THE EGYPTIAN SUDAN of the Sun-god, incidentally proves that they regarded the Nehesu, if or Blacks, with contempt, for they imputed to them a scandalous origin, and therefore considered them to be an inferior people.

At a comparatively early period after the rise of the Muhammadan power in Egypt, Arab historians and others gave to the country to the south of the First Cataract, which is the natural boundary of Egypt on the south, the name of " Balad Sudan," i.e., " Country of the Blacks.'' Mediaeval writers call it simply " Sudan," i.e., " Blacks," or "Negroes," and this is the name which it bears on all modern maps. ThusJi,Balad Sudan " is rnerely the Arabic translation . of the words " Ta Nehesu," and in giving fhis appellation to the country they have perpetuated the characteristic description of it made by the ancient Egyptians some six or seven thousand years ago.

It seems that, strictly speaking, the " Land of the Blacks " is the country which lies to the south of the modern city of Khartum, and includes both the valley of the Congo, or Western Sudan, and the valley of the Nile, or Eastern Sudan, but the ancient Egyptians made it to include the territory of the dark-skinned peoples which extends from that city northwards so far as the First Cataract. In modern times the looseness with which the name Sudan is used is perplexing, but the same complaint was made by the intrepid traveller, Mr. W. G. Browne, who says, " Nothing can well be more vague than the use of the word Soudan "or Siidan. Among the Egyptians and Arabs Ber-es-Soudan is' " the place where the caravans arrive, when they reach the first " habitable part of Dar Fur; but that country seems its eastern "extremity, for it is never applied to Kordofan or Sennaar. It " is used equally in Dar Fur to express the country to the west ; " but on the whole seems ordinarily applied to signify that part " of the land of the blacks nearest Egypt."

' In no Egyptian inscription have we any description of the limits of the Land of the Blacks, and even Greek and Arab geographers and historians fail to give any clear idea of what they considered the extent of the Sudan to be. This, however, is not to be wondered at, seeing that neither the Egyptians nor the Arabs explored the Sudan thoroughly, and that they only obtained ' Travels in Africa, Egypt, and Syria, London, 1806, p. xxi.

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