FUNGH. 79 althougli the skin is certainly much darker than that of the latter. They wear their hair long and loose, though some plait it into knots ; their arms are small oval shields,—which they procure by barter from the Kabbabee Arabs, and these are made from the hide of the wild buffjilo,— and the usual sword or lance. They are a strong, well-built race ; are yet in considerable numbers located on the Gesira, between the Blue and White Nile, and though much mixed up with other tribes, are to be met with all the way from Darner to Gos Rajeb ; they still possess their old pride of race and country, and do not wish to be looked on as genuine Arabs. Of a national language we found no trace ; but after they were subdued by the Arabs, this may have vanished before that of the conquerors. As a matter of course, they have no love for the Arabs, and less for the Turks, who suck the very marrow from their bones ; but their chiefs, who lately have been taking a greater interest in politics, than formerly, hope that, with a change of rule in Egypt, their own lot will also alter, as they are now better acquainted with the use of fire-arms, and they trust that the forcibly raised black regiments in the Turkish service, will, on the first opportunity, disband themselves, deserting their Turkish masters, and all connected or concerned with them. And this we fully believe. According to their own tale, the Fungh descend from races of inhabitants of the Defafonj of the lands of the Dinka and Schilluk, where yet their forefathers' race may be found. [No such land is now known, but there is a hill of the name, an extinct volcano, in the land of the Dinka, about 1 i° N. lat., which I afterwards ascended. Had I followed my own ear I would have written the name Defafaungh, although the Funghs themselves pronounce their race's name so feebly, that one might almost suppose Fonj with an hardly audible e or i was the correct pronunciation of it.] Near this hill live now no people of the name but the tribe of the Dinka, though in their traditions this hill plays so great a part, that it looks as if round and behind it had been the gathering of the whole race, which may have descended from the high lands along the Sabat, and, after delivering battle to the Arabs, poured down on or by the White Nile for 300 years into Sennaar, and there founded an empire. Burckhardt holds, that they had, as a savage race, burst down from the great mountain range. Six