i68 THE PROGRESS THROUGH EGYPT ii. 2. xxiii.

To the east, as far as the Red Sea, were the marauding Bega and the Arab tribes who had settled among them. The latter were chiefly Rabi'a, INIudr and various Kahtanites from the Yemen, and numbered about 3000. They had intermarried with the Bega and all alike owed ultimate allegiance to the great sheikh Abu Marwan Bishr (Bashir ibn Marwan) of the Rabi'a.

The Bega themselves were still pagans, excepting, that is, the Hadareb, a warrior clan among them, who, it is stated, could put into the field 30,000 men mounted on camels.

The Nubian chieftains, by now, it is interesting to note, claimed a Himyarite descent, just as did the rulers of Kanem and Bornu at a later date. To some extent this may have been a result of intermarriage with the Arab tribes who had settled round Aswan, for el INIas'udi especially notes that the population of that town—still a great trading emporium—was largely mixed with Nubian, and that numerous Arab famihes, Kahtanite and Isma'ilitic, had bought lands from the Nubians and established themselves there; but the claim may equally have rested on an intimate association of long standing with Abyssinia and its half-Yemenite population.

Beyond 'Aloa, it was reported, was "a great tribe of blacks called Kunna [Kenna ( ?), Kinna ( ?)]. They are naked like the Zing and their land produces gold. In the kingdom of these people the Nile divides."

XXIV In 951 a successful raid was made by the Nubians on the oasis of Kharga which at this period was under the domination of the LuATA Berber*.

About five years later they attacked Aswan but a punitive 1 J-J.O-*. lyj!cp ,gssX. So an old Copt in 873 told Ibn Tulun (see Mas'udi, 11, 372-382). Cp. Quatremere, 11, 16 (quoting Ibn Selfm, ap. Makrfzi): "On dit que Selha, pere des Nubians, et Makorry, pre des peuples du Makorrah, 6toient natifs du Yemen. Suivant d'autres Noubah et Makorry etoient H6miarites d'origine." See note to MS. " BA," para, cxxxiii, in Part IV, for further remarks on this.

2 Mas'udi, ill, 41, 50. The tribes of Kahtan, Mudr, Nizar, Rabi'a and Kuraysh are mentioned. Burckhardt (App. ill, p. 529) remarks of this passage (which is quoted by Makrfzi in Khetdt, II, 572) : " The notice of these Arab tribes is interesting because it shews how this part of Africa came to be peopled by them, and explains why we find on the Niles, in Kordofan, Darfur and Borgho, pure Arabian blood."

Mas'udi, II, 383 (Ch. 31). Here again the old Copt's story to Ibn Tulun is being quoted. The Arabic is as follows: ojtj ?j~»pl 5tj.t dJ,ii) tjTi J\:>yJ\ A ao-Jic ix>l 0 <''j33 These "Kunna" are no doubt Ibn Selfm's "Kersa" or "Kernina," for whom see p. 171. De Meynard and de Courteille wrongly translate "qu'on nomme Bekneh."

' Mas'udi, iii, 51 ; Makrfzi, Khetdt, 11, 697, 698.

Makrfzi, loc. cit. p. 574; Abu Salih, p. 267.