PART I.

MISSIONS TO THE SUDAN

CHAPTER I.

TRAVELLERS AND ARCH^OLOGISTS IN NUBIA AND THE EGYPTIAN sOdAN.

Our knowledge of the Sudan in comparatively modern times we

owe to a series of enterprising travellers who have succeeded in

penetrating large portions of it, both on the east and west banks

of the Nile. Of such travellers many journeyed through the

country on business or on pleasure bent, and contented themselves

with noting much of what they saw and heard without stopping

to make archaeological investigations or excavations. Speaking

generally, we may say that the archaeological investigations of the

Siidan did not begin until the first quarter of the nineteenth

century, but it will be well to mention briefly the principal

travellers who visited or passed through Nubia and the Sudan in

the eighteenth century and earlier.

First and foremost comes Monsieur Poncet, a doctor of

medicine, who made a " Voyage to Ethiopia," in 1698, and stayed

there for two years. ^ His fellow-travellers were Haggi Ali, an

official of the Emperor of Ethiopia, and Father Charles Francis

Xaverius de Brevedent, Missioner of the Jesuits. After living

in tents for three months near Manfaldt in Upper Egypt, the

party moved on to a village near Asyut, where they stayed for

four days. They left AsyClt, which is described as a town " encompass'd with delicious Gardens and fair Palm-trees, which

1 A Voyage to Ethiopia made in the year 1698, 1699, and 1700, describing

particularly that famous Etnpire, likewise the Kingdoms of Dongola, Sennar^ part of Egypt, &c. London, 1709. VOL. I. I B