5] THE TUNGUR-FUR OF DAR FURNUNG 125

of Gama'i Kurro, on the Wadi Bare between Kebkebia and Kulkul, and of Turra in Gebel Marra. But the making of the inihrdb had evidently given some trouble, for, though the face of the arch had been negotiated

successfully, the concave back had been formed by building up a straight

surface of large bricks and then hewing them into concavity as one would hollow out a trough. The houses of the common folk were of stone in their lower courses, and presumably roofs of straw were superimposed. Some

of them were unusually large; the diameter of one close to the mosque —the Imam's probably—was eleven yards.

IV No implements or ornaments were found, but I had not the time or

the means to dig for them. Broken shards were not infrequent. The pottery was of three kinds. The common burnias were obviously of the same shape and made in the same way, i.e. kneaded outwards on a mat,

as the ordinary biinna of Darfur and Kordofan, with wide mouth,

short neck and round belly. The inside and outside surfaces are brick-red and the intervening material burnt black. In texture they are very hard and thicker than the usual—a very necessary precaution when one con-

siders the rough treatment they were likely to receive in being carried some 200 feet up a sheer slope, littered with rocks, from the stream below.

There were also larger receptacles, presumably for storing liquid in the houses, and these were of coarser and even harder fibre almost indistinguish-

able from brick, with quite large pebbles embedded in them, generally an inch or more thick.

The third kind of pottery was of the shape of the present-day dulaiig, with long graceful neck (slightly bulbous in the middle) and red, glazed

surface. On the only large fragment I picked up were very roughly incised markings, on the belly of the jar, which in form were similar to the brand

still used by the Fella (or Fellanga) section of the Tungur-Fur. The markings are thus:

The brand is thus^ : «^~r^

V At the present day there are no villages in the Furnung hills: all are

^ This Tungur brand bears obvious resemblances to the " caracteres a lunettes" pictured by Doutte (q.v. p. 158). These latter, as used by the Muhammadans of North Africa, are said to be derived from Jewish magic, and may represent eyes,

to symbolize Providence and counteract the evil eye. The brand may have been brought by the Tungur to Darfur from Nubia, but, in the lack of any evidence of the use of "caracteres ^ lunettes" in Nubia, it is more probable that they borrowed them at a subsequent date from the Tibbu tribes living to the north of Darfur, whose brands are not dissimilar.