INTRODUCTION vii in various districts of the Sudan, was the object I set before myself in the first instance. If the zeal of a fool has outrun angelic discretion I can only hope that someone, with a more comprehensive grasp of the necessary scientific and historical material than I could ever pretend to, will be stimulated to undertake the task so imperfectly attempted in the following pages. The general plan adopted is as follows. The ethnological characteristics of the people who lived in the various quarters of the northern Sudan before the coming of the Muhammadans is first discussed in Part I, since it is to them that the non-Arab element in the population of the present day is chiefly due. The extent to which the institution of slavery has affected the racial type of the Sudan Arab is perforce ignored. Its consideration would have postulated a knowledge, which I do not possess, of half the negro races of Central Africa ; and in the second place the fact that certain racial and cultural modifications have been caused by breeding from slave women, chiefly Nuba, Dinka, Fur and FERTfx, need only to be kept in mind throughout and their exact definition and classification is rendered less essential.

Secondly, in Part II, an attempt is made to trace the earlier history of some of the more famous Arabian tribes of whom branches eventually settled in the Sudan, and to accentuate the degree of racial connexion or distinction existing between them.

A more general account of the fortunes of the Arabs in Egypt from the seventh to the fifteenth century, shewing some of the causes that led to their southward movements and the conditions that accompanied these, is given in a second chapter; and at the same time, where there are any data forthcoming, some note is taken of the course of events in the Sudan during the same period.

Part III is occupied with a series of notes upon the history and composition of the Arab tribes now in the Sudan.

Part IV opens with a chapter on the origin value and limitations of the native manuscripts. Then follow translations of thirty-two native manuscripts, with explanatory notes, appendices and genealogical trees. It will be objected that some of them are worthless excerpts and might well have been omitted. Two considerations chiefly induced me to include them. In the first place this portion is intended to represent a small corpus of manuscripts typical of the country rather than a Golden Treasury of historical fact. In the second place it is instructive to note the extent to which variations M.S.I. b