48 [ No. 98 HISTORY of the tribes have proved troublesome, as the Gemilab in 1914, the Shukria and Hadendoa in 1917. An outlaw band under Abu Bakr was hunted down on the Atbara in 1914. There has been a good credit balance since 1909 . Railway communication with Kassala town is badly wanted ( see p . 83 ).

Kordofan and Nuba Mountains.-- Separated as from January 1 , 1913 ( financially from January 1, 1914). El Obeid was reoccupied on December 17, 1899 , and the whole huge province (then 167,000 square miles; now , by readjustment, Kordofan is 112,500, Nubá Mountains 32,200 ) was found devastated and depopu lated by the Dervishes. From 1901 to 1905 many tribes, as the Hamar , Gowama, Awaida , Taaisha; & c ., were brought back to their former homes in the pro . vince, whence the Khalifa had forcibly or otherwise removed them . There has also been much immigration of new folk from the west, as the Berti to Dar Hamar in 1904 , and the Fellata, Hausa , and Takruri , who settle permanently en route to or from Mecca . Immigration from Darfur was forbidden (to con ciliate Ali Dinar) in 1905. The towns of El Obeid , El Nahud, and Shershar have grown greatly in size .

The revenue of the province doubled between 1908 and 1913 , and the surplus of £E.38,000 in 1912 sur passed that of any other province. The railway from Sennar via Kosti to El Obeid was opened in 1912. A slave-raiding gang was suppressed at Kailak in 1902, and this evil is now at an end . Even the Baggara tribes are learning to work for themselves. Long existent intertribal feuds , as of the Kababish with the Beni Gerrar or Kawahla , and the Hawazma with the Messeria , are persistent. Raids from Darfur of Bedaiat and Gura'an have provoked reprisals in the north-west .

Kordofan , on the whole, has prospered and developed greatly, and its one source of anxiety now consists in the variations in themarket price of gum, on which its welfare almost wholly depends. The Nuba Mountains province, on the other hand , has been and remains