# Africa by Élisée Reclus/Volume 1/Chapter 8

Contents
CHAPTER VIII.
UPPER NUBIA.
HE whole of the northern and western watershed of Abyssinia, with the exception of the basin watered by the Barka, is known by its hydrography to belong to the Nilotic system. The region watered by the Blue Nile and the Atbara, with their affluents, is geographically sharply defined westwards by the Bahr-el-Abiad, or Great Nile, and eastwards by the advanced promontories of the Abyssinian plateau. To the south the water-parting between the Tumat, a tributary of the Blue Nile, and the Sobat, one of the main branches of the White Nile, is partly composed of mountains or high hills which have not yet been crossed by European explorers. An unknown land, with an area equal to that of Belgium and Holland together, stretches beyond these limits, and here the frontiers are more effectually guarded by its savage, warlike, or wandering peoples than by a line of fortresses and custom-houses. The zone of separation between Upper and Lower Nubia is formed by the relatively small region which separates the Nile at its junction with the Atbara from the waters flowing to the Red Sea. With these boundaries the whole of the plains between the Nile and Abyssinia constitute the region of Nubia, usually designated under the name of Eastern Sudan, although the term of Beled-es-Sudan, or "Land of the Blacks," should be restricted to lands inhabited by Negroes. The total superficial area of this region may be approximately estimated at 224,000 square miles; the population of the whole territory, extremely dense in the basins of the Tumat and Jabus, may perhaps number 3,000,000.
Physical and Poltical Features.
Forming a distinct domain to which the general slope of the soil gives a certain geographical unity, eastern Sudan consists of distinct basins verging slightly north-. westwards along the Blue Nile and Atbara, and diverging northwards along the Mareb and Barka. It is cut up by isolated masses on the plains, by chains of hills and desert spaces, into natural provinces which the tribes engaged in war have converted into so many petty states, whose frontiers are changed according to the fortune of war and the constant inroads of the nomad peoples. The more scanty ​the population, the more they break up into independent groups, never communicating with each other except through the medium of occasional traders. Nevertheless native stutes, become powerful by agriculture and commerce, have sprung up in this region, gradually extending the sphere of their influence over the surrounding peoples. Thus was formerly founded, under the influence of the Egyptian civilisation, the kingdom of Meroé, which comprise: not only "the island" bounded by the Astapus and Astaboras, but also the neighbouring countries. After the introduction of Mohammedanism the kingdom of Senaar was developed, which also exceeded the limits of its "island" or peninsula, between the White and Blue Niles. But the position of Upper Nubia between the plateaux
Fig. 72. — Routes of the Chief Explorers in Taka and Neighbouring Districts. Scale 1 : 8,000,000.
of Abyssinia and the banks of the Nile belonging to Egypt mukes it a natural battlefield for the sovereigns of these two countries. For more than half a century the Egyptians have occupied the intermediary zone, and in spite of their disastrous conflicts with the Abyssinians, they appeared to have definitely conquered the Sudan. But a formidable revolt, brought on by their exactions, has left them only a few places in the country recently annexed to their vast domains, and they have now been supplanted by the English on the coast. By the construction of routes and railways the whole country will doubtless soon be restored to civilisation. In virtue of the official proclamations addressed to all the inhabitants of the country by the late General Gordon "in the name of the most high Khedive and the ​218 NORTH-EAST APEICA. powerful Britannia, Sudan is henceforth to enjoy full independence, and regulate its own affairs, without the undue interference of any foreign Government." At present the Mussulman states in this region of Sudan are entirely destitute of strateo-ical routes, although at first sight the country seems to be completely open to the Abyssinians occupying the plateaux. They could easily descend by their riverain valleys, but as they cannot long breathe a mephitic atmosphere, the climate of the lowlands is a far more formidable enemy to them than the natives ; such conquests as they do effect are transitory, and by the very force of circumstances are a^ain soon lost. On the other hand, if they are prevented by nature itself from seizing these lowlands, they would still be a great obstacle to invaders of Upper Nubia wishing to penetrate along the route over the fertile slopes to Massawah and the countries of the Mensas and Bogos. The Egyptians learnt to their cost the dangers of venturing on this route, exposed, as they were, to the attacks on their flanks from the Abyssinian warriors. Farther north, from Suakin to the Nile, the water in the wells is barely sufficient for the nomad tribes, and owing to this cause the operations of the British troops in this region were greatly impeded during the campaigns of 1884 and 1885. Pending the opening of the railway from Suakin to Berber begun in 1885, the plains of the Blue Nile and Atbara can be reached only by the three traditional northern routes — that which follows the Nile from cataract to cataract ; and those avoiding the groat curves of the Nile by running across the desert of Bayuda, between Debbeh and Khartum on the west; and through the Nubian wilderness between Korosko and Abu-Hamed on the east. These three routes were closed to the Egyptians by the late Mussulman insurrec- tion, and re-opened by the English under General "Wolseley in 1884-5. The Gumu, Berta, and Lega Mountains. Beyond the Abyssinian plateaux the East Sudanese provinces have also their isolated mountain masses, forming veritable archipelagos in the midst of the plain. Many of these lofty hills which are delineated on the maps as forming part of the orographic system of Abyssinia, are, in reality, separated from it by plains. Such are the Gumu Mountains, commanding to the east the valley in which the Abai, or Blue Nile, in its upper course completes its semicircular bend before reaching the plain. A few escarpments close to the river form, together with the projecting promontories of the opposite watershed, the last gorge of the Abyssinian Nile. Farther up the river, and near its confluence with the Jabus, stands an isolated rock, the Abu-Danab of the Arabs, the Tulu-Soghida of the Gallas, which is the "Mountain of Salt," whose abimdant resources have not yet been analysed by Europeans. Beyond this point to the south-west the Tumat and Jabus, two large affluents of the Blue Nile, skirt the eastern base of other mountains or of an ancient plateau, which running waters have completely furrowed in every direction. These are the Berta Mountains, famous for their gold washings, which determined the Egyptian invasion. A ​THE OUMU, BERTA, AND LEOA MOUNTAINS. 810 Tho Bt^rta Mountains, followed by those of the Ijoga, whoso highest tulu or sunnnit.4 cxcetKl 10,000 feet, although their mean height is said to be scarcely 5,000 feet, stretch sijuth wards towards the sources of the Sobat affluents, rejoining tho Kaffa plateau by intermediary ranges which have not yet been explored by European travellers. But to the north the heights gradually lessen ; the inter- mediary plains bi"oaden out and unite, and the ranges are merely indicated by isolated rocks cwjjping out above the lowlands in continually decreasing numbers. West of the Fazogl country one of these isolated heights, the lofty Jebel-Tabi, partly covered with forests, attains a height of over 4,330 feet. Still farther on the red granite cone of Jebel-Guleh, that is to* say, " Mount of Woods," or " Mount of Ghouls," according to Mamo, which the Fuuj designate as the cradle of their race, attains a height of 2,820 feet. Still more to the west is a chain of rocks in the midst of the steppes which border the right bank of the White Nile. The highest is that of Defafang, which was till recently an ethnical limit between the country of the Denka Xegroes and that of the Abu-Rof Arabs. Tho two riverain zones of the White and Blue Nile, on each side of the Mesopotamia of Sonaar, are extremely fertile, thanks to the rainfall and the alluvia brought down by these rivers. But the intermediary region, which forms the base of the scattered rocks, presents in many places the appearance of a steppe. The land is covered with tall grasses, from the midst of which spring mimosas with their slight and delicate foliage. The populations, sedentary on the river bank, are nearly all nomad in the grassy plains surrounding the mountains of the peninsula. East of the lower valley of the Blue Nile the plains are analogous in character. Wooded and fertile along the river banks, they become bleak and barren away from the watercourses. In the level region of Gedaref, between the Rahad and the Atbara, trees are rarely seen. The most remarkable of the isolated masses scattered amongst the steppes east of the Blue Nile is that of Abu-Ramlch, or " Father of the Sands," scarcely 1,660 feet high, but flanked by suijerb towers piled up -in enormous masses. From the interstices of these rocks spring baobabs, their branches waving over the abyss, whilst hero and there some hut, to which distance gives tho ap])earanee of a bee-hive, nestles between the cliffs at the base of the gigantic tower. In the northern steppe, Jebel-Arang, the most advanced mountain, which attains an absolute height of but 2,000 feet not far from the right bank of the lower Rahad, is mainly covered by forests containing baobabs, which here reach their northern limit. On the eastern side the Jebel-Arang is followed by the Jebel- Abash ; then to the south the plain is studded with other heights, solitary or grouped, some of granite but nearly all of volcanic origin ; some are even topped by basalt columns affecting the divers forms of peristyles, pyres, or diverging facets. These heights in the midst of the ste])pes receive considerably more rain than the plains, and the water running rapidly over the slopes is absorbed by the sand and gravel surrounding the rocky escarpment. In order to obtain water during the dry season, the natives pierce the earth at the mouth of the ravines, and the pools thus formed, usually surrounded by trees, are named kharif from the rainy season which fills them. In the drie<l-up river beds the crocodiles ​220 NOETH-EAST AFEICA. and certiiin species of fish, notably the siluroid sinodoiifus, lie torpid till reanimated by the returning waters of the rainy season. The water-parting between the Nile basin and the slope of the Red Sea consists of irregular cliffs of various heights, but none lower than 3,300 feet. Primitive rocks and volcanic formations alternate in this mountainous region, which in many places presents the appearance of a plateau scored with ravines. At the mouth of the valleys sloping from the Abyssinian uplands, notably on the northern declivity of the Nakfa Mountains, are seen piles of debris, which Heuglin felt inclined to regard as the moraines of ancient glaciers, similar to those found by Fraas in the peninsula of Sinai. The granite rocks on both sides of the Red Sea, their slopes completely barren of vegetation and glittering with the many colours of their crj'stalline strata, resemble each other by their bold outlines and brilliant colours. One of the finest on the western side is the isolated Mount Shaba, rising above the marshy depression in which the waters of the Barka run dry. The vast peninsula of alluvial lands which at this point projects into the Red Sea basin shows that the river was formerly much more abundant than it is now. Climate, Flora, Fauna. The climate of Upper Nubia occupies a middle position between the humid zone of the equatorial lands and that of the slight rainfall where the Nubian desert begins. Still there is no part of the country which does not possess a rainy season, more or less abundant. At Khartum, situated about the middle of Upper Nubia, the kharif occasionally commences in May, more frequently in June or July, terminating in September. Rain is brought down by the easterly or south-easterly winds — that is to say, the southern trade winds of the Indian Ocean ; but after the rains the dry north winds return, lasting till March, the period of the equinox. During this season the temperature occasionally falls to 50° F., and at this time of the year the mornings and evenings are so cold as to require warm clothing ; the daily oscillations of temperature average 60° F. During the kharif it is dangerous to remain on the frequently flooded river banks on account of the prevalent marsh fevers, and numerous tribes then withdraw to the upland regions of the interior. The black and the white ibis, very common in the valley of the Blue Nile during the season, also disappear before the rains, " for fear of the malaria," as the natives say. Upper Nubia is naturally divided into an agricultural and a grazing country, according to the abundance of the rains and running waters, the nature and eleva- tion of the land. In the Fazogl country and on the banks of the Upper Jabus the arborescent vegetation is almost as leafy as in the verdant valleys surrounding the great lakes. Beyond the forest zone, which encircles the Abyssinian plateaux throughout most of their extent and which is continued along the rivor banks, the mouths of the valleys and the hills are pre-eminently adapted for agriculture. Thanks to their fertile alluvia and splendid climate, these lands may one day become one of the richest cotton and tobacco producing countries in the world. The steppe, ​primeval forest at fazogl. ​CLIMATE— FLORA— FAUNA. 