IV. XIV. OF THE SUDAN ii

Ommayyads by the 'Abbasids, and eventually resulted in the founda-

tion of the Arab-Fung hegemony in the Gezira. The ancestors of the Hadarma or HadAreb had similarly reached Suakin by way of the Red Sea half a century earlier and settled on the coast — so at least say the nisbas; but colonies from Hadramaut had undoubtedly established themselves on the African shore at a much earlier date, and in any case the interior of the country was very little affected.

For several centuries after the rise of the 'Abbasids no immi-

gration of tribes is mentioned by the nisbas. Then in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the conquests of the Mamluk Sultans broke

down the barrier which had been for so long presented b)'^ the Christian kingdom of Dongola and opened the way for a fresh inflow of Arabs into the Sudan. To this period belongs the great Guhayna

movement, and, in so far as the Danagla-Ga'aliin group are Arabs, it is probably to the same period that their genesis must be traced,

though, as we have seen, the Ga'aliin proper — the people living between the Shabluka and the embouchure of the Atbara — may not have come into existence as a tribe until the beginning of the sixteenth century.

The fourth great immigration followed the foundation of the

Fung kingdom and the conquest of Egypt by Seli'm I : it does not seem to have been confined to any particular tribe.

XIII There is no reason to doubt the approximate correctness of this presentation if one have regard only to the dates at which the

chief immigrations occurred, but the nisbas generally err in as-

suming that each tribe of the present day is descended from a single ancestor and deliberately ignoring the fact that each consists of a conglomeration of heterogeneous elements some of which may have reached the country at one time and some at another. Even apart from this it is dubious whether the particular tribal substrata to which certain periods of migration are reserved can be accepted as correct.

No mention is made of any extensive tribal movement into the Sudan occurring later than the first half of the sixteenth century; and, if one except the thin though constant infiltration of Arabs across the Red Sea from the Hegaz and the Yemen, it is probably correct to say there has not been any.

XIV Let us now briefly examine the sparse references that occur to the indigenous races with whom the Arab immigrants must have coalesced, though the nisbas naturally lay no great stress on the fact.