parently through their Sheikhs, and they have adopted Bedawi dress and habits, but they are not so warlike nor of such fine temperament as the true Arabs of Upper and Lower Egypt who look down upon them with feelings almost of contempt. They are lithe and well built but small; the average height is no more than five feet except in the Sheikh class who are evidently of Arab origin. The Ababdeh have the character of being faithless and being bound by no oath; they are notorious for duplicity rather than for courage; and are not to be trusted unless one of the nearest relations is left behind as a hostage. They were formerly poor, but have now become enriched by English gold, and probably the most wealthy of the tribes; this has not, however, secured their complete loyalty. The Ababdeh clans are: (1) The Ash Shebab, Sheikh Beshír Abu Jibrán, who appears to be a descendant of the Beshir Ibn Merwan of the Rabya, who first settled amongst the Bíja; they live in the eastern part of the desert, and number about 3,000 camel men; (2) The Abúdyín, Sheikh Minshetta Karar, numbering 1,000 to 1,500 men; and (3) the Fogára, Hussein Pasha Khalífa, about 1,000 men. Sheikh Beshír is looked upon as the representative of the old line of Sheikhs, but the privileges granted to the Khalifa family by Muhammad Ali and his successors have rendered their clan the most wealthy and important.

The Bisharín occupy a position almost as important as that of the Ababdeh, for they stretch from the Nile, between the Atbara and Abu Ahmed, to the vicinity of Mount Elba on the Red Sea, and hold the western portion of the Sawakin-Berber road. They are nomads, and divided into several clans of which we have little definite information, but they are said to number about 20,000 men. They speak To-Bedawiet and are apparently of much purer blood than the Ababdeh. They are well-built, have good features, coarse, wiry, black hair dressed up in the Bíja fashion, and the velvety skin of the Bíja race; they are great trade carriers and celebrated for their breed of camels. The north-western clans are almost entirely dependent upon Egypt for their supply of wheat and other necessaries, which they obtain from Assúan; and they are allied to the Ababdeh of that district. They have never taken any very active part in the Súdan disturbances, and most of the clans remained neutral though much pressed by Osman Digna to join him. The known clans are :—

Sbentirab.-On the east near the Red Sea.

Hamed Orab.—On the east near the Red Sea.

Aliab. In the Korosko Desert south of the Ababdeh.
Amrab.-In the Korosko Desert south of the Ababdeh.

1

Eireiab

Hamar
Geihamab
Nafiab

On the right bank of the Nile north of the
Atbara.

Burckhardt also mentions the Hammadab, a handsome, bold race, much given to drinking, on the Atbara; and the Baterab, but I did not hear these names mentioned.

The Kabbabish tribe (Bruce derives the name from Hebsh Sheep) is perhaps the largest in the Súdan, and its various clans range over a wide extent of country west of the province of Dongola, and from the Nile to the confines of Darfúr. Their language is a pure Koranic Arabic, but their origin is not known; they have a tradition that they are of Mogrebin extraction, and that they were many generations ago driven from Tunis. They may thus perhaps be of Berber descent; but whilst the Sheikhs are apparently of Arab origin the men seem to be more nearly allied to the Bíja tribes than to the Arabs. There is a curious notice in Leo Africanus to the effect that the king of Nubia, whose capital was Dongola, was constantly at war with the people of the Desert of Goran, on the south (i.e., Bayuda), who, being descended from the people called Zingani, spoke a language no one else understood. May not this reference be to the Kabbabish not then Arabicised. The view that the Kabbabish are not Arabs is supported by the fact that they say the Kawahleh, one of their clans, is not Kabbabish, but was affiliated to them many years ago. Kawahleh is a name of Arab formation, and Burckhardt in the early part of this century mentions them as a distinct tribe not so numerous but more powerful than the Shukriyeh and living about Abu Haraz and on the Atbara; the clan which is a very powerful one, took a distinct line of its own in favour of the Mahdi during the rebellion. It seems not unlikely that the Kabbabish received Arab rulers, like the Ababdeh, after their arrival in the Súdan; they own vast herds of camels, cattle and sheep, and before the war they used to have a monopoly of all the transport from the Nile, north of Abu Gússi to Kordofan. They are dark, with black, wiry hair, carefully arranged in tightly rolled curls which cling to the head, and rather thick aquiline noses. They have had little contact with civilisation, and the politics of the tribe were always difficult to understand. They are divided into two great branches each of which consists of several clans.