221 or khnfnh, in which the waters are lost, could hardly be utilised except as a pasture- land. But there are many extensive tracts covered with baobabs, dum palms, tamarinds, and mimosas, whence a gum is obtained known as talc, far inferior to the gums of Kordofan. In Senaar, as in Konlofan and For, on the borders of the regions where water is scarce, the hollow baobab trunks, some of which are 86 feet in circumference, are frequently utilised as natural cisterns. They are filled with water during the rainy season, some of the trunks containing a reserve of some 2,800 to 3,000 cubic feet of water ; the natives climb up and draw off the precious liquid from the tree by means of waterskins. In the northern part of Sudan some of the plains are veritable deserts, the sandhills undulating all around, wearing away the base of the rocks. On the route from Berber to Suakin, Abu-Odfa, an isolated granite block, has thus been eaten away all round its base, and sooner or later the heavy rock will snap its slender pedestal ond fall on the sand. All the cliffs and rocky slopes of this desert region of Upper Nubia are uniformly covered with a kind of blackish varnish, whose origin is unknown. These gloomy walls impart an aspect to the landscape more forbidding and solemn than that of other regions whose mountains are higher and escarpments more abrupt. The forests of the advanced chains, as well as the tall grass of the prairies, in certain spots rising to from 13 to 16 feet after the rainy season, are inhabited by monkeys, lions, leopards, buffaloes, giraffes, rhinoceroses, and elephants. Mostly nomads, the huge pachyderms from one season to another roam over regions of many hundreds of miles in extent. Like the Somali Gadibursi on the other side of the Abyssinian Mountains, the hunters of the Ilamran tribes, in Taka, attack these enormous animals in the boldest manner. Mounted on swift horses they fly before the elephant ; then, suddenly wheeling round, they spring to the ground behind the animal and hamstring it. The huge beast falls on the ground, and the hunter awaits an opportunity to give the second and usually mortal blow. Since 1859, Taka and the conterminous provinces have been regularly visited by hunters, mainly Italians and Germans, not only for the sake of the ivory, consisting usually of tusks much smaller than those of the Central African elephants, but also to capture wild animals for the European menageries. One of these hunters recently brought to the port of Hamburg thirty-three giraffes, ten elephants, eight rhinoceroses, four lions, and several other animals of less value. At the time of the long siege which the Egyptian garrison had to sustain in Eassula, during the years 1884-85, their provisions were drawn largely from parks of wild animals. The Bejas and Abyssinians also hunt the large animals on the borderlands of their respective territories, but when they meet they turn from the pursuit of the quarry and Attack each other as hereditary enemies. The poisonous doboan, or surr^ta fly, swarms in the valley of the Mareb. Its bite, although it does not affect the wild fauna, kills camels, donkeys, oxen, and other domestic animals in a few weeks. Hunting is therefoi-e a dangerous pursuit in these infested regions, where the men have to penetrate on f«x)t into the gorges or high grass. The origin of this fly is unknown ; it may be either the Central African Uet(t^ or the (satza/ia, which Bruce ​222 NORTH-EAST AFRICA. speaks of as " the most dreaded of all animals," or it may be that insect which the ancients declared could put the lion to flight. East of the Blue Nile, in the Kuba country, another species of fly, smaller than the doboan, is fatal only to the ass, horse, dog, and camel. But the cause of the mortality of these animals may pos- sibly be due, not so much to the sting of one single insect, as to the thousands of wounds inflicted daily by the swarms of gadflies which absolutely worry the animals to death. The live stock can be protected only by keeping them in the stables during the day, and letting them out at night, or else by burning pungent herj)s. However, there are spots where these pests cannot enter, consequently the agricul- tural populations have there collected into compact groups, such as the Abu- Ramleh uplands south-east of Roseres, which is a region of this description. Inhabitants. — The Shaxgallas and Legas. The contrast between the Abyssinian mountains and the hilly plains sloping towards the Nile consists not only in the relief, climate and agricultural produce, but also in the populations. The tribes, dialects, manners, and religions, all differ, and are bounded by an irregular zone, which encircles the side of the moimtains. In many places, these regions are separated by tracts either deserted, or else peopled by savage tribes, always on the watch for prey. All these communities are known by the collective name of Shangallas, which, however, is of no definite ethnological value, as all the non-Arab or non- Abyssinian blacks are indifferently called Shan- gallas by the people of the plateaux. The Upper Jabus Yalley and the mountains commanded by the double peak of Tulu-Wallel (10,666 feet), whose southern face overlooks the Sobat basin, are peopled by the Legas, the most westerly of all the Galla peoples, unless the Latukas and AVa-Humas may also be considered as belonging to the same race, from which they are now separated by so many different nations. The type of the Legas is very pure and quite distinct from that of the Negroes, although they are surrounded by the latter on the south, west, and north. Their complexion is very light, even more 80 than that of Europeans bronzed by the tropical sun. Tall and usually thin, they have the " arms and legs of Yankees," a long and thin neck, narrow hollow-cheeked face, but with strong features and expressive eyes, a small head, and a high, narrow, and conic forehead. The women are in proportion much shorter than the men, and also present a much greater contrast than is usually remarked between the sexes, being as plump as the latter are thin and scraggy, whilst their hands and feet are extremely small. The royal family, and those of the Lega chiefs, are of far less pure extraction than the bulk of the nation. They have received a strain of Negro blood ; but although the complexion is darker, the features are usually finer, and the body more fleshy. These mulattos are also of a livelier disposition, and have not the melancholy appearance of the other Legas, who are usually seen leaning on their lances with the head resting pensively on the right shoulder ; from this circumstance Schuver compared them to cranes. The Legas are one of the most numerous nations of the plateaux, comprising at least a hundred thousand ​persons. Although their king can put twenty thousand warriors on the battlefield, without counting the Negro troops of his vassals, he never abuses his power to make conquests. <A kind and peaceful people, the Legas allow the women great liberty, and permit their slaves to work in their own way. They themselves are laborious and enthusiastic agriculturists; they till the red soil of their fertile valleys, and in the evening sit before their huts smoking narghilehs, whose globe consists of a
pumpkin, or else chewing coffee berries, roasted with salt, butter, and onions. They pay no taxes to the king, but the tribes alternately cultivate and reap the fields set apart for the support of the royal family. The king decides upon the fines, when his subjects do not prefer to settle their disputes by the law of retaliation. The nation also recognises a high priest, who celebrates the sacred mysteries in a kinissa, a local name apparently derived from the term "kilissa," or church, used by the Christian populations of the eastern plateaux. The sacrificer, on killing an animal, always bathes his forehead in the blood, and allows it to dry on his cheeks in blackish clots. But their ancient religion seems to be on the decline, and the ​224 NORTn-EAST AFRICA. zealous Mohammedan missionaries are making such great progress that in a few years all the Legas will probably have embraced Islam. In the midst of the Legas live a few thousand Denkas, who have sought protection amongst them and work as their slaves. Having no other means of escaping the slave-dealers in the wasted plains of the Sobat and Zal, which they formerly inhabited, they have been obliged to seek refuge in the moimtains, offering themselves to the tribes as porters and mercenaries. These Denkas are distinguished from the other tribes by two or three horizontal marks, which they have made on the forehead by means of stalks of cereal plants, bound tightly round the head for several weeks. They do not marry the women of the country, and hence are obliged to practise polyandry, which has become an institution regulated by ceremonies. The capital of the Lega country is the town of Gumbali, situated at a height of 6,600 feet on one of the upper affluents of the Jabus. Goho, the residence of their high priest, lies farther south at an elevation of 7,530 feet. The Bertas. The advanced chains west of the Damot Mountains are occupied by numerous Sbangalla peoples ; but the most powerful nation is that inhabiting the two valleys of the Jabus and Tumat, tributaries of the Blue Nile, and the parting ranges between the two watersheds of the Bahr-el-Azraq and Bahr-el-Abiad. These Bertas, of Negro stock, who are said to number about 80,000, and whom the Arabs usually term Jebalain, or "mountaineers," a name also applied to other peoples, have kinky hair, pouting lips, and the face flat, although less so than that of their West African congeners. However, the figure is well-proportioned, the limbs supple and strong ; and the Berta warrior, armed with lance and shield, presents a commanding appearance. The women adorn the face by passing a silver or copper ring through the nostrils, and an iron one through the upper lobe of the left ear. The yoimg men fasten the tusks of boars to their temples or necks, and on grand occasions both men and women paint the body red, like the Bslri warriors. The women of some tribes tattoo the face in such a fashion as to produce numerous little pustules like those of small-pox. The warriors of other tribes expose the epidermis so as to produce very elegant arabesque designs ; but their customs allow those warriors alone who have cut off one or more heads to tattoo themselves in this way. The Bertas, like all the other Negro peoples of the Blue Nile, consist exclusively of agriculturists, which is the principal cause of their contrast with the Negroes of the White Nile, who are all cattle-breeders. The language of the Bertas belongs to the same family as that of the Shiluks, NAers, and Denkas ; but since their country has been brought within the Mohammedan, circle of attraction, first by the Egyptian conquest and then by the general development of the Nilotic populations, Arabic has become the cultivated Janguage. The villages are administered, and the chief of the tribe chosen, by the Arabs. In each independent village resides an Arab merchant acting as a consul for the protection of his fellow-countrymen, and thanks to hira the stranger is received ​THE BERTAS. 225 like a brother. A shoep or goat is killed and the blood received in a calabash, in which all the assistantfl dip their hands and then embrace. Henceforth the stranger is safe from all attack. The Bertas are great orators, and often hold councils, where each one addresses the assembly in turn, seconded by an applauder, who stands at his side. But he is never interrupted, as, more polite than the Westerns, the Bertas always await the end of a speech before replying to the argument. Excepting the northern districts, where all natives claim to be Mohammedans, the religion of the Bertas is still mainly Animistic. At the period of the new moon they dance by the light of the stars, and terminate these feasts with orgies. Their amulets consist of certain roots, flowers, and the scarabeus, a species of beetle, probably the ateuchus ^gyptoritm. Thus Egyptian influence, after more than two thousand years, still survives amongst these obscure peoples of the Upper Nile basin. Like the Buruns and other tribes assimilated to the Arabs, they have also the iaramhUh, a curved wooden " knuckle-duster," very similar in shape to the boomerang. According to some authors they do not throw this weapon, like the Australians, but carry it in the hand, using it when scaling the mountains to hook on to the branches of the trees or projections in the rock. But the explorer Marno, who has traversed these countries, states that he has seen the natives use as a throwing-stick both the tarambish and the culdeba, a still more formidable iron weapon, curved in the form of a sickle. Schuver confirms this statement, but says that the Bertas cannot make the weajx)n return to the exact point whence it was thrown. There are no towns properly 8o-calle<l in the Berta country ; but their most important village is Kirin, situated on the western slope of the mountains in a basin of the Yavash or Yal, and consisting of large huts scattered among enormous granite blocks. No other national assembly presents a more picturesque appear- ance than that of Kirin — each rock has its own group of men in the most varied attitudes, upright, lying down, sitting, or holding on to the crags. Many of the Berta tribes have chiefs, who bear the title of king or mek^ but their power is very precarious. Directly the mek no longer pleases his subjects, the men and women all collect together and tell him that they hate him, and that it is time for him to die ; then thoy hang him to the nearest tree. If the king is prevente<l by sick- ness from holding his daily court of justice, his influence becomes ill-omened instead of being favourable, and the gallows rids the people of him. A wife when unfaithful is always punished with death. To the north and north-west of the Bertas, the " no-man's-land " which separates the Blue Nile from the Abyssinian plateaux of Agaumeder, is occupied by numerous tribes of divers origin, and here are spoken five distinct languages, without including Arabic and Abyssinian. A sheikh residing at Knha or MonkniSt a village perched on a mountain, is apparently a sovereign ; but the people of Kuba, the Gumus, the Sienetjos, the Kadalos, and the Berta immigrants, govern themselves and are frequently at war with each other. Some of the Gumus live in small independent or isolated groups, a space of a mile intervening between the dwelling of each family. On grand occasions they all carry parasols of honour of 15— AF. ​the form and size of umbrellas. In their eyes this emblem is the proof of the degree of civilisation that they have attained. The Kadalos, whose villages are built on impregnable rocks, ornamented with tufts of foliage in honour of the genius of the winds, boast that they are the true aborigines. According to Schuver, they resemble
the Negroes of the White Nile much more than the Gumus and Bertas; they have large eyes, which distinguishes them more especially from the Gumus, whose eyes are small, "like those of pigs."
