed the Egyptians to various places in Kordofan, such as Bara, which, by their skill in irrigation, they have turned into fertile oases. They are also acute and intelligent traders, and the most pertinacious and active of slave hunters and slave dealers. Egyptian misgovernment and over-taxation having ruined the country and forced a large portion of the agricultural population to leave, their place has partially been supplied by slave labour, and it is calculated that nearly two-thirds of the population of the Dongola province is slave.

To the Núba race belong the Ghodyat and other tribes that form the mass of the agricultural population of Kordofan; the

The Beni Kens are said to have first conquered Dongola and built a mosque there.

Kungára of Darfúr; and I believe the sedentary population of Sennár. Racial purity is, however, best preserved by the tribes of Jebel Daïer, J. Takalla, and Dar Núba. In these mountain fastnesses the Núba have maintained their independence against Arab and Egyptian, and on the terraced hill-sides they have grown sufficient corn for their simple wants. During the supremacy of the Funníyeh kings of Sennár, when the Arab tribes were kept under control by an army of negroes, the Núba had greater freedom of movement, and there is a Núba settlement between Debbeh and Abu Gússi, which only established itself on the Nile at the commencement of the present century. The Núba are lighter than the Negro, and darker than the Arab; their noses are less flat, their lips less thick, their cheek bones less projecting than the negroes; and their hair is not woolly but curled and wiry. The character of the Núba, and their habits have been pictured by a master hand, that of Burckhardt, and I need say no more than that I agree with him that they are "a people of frolic, folly, and levity; avaricious, treacherous, and malicious; ignorant and base; and full of wickedness and lechery."

Explanation of Plate I.

Sketch-map, shewing the distribution of the tribes in the Nile Valley, north of Khartúm.

DISCUSSION.

MAJOR C. M. WATSON, R.E., said that he could add but little to the very interesting paper which Sir C. Wilson had read, and which contained so much information with regard to the various tribes in the Eastern Súdan. It is worthy of note that there have been two distinct lines of immigration from the East into the Nile Valley, the one by way of the Isthmus of Suez, and the other across the Red Sea from the Arabian coast. So far as one can judge, the former was the most ancient route, and the Ababdeh Arabs, whose ancestors probably came that way were in the country long before the Amarars, Hadendoa, and Beni Amer, who regard themselves as having crossed at a comparatively recent period. The two former tribes speak the Tobedawi, or, as they call it themselves, the Bedy language, while the Beni Amer talk a dialect akin to Tigre. This seems natural when it is remembered that before the Turkish conquest of the Red Sea Coast, the Abyssinian kingdom, or, at all events, the Abyssinian suzerainty extended as far north as Suakin. Pilgrims from Abyssinia to Jerusalem used, at that time, to be escorted by Abyssinian troops to Suakin, where they took an Arab escort, who conducted them across the Bisharin mountains to the Nile.