Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/342

 272 NORTn-EAST AFRICA. can be judged, without attempting an at present impossible approximation, tbe area of Dar-F6r and its dependencies may be estimated at 200,000 square miles. This extent of country is bounded to the north by the desert, east by Kordofin, south by the Bahr-el-Arab, and west by Wadai, whilst its total populations, according to Nachtigul, amounts to at least 4,000,000. Mason, however, who has also visited this country, thinks that the population does not exceed one million and a half. Progress op Discovery. Dar-F6r, whose capital is more than 360 miles from the Nile in a straight line, is too far removed from this great commercial route to have been frequently visited. It was not known even at the end of the last century except by name, and it was then that it entered for the first time into the history of geography, thanks to the voyage of the Englishman, Brown, who remained in the country three years, although rather as a captive than a free man.* An Arab, Mohammed el Tunsy, or the " Tunisian," dwelt stiU longer in Dar-F6r, and wrote a very interesting work upon it, which has since been translated into French. It is still the only book which contains the fullest and most valuable account of the history, manners, and customs of the Dar-Forians. The Frenchman Cuny in 1858 presented himself at the court of El-Fasher, but he mysteriously died there a few days after his arrival, and not even his diary from El-Obeid to El-Fasher has been preserved. The sovereign of Dar-F6r had doubtless wished to act up to the name bestowed on his country, " the mouse- trap of Infidels," who, it is said, " can easily come in, but never get out again." It was to Nachtigal, the third European visitor, that fell the honour of describing, for the first time during this century, the interior of a country hitherto so little known. This explorer was still in Dar-F6r when the slave-dealer Zibehr commenced its conquest, which was soon afterwards achieved in the name of the Egyptian Government. The country was opened to travellers, and the European staff ofiicers were able to draw up a map of it ; but the Egyptian occupation has not even lasted ten years. The governor nominated by the Khedive is a prisoner of the insurgent Mussulmans, and the frontier of Dar-For is again forbidden to explorers for a time. Physical Features. More truthfully than to most other countries the expression " backbone ** may be applied to the mountain system of Dar-For. Here almost more than elsewhere the whole living organism — streams, plants, animals, man himself and his history — are attached to the main ranges as to the bones of a skeleton. Without the mountains of Marrah there would be no Dar-For. This chain of lavas and granites, whose general shape is that of a crescent, commences north of the fourteenth degree of latitude, and after running southwards for a distance of about 120 miles, sweeps round to the west. At the point where Nachtigal crossed it, towards its northern • W. G. Brown, " Travels in Afiica," 1799.