The Sienetjos, who pass for the remnant of a people formerly in possession of the country, and were almost entirely exterminated by the Negroes, are probably akin to other Sienetjos who live farther east amongst the populations of Damot and Gojam. The Sienetjos are not blacks, having a yellow skin, perceptibly clearer than that of Europeans who are exposed to climatic influences. The face is nearly ​THE FUNJ RACE. 227 square, the forehead very broad, and the skull regular. Very careful of the purity of their race, they never allow their daughters to intermarry with the Arabs or Negroes. Having good reasons to fear strangers, they live on inaccessible rocks, natural fortresses which the women scale dully, so as to provision the village ; but the path is carefully forbidden to people of other tribes. The Sienetjos are the only weavers and smiths of the country, and it is due to this fact that they have hitherto managed to preserve their existence in the midst of so many enemies. They are also skilful jewellers, making extremely elegant copper ornaments, which they do not sell. These trinkets are reserved by them for their own women, who are very fond of finery, and who wear several rows of glass bead necklaces round their necks. East of the Gumus, the plains covered with low hills which stretch towards the offshoots of Damot and Agaumeder, are beginning to be peopled by Agau immigrants, who, arriving in the countrj' in isolated families, settle down in the clearings, at a few miles distance from each other. They do not fear the hostility of the natives, as they know they are protected by the prestige of the great military Empire of Abyssinia, by which any wrong done to them would soon be revenged by a war of extermination. Thus, the boundaries of Abyssinia are being yearly enlarged by the immigration of new colonies; from an independent nation, the Gumus have almost changed into a tributary people. The Ginjar, who occupy the region of the Abyssinian spurs farther north as far as the frontiers of Galabat, have to pay tribute, often even in slaves. They are blacks mixed with Arabs and Bejas, probably refugees in their territory. They call themselves Mohammedans, and speak a corrupt form of Arabic. All their pride is centered in their hair, which is plaited like that of the Abyssinians, and greased with butter. The Funj Race. The mountains of the region between the two Niles are peopled by mora or less mixed branches of the ancient Funj, or Fung, nation, which formerly ruled over all the country of Senaar. The Funj nearly all laid aside their national language on their conversion to Islam ; still some tribes have special dialects, greatly intermixed with Arabic words, and said to be connected with the group of Nuba languages. Mohammedanism has not yet completely supplanted the ancient religion. On the Jebel-Guleh, which the Funj consider as their sacred mountain, the explorer Pruyssenaere has seen them still celebrate phallic rites around a clay altar on which stands a wooden statue representing a god. According to Beltrame, their conversion to Islam is so very superficial that the majority of them have not even l)een circumcised. Ilartmaun, taking up the hypothesis of Bruce, believes that the Funj are allied to the Shilluks, and that all the region comprised between their territory and that of the Bertas is peopled by tribes of the same stock. The Ilammej, who are now greatly mixed with the Arabs ; the Burun, who are still cannibals, according to Mamo ; and the haughty Ingassana, who occupy the valleys of Mount Tabi, and have valiantly repulsed the assaults of the " Turks," are all ​228 NOETH-EAST AFRICA. said to belong to the Funj race. This very name, equivalent in meaning to " citizen," would indicate that the Funj consider themselves as civilised in a super- lative degree, in comparison with their still barbarous kindred. However this may be, the Funj were till recently one of the most powerful African peoples. At the commencement of the sixteenth century they destroyed the kingdom of Aloa, whose centre stood near the confluence of the two Niles, and founded another State, that of Senaar, which existed till the beginning of this century, exercising control over all the neighbouring peoples of Sudan, Nubia, and even Kordofan, and holding in check the Abyssinian armies which occasionally attempted to descend from their plateaux. But the Arab viziers by degrees obtained the power, leaving an empty show of authority to the Funj sovereigns ; rivalries and revolutions disorganised the State, and when the troops of Mohammed Ali penetrated into Senaar in 1821, they had an easy triumph, thanks to their discipline and superior weapons. The conquest was not to the advantage of the Funj, who soon became subjected to methodical slave-hunts, fusillades, the punishment of impaling, and other "benefits" of civilisation introduced by the Egyptians. At present the Funj, specially classed under this name, are not numerous, and even round Mount Guleh very few are met with who can be considered as typical representatives of the race ; the numerous crossings caused by war and slavery have so corrupted the population that it is a matter of great difficulty to trace the predominating elements. Every Arab or serai- Arab tribe, especially the Baggdra immigrants and the industrious Barbarins, come to seek a fortune in this country, and the Kordofan Nubas settled in military colonies around the towns, have all contributed to modify the Senaar populations. The Egyptians alone, whether Mussulman soldiers or Coptic scribes, have had but little influence on the race, nearly all having quickly succumbed to the climate. The variety of their origin and physical appearance is so great that the inhabitants of Senaar are usually classed according to their colour as '* white, red, yellow, blue, green, and black." Nevertheless the fundamental ethnical element appears to be that of the Funj. According to most authors they form an intermediate type between those of the Nubians, Negroes, and Gallas. The head is long, the face orthognathous, the features regular, the cheek-bones slightly prominent, the body slim and graceful, and like most other natives they spend much time in arranging their hair. They are affable, cheerful, and hospitable, and all the Senaar Egyptians prefer to dwell in Jpbel-Guleh, in the Funj country, than in any other district. Infirm persons are almost unknown amongst the Funj, and their women retain their beauty and bodily elegance far beyond the period usually allotted to the women of other African tribes. The ilclka, which consists of rubbing the body, fumigating it with perfumes, and anointing it with grease, is a practice much in use amongst the Funj and the other civilised inhabitants of Upper Nubia. The people of Senaar are skilful surgeons, and many of them travel to the basin of the Nile in the exercise of their talents. They are known even in Egypt, and the fellahin give the name of Senaari to the persons who vaccinate, treat fractured limbs, or operate on those suffering from ophthalmic complaints. ​THE TAKRURI— TII£ KUNAMA AND BAREA. S29 The Takruri. To the north and north-west of the Gin jar, the zone of the spurs which separftte the Abyssinian plateaux from the Nubian steppes is occupied by other immigrants, collectively known as Tukruri, or Takarir, originally come from Dar- For, Wadai, and the countries of Western Africa. Mostly pilgrims retunied from Mecca, they have preferred to stop and settle do^-n in a country where they found lands to cultivate and a relative independence, rather than return to their own territory, where they were certain to meet with oppression. Perfectly accli- matised to these lowlands, where most of the Abyssinians and European travellers succumb, they now occupy all Gulabat and many of the valleys of the Kwarra, in Abyssinia. Having become free, they have, at the same time, acquired great prosperity as farmers and merchants; but they have not always peacefully enjoyed their conquests, and civil war often broke out between the Takrur of Wadai, those of Dar-For, and the descendants of the immigrants long settled in the country. A large number of Jiberti Mussulmans, expelled from Ab^'ssinia because they have refused to abjure their faith, have recently increased the population of the Takarir communities and of the Dabaina Arabs. The KiXAMA and Barea. The Kunama, Bazen, or Baza, who people the valleys of the March and Takkazeh and the intermediary plateaux at the mouth of the Abyssinian kwallas to the number of some one hundred and fifty thousand, are " Shangallas," who have successfully kept aloof from intermingling with the Arabs. They do not as yet speak the language of the northern invaders, and, except in the vicinity of the borderlands, have not adopted the Mohammedan religion ; but if they have suc- ceeded in maintaining their national independence, it is only due to their continual and pitiless wars. An implacable struggle exists between them and the nomads of the north, and the frontier populations are always on the alert to avoid surprise, and the massacre which would inevitably follow. The Kunama have also to defend themselves on the south from the attacks of the Abyssinian highlanders. Like their neighbours, the Barea, ten times less numerous, who live to the north-west in the rocky region of the water-parting between the Mareb and the Barka, they are continually in danger of being crushed by the enemies who harass them on both sides. In one direction the Arabs assail them from the lowlands, on the other the Abyssinians swoop down from their plateaux, whence Munzinger compares them to the com, ground between two millstones. Nevertheless, these populations so threatened are amongst the most interesting by their customs, the most sympathetic by their qualities, and the most worthy of imitation ; peace exists between their different communities, and labour is respected by them. Although resembling each other in their political and social institutions, the Kunama and the Barea are different in origin and physical type. The Kunama, established in the country since time immemorial, claim to be immigrants of Abys​280 NORTH-EAST AFRICA. sinian origin, and the Abyssinians themselves look upon them as descendants of the ancient Aksumites. They are generally of a dark complexion, and individuals are often found amongst them nearly as black as the Nigritians of western Africa. Well-proportioned, tall, strong, and broad-shouldered, the Eunama are one of the healthiest and most vigorous peoples of the continent. Sickly persons are un- known, and the disgraceful diseases so common amongst the Abyssinian highlanders and the Arab lowlanders have not yet contaminated their race. Like the Nuers and Denkas of the Upper Nile, they often rest standing on one foot. They rarely suffer from the fevers so dangerous to strangers, and many of them attain an advanced age. However, they have a certain tendency to stoutness, and in this respect present a singular contrast to their neighbours, the Barea, and especially to the Arabs. The Kunama attribute their good health to the scars with which they cover the face and body — and which they look upon as signs of beauty — as well as a sacred writing proclaiming their origin. The Barea are not of such light complexion as the Kunama, and are usually weaker and less shapely ; many blind persons are found in their tribes, especially in the vicinity of the marshy shallows of the river Barka. Whilst nearly all the Kunama have a family likeness, the Barea present a great diversity of types, and, excepting the women, have rarely regular features. The languages of the two peoples are also different, although both may be classed provisionally in the " Hamitic " group, while in some respects they appear to be allied with the Nuba idiom. It will be possible to fix their position definitely when all the dialects of North-East Africa have been as carefully studied as the Bazena of the Kunama, and the Nerebena of the Barea, have been by Munzinger, Edlund, Halevy, and Reinisch. The speech of the Kunama is unaccentuated, and without harsh consonants ; uniform and soft, it corresponds perfectly with the peaceful character of the nation. Very few of the Kunama speak any language than their own, whilst nearly all the Barea under- stand the Tigre of their Abyssinian neighbours. There is a rich treasure in the popular songs and melodies of