24 (No. 98 HISTORY independent States of Makorra (capital Dongola ) and Alwa (capital Soba, on the Blue Nile '14 miles south of Khartum ), preserved their Christianity and their independence, even against Arab Arab pressure, for upwards of a thousand years. The Arab conquest of Egypt (640), flooding southwards, broke upon this barrier ; and not until 1500 did the Arabs achieve the final conquest of Nubia, absorbing and proselytising the native inhabitants and banishing Christianity from the land .

Meanwhile the Blemmyes-Beja tribes, ' never Chris tianised, embraced Mohammedanism with fervour, and became largely intermixed with the Arab invaders from the north and from over the Red Sea. . . These also penetrated from the west and north -west into Darfur and Kordofan . For all these 5,000 years and more Ethiopia, the land of the negroes south of lat . 12° N. , remained unknown to history .

(2) Turks, Fungs, and Furs ( 1500-1820) In 1517 Selim , Sultan of Turkey , took Cairo, and soon conquered and ruled all the land south as far as the Third Cataract. South of this, two powerful native kingdoms practically divided theSudan between them . The Fung Kingdom , a true negro · power, created in 1505 by Amara Dunkas, ruled from the Third Cataract to Fazogli, from the White Nile to Suakin . Its capital was Sennar. In 1748 it conquered Kordofan ; traces of this conquest remain to -day in the Nuba Mountains. It reached its highest pitch of power in the period 1724-62, and its fame spread as far as Constantinople. In 1789 the Fung Kingdom was destroyed by the rude tribe of the Hameg , and only miserable relics of it exist to -day in 'the Fungs of Jebel Gule , who preserve in part their pagan customs and speak their ancient tongue as well as Arabic. To the west lay the kingdom of the Furs , for long years rivals with the Fungs in the struggle for Kordofan . These Furs or Fors derived from the