4, 5] THE TUNGUR-FUR OF DAR FURNUNG 123

II Ferra is a site among the Furnung hills, near the centre of their southern fringe, and is locally famous as being the ancient capital of the TuNGUR and the headquarters of their last independent Sultan Shau Dorshid (or Dor el Sid as he is sometimes called).

As one winds one's way, from the open country lying to the south, towards Ferra in the dry summer months, over foothills of sandstone and blackened rocks that remind one of the country round Korosko and Ibrim,

nothing could seem more wild and arid than the prospect on every side

of high broken plutonic peaks mottled with dry thorny kitr, but suddenly,

as one enters the circle of the larger hills, the ground dives steeply down and at the foot one sees a deep narrow gorge like a miniature Valley of the

Nile. In places it is twenty or thirty yards wide, in places it is no more than

a sharp cutting in the rock, and here and there is a tiny glade carpeted

with green grass and watered from a bubbling spring.

The sides of the gorge are half hidden by the luxurious foliage of a

variety of trees, and below runs a perennial stream of sweet spring water,

'Ayn Ferra, w'hich gives its name to the locality. Here and there are little

cascades and below them deep, silent pools fringed by high reeds and

alive with small minnow-like fish.

The cliffs rise in steep tiers on either side and now and then one sees

a family of baboons cautiously eying one as one picks one's way on foot

along the shelves of sandstone or forces a path through the reeds by the

water's edge.

The stream flows winding from south to north towards the heart of

the hills, and, about a mile from its source, on the left, rises sheerly the rocky hill of Ferra.

III Here, overlooking the gorge from a height of some 200 feet was the

capital of Shau Dorshid, w'ho, it is said, when threatened by the rising power of the Fur under Sulayman Solong fled northwards to the Bedayat country and was never seen again in Darfur^.

Shau's fortress and palace are perched

Like an eagle's nest Hangs on the crest Of purple Apennine

on the very top of the highest eminence of the hill and command a fine

view.

Standing here one sees towering above one in the distance on all

sides rugged inhospitable peaks; far below one to the east winds the narrow stream clothed in evergreen verdure, and to the north and west some fifty feet below the fort is a stony plateau, the site of the ancient

settlement.

^ In view of the traces of Christianity that will be described as existing here- abouts, there may be some connection with this flight of Shau to the Bedayat and the stor^' (see p. 52 above) that the southern Bedayat were once Christians.

"Shau" is said to have had another fort and palace at Gebel Mutarrak, on the north-eastern fringe of the Furnung hills, some 20 miles from Ferra, but I did not visit the site.