the Kunama, which have not yet been collected by European explorers. The Kunama and Barea are pre-eminently agriculturists, all cultivating the land without distinction of sex, position, or fortune. During the rainy season the plough never rests, and, unlike their neighbours, they have no idle days consecrated to religious feasts. All the domestic animals are used for work ; the camels, asses, and homed cattle are harnessed to the plough, and if these cannot be had, the men or women take their place. Everyone has his farm, and plots of land are set apart even for the slaves, who are allowed sufficient time for its cultivation. The public domain, at the disposition of all, is of sufficient size to enable the labourer to select another piece of land, and thus, replace the field exhausted by a long term of culti- vation ; but the rotation of these allotments is usually made in a regular order around the scattered huts in which the families reside. Wherever the hills have a decided slope, they are cultivated in terraces sustained by stone walls. The Bazen are never daunted by any kind of work. Peaceful labourers engaged exclusively in tilling the land, neither the Bazen nor the Barea are grouped in villages, as they ​THE KUNAiLV AND BABE.. 281 have no need to defend themselves, except in the immediate vicinity of the Aby»- sininns or Arabs. But there they often take the offensive. Collecting together in s'nall bands, they set off to plunder distant villages, disuppearing before time haa been given to signal their attack, and enable the neighbouring tribes to pursue or cut off their retreat. The Abyssinians and Bejas speak of the Bazcn and Barea with terror, and usually depict them as tribes of brigands. This reputation has been earned for them by the tactics these agricultural j)eoi)les have adopted ; they attack in order to proUsct themselves more effectually. Nevertheless, it appears positive that certain Barea mountaineers have very cruel customs. In some districts a young man cannot lionourably marry imtil he has cut off a man's or woman's head in combat or by surprise. Although so much dreaded by their neighbours, the two peoples have nevertheless no organised government ; they are divided into as many independent groups as the country offers natural divisions. Their astonishing power of resistance, which has been their safeguard for so many centuries, comes from their spirit of solidarity; the various communes all look upon each other as brothers, but without ever recognising superiors. Amongst the Bazen especially, who have been less encroached upon than the Bareas by the interference of strangers, the sentiment of equality is a prevailing feature ; in this respect they are perhaps not equalled by any other people in the world. The name of Barea, which the Abyssinians have given to the two groups of the N^re and Mogoreb, originally signified " slaves," yet this con- temptuous name has been quietly and even haughtily accepted by them. The Bazen and Barea consider themselves as " servants " of the community, no one amongst them aspiring to the title of " master." In the communes no one exercises the functions of a chief. The legislative and executive power belong equally to the assembly of the inhabitants, whatever their origin may be. From the moment a stranger settles amongst them he becomes the equal of the natives. The old men are listened to with the greatest respect, and their advice is that which is generally followed. Violent outbursts of anger, unmannerly interruptions, and personal remarks are unknown in these communal meetings, politeness being pre-eminently the rule. They soon agree to the matters in hand, and when the decision has been arrived at it is immediately put into force. In the eyes of the commune a family has no other rights than those of the persons who compose it. They have no process to sustain or feuds to avenge, every debate being at once referred to the decision of the elders of the tribe. Marriage is not a family feast, but a common ceremony, in which everyone takes part. P^quality is the rule in the household as well as in the commune, although in certain district* the bride lies down at the threshold of the hut, and the bridegroom steps over her, slightly touching her cheek with his foot, as a sign that she must henceforth be prepared to submit to any hardships. The morals of the Bazens are pure, but the public opinion is not severe. Children bom out of wedlock are received into the tribes with the same rejoicings as legitimate infants, and like them inherit from their maternal uncle. The reason of this is that in this country the matriarchal government prevails, which seta aside the real or putative father in favour of the uncle, who is the undoubted represcntatiye ​of the lineage. In the commune of the Kunamas there are very few acts which call down a general punishment; a thief even escapes censure, being simply compelled to restore what he has taken, just as if it had been borrowed. The only punishment imposed by the community is exile. This sentence is carried out by young men who mount on the roof of the criminal's hut and scatter the thatch to the winds. This is the signal for the exile to depart, and he never can return to his native place.
Munzinger has vainly sought in the Kunama country for traces of Christianity, such as those found to the east amongst the Bogos, and westwards in Senaar.
There are seen no ruined churches, and the current religious ideas show no traces of the influence of the Christian or Jewish dogmas. The religion of the Kunama consists in a belief in the evil eye, fear of sorcerers, wearing of amulets, veneration of the alfai, or "makers of rain," respect for old men, and especially the blind. They likewise have a great veneration for the dead, and bury them carefully, which seems to imply a belief in immortality. Nevertheless, a slow religious propaganda has already made considerable progress amongst the Bazen and Barea republics. Half of the Barea already call themselves Mohammedans, although they hardly follow out the precepts of the Koran. On the other hand, on the Abyssinian frontier a number of Bazen are reputed to belong to the Christian Church. ​TIIE UOTEM, ZABALAT, AND JALIN TRIBES. , t88 Notwithstanding the efforts of the nation to avoid traders and foreigners, who are only allowed to penetrate into the country under the personal responsibility of a citizen, their customs are becoming modified, and they are on the eve of great social and political changes. The skin aprons are already being replaced by the Abyssinian toga and the Arabian shirt. Slavery even has been introduced into the Bazen country, although under a very mild form. If the slave either marries or runs away he becomes free by right. Undoubtedly the communities of the Mareb and of the Tukkazeh will soon have lost the independence of which they are justly so jealous, and a new destiny will then commence for them. Their initiation will doubtless be a hard one, and these populations, who were till recently the happiest in Africa, will have to traverse a sea of blood before they can unite with their neighbours, and thus constitute a great nation. The descriptions that James and other hunters give of the Kunama already differ greatly from those of Munzinger ; but far from civilising them, their neighbours have so far rendered these tribes more savage. The Hotem, Zabalat, and Jalix Tribes. Side by side with the Bazen, and other " Shangallas," live other peoples possibly of kindred origin, although even those whose physical type shows unmistakable signs of the predominance of Negro blood call themselves Wold-el- Arab, or "Sons of Arabs." If only the chiefs, the descendants of conquering families from the Arabian peninsula, succeed in preserving their genealogy and their language, the tribes, although of native origin, claim Arab descent and are frequently taken for Arabs. Besides, there are undoubtedly populations living west of the Red Sea who have come from the east, and who are known to have crossed the Red Sea within historic or recent times. Thus in the vicinity of Akiq, the Hotem Mohammedans, a tribe armed with guns, are of pure Arab blood. So recently as I860 their numbers were largely increased by fresh immigrants from the coost of Yemen. The voj'age from coast to coast presents little difficulty, and if the English vessels did not carefully watch all the ports, the relations between Arabia and the Sudan would be sufficiently frequent to rapidly modify the political equilibrium of these regions. Amongst the true Arab tribes of the Sudan, the missionary Bcltrame mentions the Zabalat pastors, the " Handful of Men," or, as they are also called, the Abu-Jerid, or " Fathers of the Palms," who live between the Dender and the Blue Nile, above Senaar. They are said to have come from Yemen before the conversion of their kinsmen to Islam, for they are not Mohanmiedans, and no traces of the Mussulman practices are to be found in their cult. They are fire- worshippers, as were so many South Arabian tribes before the advent of Mohamme<l, and as were also the Blem- myes, who, according to Procopius, were in the habit of sacrificing men to the sun. Their complexion is lighter than that of the neighbouring populations, and betrays a reddish hue ; according to Lejean, they have blue eyes and light smooth hair. The gum obtained from the sunt acacias enters largely into their diet They jealously preserve the purity of their race, and they claim never to have intermarried with foreign tribes. They do not tolerate slavery, beca use the introduction of servants ​284 NOETH-EAST AFRICA. into the family circle would have the fatal result of contaminating their blood. Being an " elected " race, their chief ambition is to maintain their independence, and to live in peace. On this account their forefathers withdrew from the outer world, and they themselves seek to live isolated, protected from the marauding tribes by desert zones. They recognise the existence of one God alone, who manifests himself in the stars, the sun, and fire. When they pray they look towards the stars, or turn towards the rising or setting sun, or else light a great fire and watch the tongues of flame flashing up in the wind. Fire is to them a great purifier ; on burying their dead, the head turned towards the rising sun, they light a funeral pyre on the grave, as if to draw the soul of the departed into the fiery vortex. They also believe in the existence of a supreme demon, the god of darkness, and have recourse to sacrifices in order to conjure this dangerous enemy. The Zalabats are monogamists, but should a young girl fail to find a husband, or become a widow soon after marriage, it is the custom for her nearest relation to wed her ; thus it occasionally happens that a brother becomes the husband of his own sister. The government of the tribe is entirely regulated by their customs, which are interpreted by the elders ; by them also the chief is chosen, now in one family, now in another, no other obligation being imposed upon them than to choose the " best." The Jalins or Agalins of Senaar and the Atbara Valley are also looked upon as Arabs, and in this country no one doubts their noble descent ; the Arabic spoken by them is much purer than that of the other nomad tribes in Nubia. They are distinguished from all the other inhabitants of the country by their love of study, their commercial instincts, and their religious zeal, although they are not fanatics. The men and women on the banks of the Nile wear large hats of foliage to protect themselves from the sun. Many of the neighbouring populations who call them- selves Arabs, without probably being so, are in many respects really assimilated to the Arabs. The Bejas. The Bejas, the Blemmyes of the ancients, perhaps the Bonkas or Bongas whose name is found on the inscriptions of Aksum, constitute one of the ethnical groups represented by the greatest number of tribes. North and south of the Bazen territory they occupy nearly all the region comprised between the Blue Nile and the northern Abyssinian advanced ranges. Still farther north the bulk of the nation, which appears to have preserved its ethnical name under the form of Bishdrin, stretches far into Lower Nubia, occupying all the land comprised between the great western bend of the Nile and the Red Sea coast ; besides, several Beja tribes also live west of the main stream in Kordofan and even in Dar-F6r. The " Nubians " recently exhibited at the Jardin d'Acclimatation in Paris were nearly all Bejas from Kassala and the surroimding district. The southern peoples south of the caravan route between Berber and Suakin, have no national cohesion with the kindred tribes. Most of them are even mutually hostile to each other, and never cease their quarrels except to unite against a foreign invader. Thus the ​