The Sheikh of the whole tribe is Sh. Saleh Fadlallah, who, before the war lived in great state; he has much slave blood and is nearly black. The section formerly under his immediate control consists of the following clans:

Núrab, at Bir es Safi and Gabra; Sh. Saleh's own clan.
Welad Hauwelab, at Bir Ambalíli; Sh. Saleh Wad Obeid.
Serajab, at Bir Amri and Hajilij; Sh. Ahmed Wad Menallah.
Attawiyeh, at Bir Hobej.

Welad Suleiman, at Bir Es Safi and Bint Umm Bah.
Hauwarab, at Bir Gabra.

Umm Seraih, east of Bir Hobej.

Rawaheleh, at Bir Umm Siår.

Rahuda, at Bir Es Safi.

Shenabla, near Obeid.

Kibeishab.

Kawahleh, Bir el Kejmar.

Aiwardieh, Ghalayan, Walad Ugbah, Hímrab, Ayayit, and Dereywab.

The minor section under Sh. Salim Isáwi, is often called the Umm Meter tribe; many of the Sheikhs and others have houses on the Nile in the Dongola province, but the clans really live in the Kab Valley, an oasis running parallel to the Nile. The clans are, passing from south to north, the Bósh, Wamattú, Ghudayrab, Gungunnab, Dar Búshút, Murayssísab, Dar Hamid, Bulaylat, Awáyídah.

II. Semitic.

All the Arab speaking tribes of the Súdan speak a pure but archaic Arabic, such probably as they spoke when they left Arabia. They invariably pronounce the letter Kaf as "g" in good, and the Jím like "j" in jar, agreeing in this respect with the Syrian and Bedawi pronunciation, and not with the Egyptian. The Arabs distinguish themselves as Ahl Ibl, "people of the camel," who live as nomads in the desert, and have kept their blood pure; Ahl Sawáki, "people of the Sakieh," who have settled down as agriculturists, irrigating the ground, and have intermarried with the Núba; and Baggárah, or cattle breeders and owners. The purely nomad tribes on the south have to make annual migrations to avoid the fly (Johara) which appears during the rainy season; these migrations are nearly always attended by disturbances, but the Egyptians utilised them, as the Funniyeh kings did at an earlier date, to collect the taxes. Several of the tribes, as the Shagíah and Já’alin, have adopted the non-Semitic custom of gashing the cheeks, but the habit is not general. As a rule the head is shaved according to Arab custom, but the rule is very laxly observed by men of mixed descent; there is, however, no "hair-dressing" such as exists amongst the Hamitic tribes. The Arab arms are the lance, the two-edged sword, and a small knife fastened by a strap to the

left arm, and they do not carry a shield; they follow what appears to be the old Semitic custom of beheading a fallen enemy, but they never mutilate the bodies in the horrible manner that the Bíja races (Hadendoa) do, nor do they maim prisoners in the way Osman Digna is said to have done.

