Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/567

 APPENDIX IL 468 Nuba race is not to tho east but to the west of the Nile,* in the Kordofan highlands. The final syllable /dii of the very word Kordo-^n is explained to mean in the Nuba lungua^ land, country, thus answering to the Arabic ddr, as in Dar-Fur = the land of tlio Fur people. Botli tho Fur and tho Kordo, if these latter are identical with the Kargft of tho Jebel-Kargu, are themsolvos of Nuba stock and speech ; and tho term Nuba is still current in Kordofan both in an ethnical and a geographical sonso, indicating the Jebel-Nuba uplands inhabited by the Nuba tribe. Here, therefore, is the true home of tho race, some of whom appear to have migrated northwards some two thousand years ago, settling partly in the Kargey oat>is (Diocletian's Nobatae), partly in the narrow valley of the Nile about Moroe (Strabo's Nubre). Since those days there have always been Nubro, Nobatft), or Nubians in the Nile Valley, mainly in the region of the Cataracts ; and wo read that after thcjir removal hither from Kargey, the Nobata) dwelt for some time peacefully with the Blemmyes (Hamitic Bejas). They even made common cause with them against the Romans; but the confederacy was crushed by Maximinus in 451. Then the Bejas withdrew to their old homes in the Arabian desert, while the Nobatro, embracing Christianity in 545, developed a {wwerful Christian state in the Nile Valley. Silco, founder of this kingdom of Dongola, as it was called from its capital, bore the title of " King of the Noubads and of all the Ethiopians," that is, of the present Nubian and Beja nations. Ilis empire lasted for 700 years, and was finally overthrown by the Arabs in tho thirteenth century, since which time the Nile Nubians have been Mohammedans. They also gradually withdrew to thfir present limits between Egypt and Old Dongola, the rest of their territory thence to Khartum being occupied by the Sheygyeh, liobabat, Jalin, and other powerful Arab tribes. There are thus two main divisions of the Nuba race : the Nubas proper of Kordofan, found also disporsedly in Dar-Fur; and tho Nile Nubas, commonly calletl Nubians in European books of travel, but who now call themselves Barabra.f By the latter the term Nuba has been rejected, and is even regarded as an insult when a])plied to them by others. The old national name appears to have fallen into discredit in the Nile Valley, where it has become synonymous with " slave," owing to the vast number of slaves supplied for ages by the Nuba ix)pulation8 of Kordofan and Dar-Fur.J The Nile Nubas themselves supply no slaves to the market. Constituting settled and semi- civilised Mohammedan communities, they are treated on a footing of perfect etjuality in Eg}-pt, where large numbers are engaged as free labourers, jK^rters, '* costermongers," Avalitarum." t Plural of Borberi, that is, people of Berber, although at present they do not reach so far up the Nile as that town. But during tho eighteenth century thii place acquired considerable influence as capital of a large Nubian state tributary to the Funj kingK of Senaar. It is still an imiwrtant htation on the Nile just Im-Iow the Atbara confluence, at the point where the river approaches nearest to the Red Sea coast at Suakin. It may here be menlioned that the term Barabra is referred by some authorities, not to the town of Berber, but to the liarabara people, whoso name occurs amongpit the 113 tribe* reoonled in the inscription on a gateway of Thutmes, by whom they were reduced about 1700 b.c. This identi- fication seems to some extent confirmed by the generic name Kent applied in the same inscription to many of these " Ethiopian tribes," and still surviving in the form of Kenus (plunil of Kcniti), the name of tho northern division of the Nubian (liarabra) people towiirds tho Egyptian frontier. It is fuither strengthened by a later inscription of Kamsea II. in K>im>«k (UOO r.c), where mention again occurs of the Beraberata, one of the southern races conquenxl by him. Hence Brugsch (" Reisebericht aus JEg>ini.," pp. 127 and 156) is inclined to r<gArd tho modem " Barabra " as a true ethnical name c-ti fused in clMSsic times with the Greek and Koman Barbara, but which has resumed its historic ralue since the Moslem conquest. X Thus in Sakakini's tabular returns of the averairs prices of sLiTes sold in Egypt from 1870 to 1880, all, of whatever ^yrorwMMM, are grouped under two heads — "Nubians" and " Abyrsinians," none being true Nubians or Abyssinians, but cither Nubas nnd other Negroes from Kordofan and the Upper Nile, or else Barea, Baai, 8han-(falhia, and other Negroid peoples from the .Kbysainian uplands. According to these returns the latter commnnd the highest prices in the slave market, £20 to £60 for adults, the Nubas fetching only frum £18 to £40.
 * This is also confirmed by Ptolemy, who (iv. 8) spoaks of tho Nubas u '* maxime occidentales