clans bunded together at the time of the TurkiHh invasion ; but their confederation did not lu8t long, and under the Egyptian rule the tribes have again become scattered into a multitude of communities without common concert. The Bejos, rather than the Abyssinians, are probably the " Ethiopians " of Herodotus, the civilised people who built the city of Meroe and its pyramids. In the Middle Ages the Bejas also constituted a powerful state, whose capital was Aloa, on the Blue Nile, about 12 miles above Khartum. At this period the Bejas were Christians, at least in the vicinity of the confluence. When their city was over- thrown by the Funj and they returned to the steppes they also embraced the religion of the nomud pastors. All the Bejas are Mohammedans, although most of them, like the Bedouins of Syria and the Arabian peninsula, are only so in name, in spite of the ardour with which they have enrolled themselves amongst the followers of the Mahdi, under whose guidance they have regained a certain national unity. Of all the southern Beja tribes, the most powerful is that of the Hadendoas, who roam over the Tuka steppes, between the Gash and the Atbara to the west, and the Barka to the east, although in their migrating and pillaging expeditions they often pass beyond these limits. According to Munzinger, they number about one million persons. Another numerous people are the Shukurieh or Shuk- rieh, a nation of pastors herding their flocks between the Nile and the Atbara, and cultivating the irrigable valleys in the neighbourhood of Eassala. The Hallengas occupy the narrow zone comprised between the Atbara and the Gash, while the Hamrun dwell on the plains where the Atbara effects its junction with the Bahr-Settit. Farther to the west and south-west, some Dabeina hordes roam over the steppes watered by the Rahad. In the " Mesopotamia " of the two Niles the soil is disputed between the Abu-Rof, or Rufuh, the Jalins, and the Hassanieh, that is to say the " Cavaliers " or " Horsemen." Lastly, to the east of the Hadendoas, the circumference of the advanced plateau of Abyssinia between the Barka and the Red Sea, nearly as far as the gates of Suakin, is occupied by the Beni-Amers. According to Ilartmann the Hamrans, whom he calls Homrans, that is to say the " Reds," are related to the Agau. Nevertheless, all these populations call themselves Arabs, and are generally considered as such on account of the religion they profess, their pastoral and warlike habits, and also on account of the language henceforth adopted by them. Besides, it is certain that the Arab element is strongly represented in these nomad Beja tribes, as i% proved by numerous families whose type is absolutely identical with that of the Arabs of the Asiatic peninsula. According to tradition they are descended from the tribe of the Uled- Abbas, in Hejaz. In the greatest part of the Beja countries, the original dialects are giving way before the language of the Koran ; but they still surWve, at least in a state of patois, in the vicinity of the Abyssinian mountains. Almqvist, who has ooropoeed a general grammar of the Beja idioms, recognises four principal dialects, without counting the jargons which the hunters love to speak, probably because they are under the influence of the sui>er8tition, so common in many countries, that certain local words have the power of fascinating animals. The original ​language spoken by the Hadendoas, the Bishârin, and half of the Beni-Amers, is "Bedouin" (Bedawieh, or Bejavi), which however, in spite of its name, is not an Arabic dialect, although in many respects connected with the Semitic group of languages.
The Bejas, taken as a whole, and apart from the local varieties, are one of the African tribes most distinguished by their handsome features and elegant forms. The children are as a rule extremely pretty and vivacious, and young women are frequently met amongst them whose regular features and haughty carriage make
them perfect models of physical beauty. In the families of some of the Beni-Amer chiefs, who have slaves to prepare their meals, which are more choice than those of the ordinary nomads, stoutness is by no means rare. The complexion of the nobles is also much lighter than that of the people. Nearly all the Bejas are very swift runners, which they attribute to their frugal diet, consisting entirely of milk and farinaceous aliments. Their arms are very long in proportion to the rest of the body. Explorers are struck with the similarity of type between the Bejas, the Afars, the Ilm-Ormas, and even the Bantus of Southern Africa. In spite of their pretension to the title of Arabs, several of the Beja tribes have preserved the customs of the Negro populations, as regards costume and the ​THE 13EJAS. 287 scarring of the body. Their warriors have not yet completely ceased wearing coats of mail, while some of the tribes still use primitive weapons, amongst others a plain or spiked stick. The bulk of the liejas wear their hair very thick as a protection against the sun. On a level with the eyes they draw a circle round the head, above which the hair rises straight up like a huge mop, distinct tufts fonning a crest at each side and at the back, which serve as a protection to the ears and the nape of the neck. A scratcher, usually a porcupine quill, is stuck through this black headdress, which is often saturated with butter. Most of the Bejas are said in their youth to possess considerable intelligence, while their development is greatly arrested after puberty. They are said to be bounded in their ideas, obstinate, boastful, rude, disrespectful to their parents, and careless of the welfare or safety of their guests. They give themselves up exclu- sively to cattle-breeding, and migrate from pasturage to pasturage, although one of their tsajs^, or encampments, may be considered as the official residence. Custom forbids that anything in this place should be touched ; marauders may seize the flocks, but they respect the tents. The Hadcndoas possess an excellent breed of camels, which enables them suddenly to appear at great distances from their usual camping-grounds, and escape with their booty before the warriors have had time to assemble so as to overtake them. The numerous Beja tribes also consider it a point of honour to breed war-horses, although in many places they are fain to be content with small wiry animals of Abyssinian extraction; the larger and stronger Dongola steeds suffer greatly from the climate, and the chiefs are compelled to be constantly renewing their studs. Some of the Beja peoples are agriculturists, but they use very rudimentary instruments, a stick burnt to a point serving as a plough. Here and there certain industries have also survived, inherited from the lilemmyes, such as weaving, iron-smelting and forging, and making filigree work. The straight two-edged sword, the favourite weapon of the Bejas, is generally of German manufacture, but they also forge excellent weapons, swords and daggers; the scabbards are of wood, covered with leather, aad amongst the rich embellished with elephants' ears. The shields they use are made of rhinoceros hide, or the skins of other large animals. Commerce is actively carried on amongst all the tribes, and in this respect the Bejas contrast singularly with their neighbours the Bazen or Kunama. The customs of the Bejas, especially those which relate to marriage and the social position of women, are still very different from those of the Arabs ; the contrast is complete between the precepts of the Koran and the traditional prac- tices of divers origin. In certain respects the women are treated with unspeak- able cruelty. Parents are obliged to make their daughters undergo dreadful surgical oijerations, without which they must renounce all hoi)es of obtaining a husband. But after marriage the wife is in no way under the control of the husband. She can return to her mother's tent whenever she pleases, and after the birth of a child she has the right to repudiate her husband, who must make her a present in order to be accepted again. If he insults or spt^aks rudely to her he is driven from the tent, and can only obtain re-admittance by presenting her with ​238 NORTH-EAST AFRICA. a cow or a camel. Women are mentioned who have thus obtained all the husband's possessions and then abandoned them after having effected their ruin. The Beja women, and especially those of the Beni-Amer, have generally a remark- able fellow-feeling ; directly one of them has a grievance they all share in her indignation. By virtue of the female customs, the wife should never show any apparent affection for the husband. She is bound to treat him with contempt and to rule him with threats and severity, and should he interfere with the household arrangements without having consulted his wife, the offence is considered unpar- donable. It is frequently necessary to appeal to the "man of honour," whose duties as an intermediary have rendered him the " brother " of the wife, and his advice is always respectfully listened to. At the same time, although they have to complain of the control and often even of the violence of their wives, the husbands are after all the superiors in virtue of their love of work, bravery, and trustworthiness. The henpecked man who seeks the assistance of a woman is sure of finding in her an indefatigable defender. The social status of the Beja woman evidently points to a former matriarchal government. The Arab authors who spoke of the Bejas of the tenth to the fourteenth century, relate that these people reckoned their genealogies from the side of the women, and that the inheritance passed from the son to the sister and from her to the daughter to the exclusion of the sons. The annals of the kingdom of Meroe, like those of Senaar, show what an important part woman has played in Upper Nubia, ever since the time of Queen Candace. Amongst the Hadendoas the women have never to undergo public accusation ; if a crime has been com- mitted by one of them everybody keeps silence, the men alone being answerable for the charge. Of all the " Arab " tribes that which is usually cited as univer- sally practising the strange custom of the " fourth day free," doubted by only one traveller, d'Escayrac de Lauture, are the Hassanieh Bejas of the Nilotic Mesopo- tamia and Kordofan. By this custom, the women are onlj' married for a certain number of days in the week, generally reserving every fourth day, on which she claims perfect freedom to do just as she pleases. Under the Arab rule the Bejas have readily acquired aristocratic manners. The noble families of native or foreign origin, who can trace back their genealogy to a long line of ancestors, enjoy considerable personal authority over the body of the people, who support them and offer up sacrifices on their tombs. Moreover, it is they who own the slaves — captives or sons of captives, who have not yet entered into the community of free men by embracing Islam. The nobles frequently take to wife girls of inferior status, but a common man can never marry into a noble family, imless the holiness of his life, a miracle, or some prediction justified by the event, have enabled him to be classed amongst the sheikhs, also called fakih, and thus become the equal of the upper classes. In certain regions of Upper Nubia there exist entire colonies of " saints," who, like the nobles, fatten at the expense of the tribe. In order to insure their power over the nomad populations, the Egyptian governors had taken care to rely upon the political and religious chiefs of the country, and it was by the intervention of these latter that the ​TOPOGRAPHY— FAZOOL, FAMATA. 