i88 THE PROGRESS THROUGH EGYPT n.2.XLVii.

murdered king's brother was installed at Daw [Derr(?)] and not at

Dongola suggests that success was only partial. The Beni Kanz so

far from offering any resistance, gave every facility to the troops; and

such of the 'Ikrima as resisted were killed.

XLVIII What happened eventually to the new king is not known.

In 1397-8 there is record-*^ of a king called Nasr el Din who was

ousted by one of his relatives and fled to Cairo for help—which the Governor of Aswan was told to give. From his name this king must

have been a Muhammadan, and for all we know he may have been one

of the Beni Kanz. At this period the Beni Kanz and other Arabs and the Hov^ara and other Berber tribes were amalgamating rapidly

with the riverain Nubians, northwards from Dongola, and Islam was

supplanting Christianity in a corresponding ratio.

The power of the Mamluk government so far up the river was

almost negligible^, and the state of affairs under their rule in Egypt was such as to offer every inducement to the nomad tribes to depart

to districts where they were not subjected to any alien power. If an

expedition was sent to Nubia it was easy for the tribes to give way

for the time being and to resume their old status as soon as the troops had gone.

Thus the settlement of Nubia by the Arabs proceeded to all

intents undisturbed, and by the fifteenth century the racial charac-

teristics of the population in the neighbourhood of the first two

cataracts, and perhaps as far south as Dongola, had become sub-

stantially what they are to-day.

XLIX In the east, we learn from the traveller Ibn Batuta (1302-

1377), the Sultan of Suakin, which belonged to the Bega, was a

Sherif, whose father had been amir of Mekka but who was con-

nected on his mother's side with the Bega. Between 'Aidhab and

Suakin he records an encampment of some Arab Awlad Kahil

(J.aI^ i'i'j')' "mingled with the Bega and understanding their

language^." Others of these Awlad Kahil and some Guhayna,

together with Bega, composed the Sultan's military force. Probably

the Awlad Kahil here mentioned represent the same people who

appear as Kawahla {sing. "Kahli") or Awlad Kahil at the present

day and who contain a section of the 'Ababda*.

^ Quatremere, li, 124.

^ About 1403 Aswan ceased for a time to be under Egypt (Makrizi, Khetdt

(ap. Quatremere, loc. cit.), and cp. Lane-Poole, Hist. p. 308). In that year the Sa'id was prey to a dire famine and it is said that 17,000 deaths occurred at Kus, n.ooo

at el Siut, and 15,000 at Hou. (Makrfzi, Khetdt, 11, 548.)

^ Ibn Batuta (11, 161): ^^L>J>J C>th^^ Sla^b ^JaUai^*.

« See Part HI, Chap. 5.