One of the most interesting, and at the same time one of the most obscure questions in the Súdan is the extent to which the conquering Arabs established themselves amongst the indigenous tribes as over-lords or ruling families. In the case of the Bíja (Ababdeh?) we have, as already noted, an historic record of an occurrence of the kind, and it seems probable that many other tribes accepted Arab rulers in a similar way. This would explain the claim of people such as the Mahass, who are clearly Núba, to be of Arab origin; and also the Semitic type, the higher intelligence, and often the greater stature of the Sheikh class. In some cases the Arab rulers appear to have intermarried with slaves rather than with the tribe they had joined, as in the case of Sheikh Saleh, of the Kabbabish, who is nearly black. The chiefs of settled clans are always termed Meliks, whilst those of the nomads are Sheikhs, a distinction that seems to be of very ancient date. The "Meliks" or kings of Palestine who were overthrown by Joshua, probably occupied positions analogous to those of the Súdan Meliks.

The nomad Arabs, especially the Baggárah, are as thoroughly Arab now as when they left their Asiatic home, and it may still be said of them that their hand is against everyone and everyone's hand against them. Before the Egyptian conquest the riverain population was armed and strong enough to resist the nomads, and in the south the Sennár Government maintained order with an army of blacks. During the Egyptian occupation the riverain population was weakened by misgovernment and over-taxation; the country was depopulated to a great extent, and the power of the Meliks taken from them. Order was kept by the Egyptian military forces, but these having now been withdrawn, or killed, the riverain population is entirely at the mercy of the nomads. That the latter have made use of their power we know from recent accounts, and the fact that Danaglas have been raided and sold as slaves in Egypt since the withdrawal of the British troops.

The Gararish, or Kararish, are semi-nomads, extending along the right bank of the Nile from Wady Halfa to Merawi: many of them are settled as agriculturists in Argo Island, and they are much employed as guides and in the transport of goods. They claim to be distantly connected with the Fogára clan of the Ababdehs; they are evidently of very mixed blood, but the Arab type is much stronger than the Bíja, and they are pro

bably of Arab origin. They number about 400 men and have, two Sheikhs: Sh. Abdullah Wad Shemein and Sh. Suleiman.

The Hauwawir are pure nomads and extend along the desert road from Debbeh to Khartúm as far as Bir Gamr, and from Ambigol to Wády Bishára. They claim to be, and evidently are, of pure Arab blood, and say that they are related to the Huweir of Egypt. They are not unlike the nomad Ja'alin in appearance, and they have not adopted any of the African customs such as gashing the cheek, and dressing the hair; they are friends and allies of the Sowarab, number about 2,000 men, and have large herds of oxen, sheep, and many camels. The Sheikh is Khalífa Taiyalla. The clans are:—

Fezarab, at Bir Gamr.
Mowalikeh, at Bir Bahat.
Hamasín, at Bir El Elai.

Umm Kereim, at Bir abu Osher.
Harrarín, at Bir Hassanauwi.
Umm Roba, at Bir Bayúda.

The Shagiah are, perhaps, the most interesting tribe in the Nile Valley; they are partly nomad, partly agricultural, and occupy the country on both banks of the Nile from Korti to the vicinity of Birti, and a portion of the Bayúda desert. They claim descent from a certain Shayig Ibn Hamaidan, of the Beni Abbas, and maintain that they came over from Arabia at the time of the conquest, but whether they led the van of Arab invasion in the seventh century, or took part in the greater invasion and conquest in the fourteenth century, is uncertain. At Old Dongola there is an inscription to the effect that Safeddin Abdullah (who may have been a Shagíah chief) opened a mosque on the 1st June, 1317 A.D., in honour of his victory over the infidels. On reaching the district they now occupy the Shagíah dispossessed and largely intermarried with a people of Núba origin, whose language was Rotana; some of the places still retain their Rotana names; and in one part of the district there are families which have preserved their Núba blood in comparative purity. Like other Arab tribes they formerly owned allegiance to the Funniyeh kings of Sennár, but when the central authority become weak they threw off the yoke, and prior to the advent of the Memlúks in the Súdan had possessed themselves of the country northwards as far as Mahass. They were forced back by the Memlúks, but they have never forgotten that they once ruled Dongola; and the Danáglas still tell dismal stories of the sufferings they endured under their Arab taskmasters. Hence arose a blood feud which had a curious influence on several