289 tribute was raised ; but the hcuvy tuxes at last exhausted the patience of the Beja nomads, and a general insurrection against the Khedive's power spread throughout Eastern Sudan. It has recently been seen with what courage and absolute con- tempt for death the Beni-Amers, the Iladendoas, and the Bish&rins have hurled themselves against the English squares, opening a path of blood with their lances up to the cannon's mouth. Topography. Under the Egj'ptian rule, Upper Nubia was divided into provinces which partially coincide with the natural divisions of the countrj'. At the outlet of the Abyssinian mountains the riverain countries of the Blue Nile constituted FazogL Lower down this name has been pre8er^ed by the central part of the ancient kingdom of Senaar, beyond which follow the provinces of Khartum and Berber. To the east Taka comprises the hills and the plains bounded on one side by the Atbara, and on the other by the Barka. The coast regions were divided between the provinces of Massawah and Suakin, the former of which has been partly occupied by the Italians, the latter by the English. Lastly, a few independent states, republics, or chiefdoms still occupy the borderlands between Abyssinia and the Sudan. Fazogl, Famata. Fazogly which has given its name to the upper province of the Blue Nile, and was, before the Eg3'ptian rule, the residence of a powerful king, is now little more than a mere hamlet. As a capital it has been replaced by the town of Famaka, where Mohammed Ali had a palace built at the time of his visit to his southern possessions in 1839 ; a few scattered bricks are now all that remains of it. Famaka would be well situated as a commercial town if slave-hunting had not driven all the surrounding peoples into the mountains. The houses, built on a gneiss rock, skirt the right bank of the Blue Nile, near the confluence of a khor and a little above the point where the river Tumat forms a junction with the Bahr-el-Azraq. Facing it to the south stands Mount Fazogl, the first high crest commanding the river to be met with on coming from Khartum ; hence it appears more imposing than many eminences of greater height, while the rich vegetation which clothes it«  slopes seems marvellous to those who come from the desolate northern wastes. The valley of the Tumat had already long ceased to be Egyptian territory before the great insurrection of the Sudan peoples burst forth. Nevertheless, Mohammed Ali considered that this province was one day destined to become the treasure of his empire ; he counted on the gold washed down with the sands of the Tumat and its afiluents to pay his armies and to free himself from the galling suzerainty of the Padishah. In consequence of these ambitious views he caused the upper basin of the Tumat to be explored by the Europeans Cailliaud, Tremaux, Kovalevskiy, and Russegger. But the expenses of the occupation of the countrj', ​240 NOETH-EAST AFRICA. the wars that it was necessary to sustain against the tribes, the depopulation consequent on slave-hunting, and the surveillance of the convicts who washed the sand, cost the Viceroy much more than was covered by the product of the mines. Hence Said Pasha ordered them to be abandoned and the fortresses to be levelled, after which the to^^ls were again reoccupied by their original inhabitants. Never- theless the native gold-miners found their fortunes where the Government had met with financial ruin. The grains, called tihr, and usually collected in the quills of vultures' feathers, are used as money to purchase the merchandise brought by the jellahi, or local traders. The principal gold-washing stations are on the western side of the mountains, in the valley sloping towards the White Nile, and in the Fig. 77. — Fazool Gold Mines. Scale 1 : 600,000. 54° ^5 • 35° C « of breeowich ^ 12MilM. middle of which rises the pyramidal Jebel-Dul, in all of whose ra^nnes gold is found. The amount annually obtained is valued by Schuver at £1,600, on which the Sheikh of Gomasha raises a tax of about a fourth. The soldiers he has collected round him are mostly slave-hxmters, who have escaped from the disaster of Sulei- man in the zeriba region. The Gallas who come from the markets of Timiat prefer another medium of exchange to gold-dust, and will only receive the " salt bricks " imported from Eastern Abyssinia in exchange for their goods. According to Schuver, the inhabitants of the Tumat Valley receive yearly over 75,000 pounds of salt money. Fadasi. Even after evacuating the coimtry, the Egyptians compelled the riverain tribes of the Tumat Valley to pay them a tax of about £6,000 ; but beyond the district ​8ENAB. 241 of Fntfasi, which stands in another fluvial basin, that of the Jabus, their authority completely ceasi-d. Fudasi was the point where the travellers Mamo, in 1850, Gessi and Mateucci in 1878, were compelled to stop, not being permitted to advance beyond the hill to the south of the chief town, which has been named Bimbanhi't after the Egyptian " captain of a thousand " 8tatione<l in this place. Schuver is the only traveller who has crossed the boundary of the Khedive's possessions at this point in 1881. Bimbashi, surrouiide^l by numerous villages spread over the slopes of the mountain, commands a very extensive view from its upland terrace. It is a much frequented market-place, although not so well attended as that of Beiii- S/iongui, situated half-way to Famaka, in the vicinity of the gold washings and the ruins of <SVw;V//, the ancient capital of the country. Still farther north, in a fertile district on the right bank of the Tumat, lies the village of Ghezan, also a place of assemblj' for the caravans. Here the huge sycamore-tree which shelters the square, covers on market days a motley crowd of Bertas, Nubians, and Arabs, while the groves of lemon- trees scattered in the country recall the sojourn of the Egj'ptian garrisons. Sexar. Below Famaka the town of liosires, or Rosa'irh, whose houses are scattered amidst groves of dum palms, is also situated on the right bank of the Bahr-el- Azraq ; it has given its name to a dar, or country, of considerable extent, governed by chiefs taking the title of king. Still lower down the village of Karkoj, surrounded by large trees which contrast with the barren lands in the vicinity, has now become somewhat important as a market for gums, and the converging point of several caravan routes coming from Gedaref, Galabat and Abyssinia. It has inherited part of the trade which was formerly carried on with the city of Sendr, about 60 miles farther down on the left bunk. This ancient capital of the Funj kingdom, built at the commencement of the fifteenth century, has lost greatly since the seat of government has been transferred to Khartum. Heaps of rubbish and waste spaces now intervene between the groups of cabins, and of what was once the palace the walls are all that remain ; the mosque, however, is still standing. It was in this city that Roule, the French Ambassador of Louis XIV., was assassinated in 1705, before he had reached the states of the sovereign to whom he was accredited. According to an Arab tradition he was suspected of intending to aid the Abyssinians to carry out their often- repeated threat to deflect the waters of the Nile southwards, far away from Nubia and Egj'pt. The inhabitants have scarcely any industry', except the manufacture of elegantly designed straw mats. Caravan routes run south-west towards the Blue Nile, leading to the two fords of Abu-Zaid and Kelb, formed by banks of shells. The Mesopotamian peninsula, as the Arabs call the " Island of SenAr," is only sixty miles in breadth. According to tradition it was at the ford of Abu- Zaid that the Arabs, guided by the hero of this name, crossed the Nile for the first time in order to spread themselves throughout the Sudan. 16— Ar.
close above it is the mouth of the Dender, swollen by the waters of the Khôr Mahara and the Khôr El-Atshan; still nearer, but below the town, is the confluence of the Rahad, like the Dender navigable for eighty days in the year. The village, situated at the very mouth in the "Isle of Isles" (Jezirat el-Jeziret), has taken the name of Abû-Ahraz, or "Father of the Acacias," a term which is also frequently given to the river Rahad itself, the Shimfah of the Abyssinians.
At some distance from the river, near the ruins of the village of Arbaji, ​destroyed by the Funj, stands the town of Messalamieh, in the midst of fields of durra, a strong place which the insurgents took from the Egyptians after a long and murderous siege. Before the war it had become a considerable market, precisely because it was distant from the river, so that the nomads had here to fear the passage of armies less than in towns lying on the banks of the Nile.
Below Abû-Ahraz, on the left bank of the main stream, a few ruins mark the site of Kamlin, or Kammin, where, under the protection of the Egyptian government,
some European merchants founded in 1840 large soap, indigo, sugar and distilling factories. For a long time these establishments were prosperous, thanks to the cheapness of coal and labour, but more especially thanks to the monopoly possessed by the manufacturers, whose products the officers and soldiers were obliged to take in part payment of their salaries. But the forests have been wasted, the country has been depopulated, and the monopoly has met its usual fate, poverty and ruin. ​244 NOETH-EAST AFRICA. Khartum. As far as we search back in the history of the upper regions of the Nile, an important town has always stood in the vicinity of the junction of the White and Blue Niles. A geographical position of such importance could not be neglected even in barbarous times ; but the vicissitudes of migrations and wars, perhaps aided by some changes in the course of the two rivers, have frequently compelled the town to shift its position. An ancient Christian city, Aloa, is known to have stood 10 or 12 miles above the " Elephant's Trunk " on the right bank of the Bahr-el-Azraq. Several remains of columns and sculptures have been found there, proving that the Bejas of Aloa possessed a civilisation superior to that of the states which succeeded them. All that now remains of this town are shapeless masses covered with brushwood, the building materials ready to hand having been used for the structures of Khartum. The Arab village of " Old Sobat " stands near the ruins, and on the opposite bank are the tile and brick works of " Neic Sobat." A few sites are pointed out as those of ancient churches, and bear the name of Kenmeh, a term evidently derived from the word " Kilissa " applied to Christian churches in the Turkish countries of Europe and Asia ; at liuri, near Khartum itself, stands one of these Kenisse/i. Not far from Wod-Medineh, crypts of Christian origin have been discovered ; these ruins are the southernmost that have been hitherto found on the plains watered by the Blue Nile, beyond the Abyssinian frontier. After the destruction of the empire of the Bejas, the town at the confluence, hitherto comprised in the realm of the Funj, stood farther north, some 7 miles below the present junction of the two rivers. This town, which still exists but in a very decayed condition, is Halfaya, the residence of the grand sheikh of the Jalins. An arm of the Nile, now dried up or filled only during the floods, joins the main channel west of Halfaya ; it is surrounded by a garden of palms, shelter- ing its houses. Opposite and not far from the left bank, a small group of hills shelter a few trees in their valleys, and in the rainy season give birth to rivulets which wind through the plain. After its capture in 1821 by the Egyptians, Halfaya for several years still preserved a certain importance as the strategical guardian and commercial depot of the junction ; but the very point of the two rivers, called the " End of the Trunk," or Ras-el-Khartum, appeared to Mohammed Ali a much more suitable site for the capital of his vast possessions, and here he accordingly built the barracks and arsenal. In 1830, there was only one hut where, ten years after, stood the first city of the Nilotic basin beyond Egypt. Khartum, protected to the north and west by the broad beds of its two rivers, is certainly very well situated for defence, and its walls, flanked by bastions and skirted by a ditch, protect it from a surprise on the south and east ; besides, a fortified camp situated on the right bank of the Bahr-el-Abiad near the village of Omdurmon, renders it easy for the garrison to cross over to the western bank of the river and commands the route to Kordofan. Thanks to the rivers, the steam boats which ply below ( ​Khartum command all the country on one side as far as the Zeriba region, and on the other as far as Berber and Abû-Hamed.
