THE EGYPTIAN SUDAN to the modern inhabitants of the country from the Copts, who were settled on the islands in the Cataracts. Subsequent inquiry, however, showed me that it is not Isa " the Prophet " upon whom the watermen call, but Isa the Robber, who was the terror of the Northern Sudan in the early part of the nineteenth century.

This Isa, as we know from Hoskins {Travels, p, 275), was a shekh of the Kararish tribe, who was driven into open revolt by the exorbitant demands made upon him by the Turkish governor of the district. He gathered together a few followers, and then proceeded to attack the caravans in the desert between Korosko and Abu Hamed, and to plunder them without mercy. He raided the cattle which were sent from Dar Fur to Cairo, and supplied himself with ammunition and arms from the Government convoys to the south. Every Government caravan was regarded by Isa as fair game, and scores of hands were ready all over the country to help him to seize the property of the hated Turk ; many robberies with violence of which he was wholly innocent were laid at his door. For five years he led the life of a robber-chief with great success, but the Government succeeded in bribing the 'Ababdah shekhs to drive him out of the Korosko desert, and at length he took refuge in a valley near Kumma, of which we have already spoken. Whilst hiding here one day he was betrayed by a friend into the hands of a party of soldiers, who were led to the rock where he was, and then simply fired a volley into him whilst he was asleep. His daughter An-niir, who generally accompanied her father on his marauding expeditions, and who was a brave woman, married the only member of the band who did not run away when her father was shot. The life and deeds of Isa have appealed for some generations to the romantic side of the Nubian character, especially as he resisted for five years with brilliant success the tyranny of the corrupt Turkish Pasha, under whose rule it was his misfortune to come. We reached Sarras about sunset, and shortly after the boat bearing the stele of Usertsen III. and the other antiquities arrived safely. The Inspector made arrangements with our overseer Shekh Shellabi to unload the boats, and to drag the antiquities up the steep bank to the railway, and to load them on a truck, and we were fortunate enough to be able to proceed by train to Haifa 496 i