I70 THE PROGRESS THROUGH EGYPT ii. 2. xxvi.

sentative of the king of Nubia^, and it was a part of his business to

see that no one passed the barrier of the second cataract, i.e. that

near Haifa, without due authorization. His authority seems to have extended nearly as far south as Sai. Beyond the southern limit of

his dominions money was unknown and all trade was conducted by

bartering slaves, cattle, camels, iron and corn for the products of the

north. The "juarisi" language was spoken as far south as "Yastu^,"

a village lying about thirty-six miles south of the third cataract and,

says Ibn Seli'm, marking the boundary between the provinces of

Maris, or Nubia proper, and Mukurra {Mtikiirra proper})^. Beyond

this point lay two districts known respectively as Bakun and Safad

Bakl [Safdikal (?), Sandikal (?), Safdabkal (P)*]. The latter extended

as far south as Dongola, and Dongola was the capital of the whole country from the Egyptian frontier to the borders of 'Aloa.

Ibn Seli'm comments on the fertility and prosperity of the country on either side of Dongola.

Of the ordinary inhabitants he says practically nothing, but he mentions an immigrant sub-tribe of Bega called the Zenafeg who

retained their own language and kept aloof from the Nubians : they

led a pastoral life somewhere between the present sites of Abu Hammad and Berber. We shall see that farther north and east other Zenafeg were subject to the Hadareb.

The territory of Dongola extended no further south than el Abwab

(Kabushi'a), which was the northernmost district of the kingdom

of 'Aloa^ and was ruled by a vassal mek known by the title of

^ That is, apparently, the king of Mukurra, of which district Dongola was the

capital. Ydkut mentions (see Abu Sdlih, p. 261, note) that the king of Nubia called himself " King of Mukurra and Nuba" {sic).

' So Bouriant ( yi^j). Burckhardt notes (p. 523): "I find this word written Yonso, Benso, Noso. Perhaps Mosho, the frontier town of Dongola, is meant." The "36 miles" are in the Arabic "3 barid." Burckhardt says a "barid" is 12 miles.

' Alukurra is generally spoken of in a wider sense (e.g. by Ibn Selfm himself three pages later) as stretching much farther north, and on p. 549 Ibn Sellm speaks of Negrdsh (Faras) as capital of Maris and on p. 554 as capital of Mukurra. Marls and Nubia proper are identified as distinct from Mukurra (pp. 551, 554). Pre- sumably Marfs was merely a name sometimes applied to that northern portion of Mukurra which was inhabited by a distinct type of Egyptianized Ethiopian. The

title of Ibn Seli'm's work (q.v. above) supports this. The word Marfs is Coptic and means "the South," i.e. the most northernly part of Nubia, looked at from the standpoint of Egypt. (See Abu Sdlih, p. 260, and Makrfzi, Khetdt, l\, 372). Am^lineau, on what grounds I do not know, says Mukurra extended from Korosko

to the ancient Napata (Abu Sdlih, p. 261, note): see note 5, below.

* See Burckhardt, pp. 496, 523.

' If so the southern boundary of Mukurra was presumably just north of Kabushfa, i.e. within a few miles of the ancient Mcroe. It is not absolutely certain from Makrfzi 's text whether this fact is stated on his own authority or that of Ibn Selim. Burckhardt assumes the latter.