Recent events have proved the military importance of this position between the two Niles. From a commercial point of view, Khartum will not be so advantageously situated until a bridge is built over the Bahr-el-Azraq, so as to receive directly the caravans which come from Abyssinia, Kassala, and the shores of the Red Sea. Nevertheless, Khartum had become one of the great cities of the continent, and the busy population which till recently crowded its narrow streets was a mixture of Turks, Danaglas or people of Dongola, Arabs, and negroes of every shade of colour. Italian was becoming almost as much spoken as Arabic, and the exterior commerce was almost entirely in the hands of the French and Greeks, Khartum is the point where took place all the exchanges of Europe and Egypt
with the regions of the Upper Nile; it was also the place whence emanated all the expeditions and the movements of military bodies, and where all the religious missions and commercial or scientific expeditions were prepared.
A town of soldiers, merchants, and slaves, Khartum has no remarkable monuments, and it is surrounded on all sides by spaces which, if not absolute wastes, are, at least, uncultivated and treeless. At the period of the Beja rule, the banks of the two Niles were said to be shaded with an uninterrupted forest of palms festooned with vines. Khartum is not a healthy town, at least during the portion of the year when the moist winds blow, increasing the waters of the rivers.
Typhus has often more than decimated the population; but in winter the atmosphere is purified by the north winds and the public health is as good at Khartum as in any other African city. After a vigorous defence maintained for upwards of two years against overwhelming numbers, Khartum was betrayed to the Mahdi on ​246 NORTH-EAST AFRICA. January 26th, 1885, when its heroic defender. General Gordon, and the Egyptian garrison, with nearly all the Christians still in the place, were massacred. This tragic event occurred only three days after the arrival at Metammeh of the advanced division of the British expedition, organized by General Wolseley for the relief of the place in the autumn of 1884. Thus the primary object of the expedition was defeated, and Khartum became for some time the centre of the Mahdi's power in the Upper Nile regions. A few villages succeed Khartum and the town of Halfaya along the banks of the Nile. But for a distance of 120 miles no important place is met till we reach Shcndi, in the Jalin territory, which is a collection of square-shaped houses, cover- ing a space of about half a square mile on the banks of the river. Shendi, situated below the sixth cataract, in times of peace has a considerable trade with the towns on the Abyssinian frontier. Opposite it, on the western bank of the Nile, is the town of Metammeh, the depot of the products of northern Kordofan ; in the vicinity the desert sand is washed in order to extract the salt which is mixed with it. Shendi is the town where Ismail-pasha, the conqueror of Nubia and the banks of the Blue Nile as fur as Fazogl, received the punishment he so justly merited for the massacres and devastations he had ordered ; having unsuspiciously come to a banquet to which he had been invited by the chief of the district, he was burnt alive with all his officers. But soon after his death was avenged by rivers of blood- shed by the terrible " defterdar," son-in-law of Mohammed Ali. The village of Githat, 2 miles south of Metammeh, was the extreme point reached by the British expedition sent to the relief of Khartum and General Gordon in 1884—5. Naga — Merge. This region of Nubia is already comprised within the limits of the ancient Ethiopia, a region where lived nations directly influenced by the general progress of Egyptian civilisation. Numerous ruins attest the splendour of the ancient cities here erected, and, according to the statements of the Arabs, the Europeans are still acquainted with but few of the monuments concealed in the desert. At a day's march south of Shendi, not far from the Jebel-Ardan, stand the two temples of Naga, covered with sculptures representing the victories of a king who bears the titles of one of the Egyptian Pharaohs ; one of these buildings is approached by an avenue of sphinxes. At the time of Cailliaud's visit no inscription revealed to him the precise age of the temples of Naga, but the ornaments of the Greco-Roman style satisfied him that the town was still in existence at a relatively modem period. Since then, Lepsius discovered a Roman inscription, and several sculptures which apparently represented Jupiter and Christ. About 12 miles north of Naga, in a desert valley, is a labyrinth of ruined buildings and refuse which the Arabs have named Mesaurat. The central building, whose ruins are still visible, is one of the largest known edifices, being 2,900 feet in circumference; its columns, fluted and sculptured, but without hieroglvphics, are evidently of Greek architecture, and whilst Cailliaud thinks it was a priest's college, Hoskin imagines it to have been a royal country seat. ​The remains of the town in which Cailliaud recognised in 1821 the ancient Meroë, "capital of Ethiopia," stand 30 miles below Shendi, a few miles from the right bank of the Nile; in the midst of these ruins are scattered a few villages, amongst others that of Es-Súr, which gives its name to the tarabil, or pyramids. The pylons, temples, colonnades, avenues of animals and statues are still standing; but the sandstone of Meroë, excavated from the neighbouring quarries, is not so durable as that of Egypt. The pyramids, to the number of about eighty, are
divided into three groups, and mostly stand on hills; not having been undermined by stagnant waters, these edifices have resisted the ravages of time better than the buildings on the plain. Still none of the pyramids are intact, most of them having been damaged by curiosity-hunters. When accompanying a military expedition to this place, Lepsius with great difficulty prevented the systematic destruction of all the monuments of Meroë. In magnitude the Ethiopian pyramids will not bear comparison with those of Egypt; the largest are less than 66 feet square, and many do not exceed 13 feet in height. ​248 NORTH-EAST AFRICA. The numerous inscriptions collected at Meroe have resulted in the di8cx)very of the names of thirty sovereigns who were at once kings and high-priests, and the very name of the city has been identified as Meru, or Merua. At the period when these pyramids were built, hieroglyphics had become an obsolete form of writing, the exact sense o£ which was no longer understood, and which was reproduced by imitation ; hence many errors crept into the copy, so that their decipherment has been rendered very difficult and uncertain. Most of these inscriptions are in the Demotic Ethiopian character, derived from that of the Pigyptians, but possessing only thirty letters. In these inscriptions, not yet completely deciphered, savants have attempted to trace the ancient language of the Blemmyes, the ancestors of the Bejas. • Opposite Meroe, on the western bank of the Nile, was apparently situated the public cemetery of the great city ; considerable spaces are here covered with small pyramids, imitations in miniature of those of the great personages buried on the right bank of the river. Metammeh — Kamara — GalA bat. In the basin of the Atbara, which bounds on the east the peninsula called by the ancients the " Island of Meroe," there are at present very few towns, in spite of the general fertility of the valleys and the healthy climate enjoyed by so large a portion of this territory. Most of them are mere market-places, swarming with people during the fairs, the next day abandoned. Amongst these "towns" inserted on the maps of the Sudan, some are mere clearings in the forest or breaches on the banks of the rivers ; the largest are Gorgur and Dongur, situated to the west of the Abyssinian plateau, in the country of the Dabaina Arabs and the " Shangalla " Negroes. Metammeh, capital of the territory of Galabat, and often called by the name of its province, is during the dry season the most active centre of the exchanges between the plains of the Bejas and the Abyssinian plateaux. To the south stand the abrupt escarpments of Ras-el-Fil, or the " Elephant's Head." As an emporium Metammeh has succeeded to Kamara, a village situated in the vicinity. Compared with the surrounding groups of huts, it is almost a large town ; with the "tokuls" scattered in the suburbs in the midst of tobacco, cotton, and durra plantations, it covers a space of about 40 square miles. Although plundered by the hordes of Theodore, it soon regained all its importance ; the hills skirting the Meshareh, an affluent of the Atbara, were again covered with huts in which the merchants warehoused- their goods. The Arabs, Funj, and Bejas, have returned to the market, and brick houses, whose ground floors are filled with merchandise, now surround the market-place. Some five or six thousand traders, mostly Arabs, assemble at Metammeh, and over a thousand Abyssinians, porters, wood-cutters, and retailers of mead descend from their mountains to collect the crumbs of the feast. Many
crowds, whom they never attack, whilst their own lives ore protected by the sheikh of Gul&bat. Most of the residents in Metammeh are Tukruri, who set the example of work and industrial pursuits to the neighbouring peoples. Not only do the Tukruri import skins, coffee, salt, some stuffs and beasts of burden from Abyssinia, bartering them with the merchants of the Nile, but they also deal in the products of their own country, honey, wax, tobacco, maize, gum, incense, dyes, and drugs. They supply the Arabs with more than half of the cotton they use in weaving their togas. From the provinces of the Sudan they receive more especially glass trinkets, arms, and the iahri, or Maria-Theresa crown-pieces, which are the exclusive currency in northern Abyssinia. The slave trade in this district, till recently more active than all the others, although officially forbidden at different times, has always been carried on. But it is no longer openly conducted in public ; in 1879, the sum obtained by the sale of slaves amounted to more than £20,000. At the time of the Egyptian rule, the governor of Khartum maintained a garrison of two thousand men in Gal&bat. At present Gulabat has become an independent principality, no longer paying tribute either to Egypt or Abyssinia. G EDAREF — Tom AT. Doha, on the route from Metammeh to Abu-Ahraz, is a commercial outpost of Gul&bat situated at the confluence of the Rahad with the Blue Nile. But in this lowland region the chief, if not permanent at least temporary, market is Suk- Abu- Sin, or " Market of Father Sin," also called Gcda re/ alter the province in which it is situated. During the rainy season Suk- Abu-Sin is visited only by the nomads in the vicinity ; but directly the kharif is over, when the Atbara and the other rivers of the plain are again fordable, and when the merchants have no longer to dread the attacks of the venomous flies on their camels, the caravans arrive from all parts, and as many as fifteen thousand persons are often assembled on the market-place. Before the war, gum, wax, salt, cereals and cattle were the chief wares in the market of Abd-Sin, and Greek merchants mingled with the crowds of Arabs and Bejas. Tomat, at the junction of the Settit with the Atbara, is also a town where a few exchanges take place ; Gos-Rejeb, on the left bank of the Atbara, lies on the caravan route between Shendi and the port of ^lassawuh. The ruins pointed out by Burckhardt are a proof that the Egyptian merchants also passed through this region on their journey from Meroe to the coast at Adulis Bay. KaSSALA— SaBDERAT — AlOADEX — DOLKA. At the present time the most important town of the country is Kmsah-el-Luz, capital of the province of Taka, and, since 1840, the chief fortress of all the region comprised between the Nile and the Red Sea ; it is also called Gush by the natives, after the stream whose right bank it skirta. After having served as a ​250 NOETH-EAST AFMCA. bulwark of Egypt against the Abyssinians, Kassala, when evacuated by its Mussulman garrison, appears destined to serve as the Abyssinian outpost against the Mahom- medan lowlanders. Situated at a height of 1,900 feet at the western base of a " seven peaked " mass of granite rocks rising over 4,000 feet above the plain, and its forests of dum palms, Kassala presents one of the most attractive prospects in Africa. It appears to have succeeded a still larger town, that of Faki Endoa, which stretched along the torrent at a distance of nearly 3 miles. Commanded by a strong castle, the remains of which are still to be seen on one of the " heads " of the neighbouring rock, this town was the capital of the Hallenga nation, then powerful, but now reduced to a few wretched communities of pastors and agricul- turists. The mountain is pierced with grottoes which are said to hold the waters of a subterranean lake, and whose labyrinths appear to have been formerly inhabited by man ; a few troglodj^tes are reported even still to live in the galleries of the rocks. By its position on the lower course of the Gash or Mareb, Kassala commands the distribution of the waters along the riverain lands. A Pasha even desired to become the absolute master over the fortunes of the tribes by damming up the river before Kassala, so as to deflect it westwards towards the Atbara, and thus force the Hadendoas to come and beg permission to purchase a little rivulet to irrigate their fields. Under the direction of the European "Werne, who lent himself to this iniquitous work, a dyke 5,430 feet long effectually dammed up the current of the Gash and caused it to overflow into the western steppes ; but the Hadendoas, who felt it was a matter of vital importance to them, attacked the dam with such fury, that in spite of the soldiers who defended it, they soon made a breach through which the water flowed back to its natural bed. Before the rising of the tribes who favour the Mahdi, Kassala had acquired great importance as a point of transition for forwarding cotton, and vast cotton gins are still to be seen where hundreds of workmen were assisted by steam-engines. Kassala also prepared leather and manufactured mats and soap. The first attempt of the Egyptian government in 1865 to open telegraphic communications between Kassala, Berber, Suakin, and Massawah, did not succeed ; over eight thousand camels were lost in this enterprise. But a second attempt, in 1871, was more fortunate, and a network of telegraphs was finally constructed, the stations serWng also in the capacity of caravanserais for travellers. From Kassala to Massawah the journey occupies sixteen days by the route followed by the telegraph, through the country of the Bogos. Wells have been dug by the side of each station, between Kassala and Abu-Ahraz. In the vicinity of Kassala are a few villages occupied by settled Hallenga, Iladendoa or Bazen populations, and during the dry season, temporary camps are pitched in the dried-up bed of the Gash. Eighteen miles to the east is the town of Sabderat, whose artisans are occupied with weaving cloth and leather work. This place perpetuates the memory of the defterdar's atrocities, who massacred all the inhabitants and made pyramids of the bodies, so as to poison the air and thus prevent the repopulation of the country. ​To the north succeed the two large Hudendoa villages of Miktinab and Filik, which are of some importance as market-places. To the south-east the Bazen peasantry, half converted to I lain, people the village of Elit, built at a height of 1,330 feet above the plain, on an almost inaccessible terrace half-way up the side of a granite mountain, scooped out at the top into a cultivated crater of quadrangular
shape. The "boiler" of Elit is probably a sinking of the soil, such as is frequently met with in rocks pierced with grottoes.
North of Elit and already on the slope of the Khôr Barka, is the village of Algaden or Algeden, whose houses are scattered amidst the overturned blocks on the sides of Mount Dablot or Doblut, which overlooks a vast horizon of hills and plains between the two rivers Mareb and Burka. Algaden lies on the route to Mecca taken by the Takruri pilgrims, who support themselves from village to ​252 NORTH-EAST AFRICA. Tillage by preaching, praying, and selling amulets ; in this way they have con- verted the population of Algaden, who are mainly of Bazen origin. In a neigbour- ing plain, the people of Algaden and Sabderat in 1870 gained a sanguinary victory over an army of Abyssinians, 10,000 of whom were left on the battle-field. To the south-east of Algaden, in the Barea country, between the Gash and the Barka, the Egj-ptians have recently founded two military stations, Kufit and Amideb. The first was abandoned in 1875, but Amideb was still occupied at the general rising of the tribes ; it is one of the places that England has by treaty handed over to the Abyssinians. Dolka, on a rock which rises to the east of the valley of the Anseba, long resisted the attacks of the Khedive's troops. In the neighbour- hood are the ruins of a town and some Christian churches which bear a few Abyssinian or Himyaritic inscriptions. The principal town of the Habab country is Af-Ahad, or Tha-Man'am, situated in a circular plain, at the foot of a precipitous mountain pierced with grottoes. Ed-Damer — Berber. Below Kassala on the Gash, and Gos-Rejeb on the Atbara, there is only one town in the basin, Ed-Damei% lying south of the confluence in the southern peninsula formed by the Nile and the mouth of the Atbara. Here dwelt the Makaberab tribe, whom Schweinfurth and Lejean believe to be the somewhat legendary Macrobians of ancient writers. But this town, which was formerly a brisk market, has lost its commercial importance and become a city of " saints and teachers." It has schools, formerly celebrated, hotbeds of the Mussulman propa- ganda, but it is no longer a rendezvous for caravans. Some 30 miles lower down on the same bank of the river, is the commercial centre of the great river and its north Abyssinian tributaries. Berber, *ill recently capital of an Egyptian province, is the largest mart between Khartum and the Egyptian frontier, properly so-called. Berber, so named from the Barabra people, who occupy this region of Nubia, is officially called El-Mekheir, El-Mukhe'iref, or El- Mesherif. Before the present war, during which Berber has been almost entirely destroyed, the town skirted the river bank for a distance of several miles, its white terraced houses standing in the midst of acacia and palm groves. A few gardens surround the town, beyond which immediately commence the uncultivated, almost desert, spaces, visited only by the Bisharin nomads. Berber is the starting point of the most frequented caravan route between the Middle Nile and the Red Sea. At this point, the distance which separates the river from the sea is, following the winding desert route, only 250 miles. If well supplied with food and water, travellers can easily complete this journey in less than a week, although they usually take fifteen days ; sooner or later a few hours will suffice, thanks to a railway already commenced, and on which military trains were running in 1885 from Suakin, for a few miles inland, to Otao^ the present terminus on the route to Berber. "When this line is completed, Berber will become the port by ​which all the produce of Upper Sudan will be exported, and the Nile will be the commercial affluent of the Red Sea.
The two caravan routes between Suakin and Berber traverse vast sandy tracts where the water in the wells is brackish. The route lies over granite and porphyry heights, crossed by the pass of Haratri, the water-parting between the Nile basin Fig. 83. — Berber. Scale 1 : 82,000. and that of the Red Sea, standing at a height of 3,000 feet, between mountains rising to twice that elevation. Before the war 20,000 camels, laden with gum, annually crossed the desert between the two towns, which will probably soon be connected by rail.
Svuakin — Sinkaat — Tokar.
Suakin, or Sawakin, is the safest port on the Red Sea coast, and resembles that of Massawah in its geographical position. The riverain zone of coral banks is pierced by a winding channel which penetrates over 2 miles inland, terminating in an oval-shaped basin about 1 mile from north to south. To the west are sand-banks which contract the sheet of water, and are continued by shallows overgrown with reeds. Two round islands, partially fringed with rocks, exceed the level of the basin by several feet. One of these islands, that of Sheikh Abdallah, is used exclusively as a cemetery; the other, farther south, comprises the town of Suakin, properly so-called. The chief port lies between these two islands, but vessels of the heaviest tonnage can also anchor north of the island of Sheikh Abdallah; in this species of lake, which seems to be surrounded by land on all sides, vessels are perfectly safe from the winds and surf. The port, opened in the midst of a beach rendered very dangerous by the multitude of reefs, is well worthy the name of the "harbour of the protecting gods," which many authors believe to have been given it during the time of the Ptolemies.
Before the warlike events which have procured for Suakin a name famous in contemporary history, the annual movement of the shipping was about 12 steamers ​and 300 Arab vessels, which carried rice, dates, salt, cowries, and European merchandise, to be exchanged for slaves, mules, wild beasts, and the many products of the Abyssinian spurs, such as gum, ivory, ostrich feathers, skins, wax, musk, grains, and coffee. Suakin is the port where the pilgrims embark for Mecca, to the number of six or seven thousand annually; the distance from here to Jeddah is about 20 miles including the deviations caused by the reefs. The slave merchants from the interior present themselves in the disguise of ordinary travellers, accompanied by their wives, concubines, and servants. But on their return from Arabia to Suakin,
they have no longer wives or servants; divorce, desertion, and unforeseen events being supposed to have relieved them of their families and followers.
maintenance on the mainland suburb, and it has been found necessary to enclose the latter with fortifications, to protect it aguinst the Bejas, who recently rose against the Egyptian Government.
The vital importance of Suakin with regard to trade and political power is fully appreciated by the belligerents. The sanguinary battles which have taken place in its vicinity, to the west near the fortified camp of Sinkat and the wells of Tamanieh and Hashin, to the south-east before the stronghold of Tokar and in the oasis of El-Teb, prove how essential it would be for the Mussulman world to establish free communications between Mecca, capital of Islam, and Africa, its largest province, populated with the most fanatic of the faithful. Great Britain watches closely this continental port of Africa and, under the name of Egypt, this power has definitely taken possession of it so as to bring the whole of the Upper Nile within its commercial and political influence. Hitherto the Beja insurgents ​266 NORTH-EAST AFEICA. have been able to maintain none but precarious relations with their co-religionists on the opposite coast by means of small craft escaping from the creeks along the coast mder cover of night. Before Suakin was blocked by the rebels, the merchants of this town withdrew during the hot season to the smiling valley of Sinkaf, which, at a height of 870 feet, lies amid extinct volcanoes and cliffs of an extremely fertile reddish marl ; the slopes have been laid out in steep terraces planted with acacias and fruit trees. Tukar, a little fort situated in a fertile valley irrigated by numerous small canals derived from the Barka, stands in the middle of the " granary " of this province. During the sowing and harvest seasons, more than twenty thousand labourers are employed in the fields of Tokar. Some of the morsa or mirsa, that is harbours, on the neighbouring coast may perhaps acquire some importance when the mountains of the interior become populated and cultivated. One of the most convenient, as a market of the Khor Barka Valley, will undoubtedly be the port of Akiq, a vast and deep basin well protected, like that of Suakin, by islands and peninsulas ; this port is without doubt one of the best in. the Red Sea. In the chief island of the roadway, a Beni- Amer tribe has founded the little village of Badur, before which vessels can cast anchor in a depth of from 23 to 25 feet. On the coast of Suakin and Akiq the sea water teams with animal life. The surface of the sea is often covered for miles with ripplets which seem to be caused by the breeze, but are really produced by the movement of a small fish of the sardine type, myriads of which play in the upper layers of the water.