196 INTRODUCTION autochthonous inhabitants among whom they have settled ; and they speak Arabic. In fact the colloquial Arabic of the Sudan contains many words and phrases that would be incomprehensible in Egypt or Syria but which have well-established classical authority: this is naturally most true of the nomad Arabs and applies less to the riverain populations. The words of Escayrac de Lauture remain substantially correct: Leur langue alteree un peu par le temps, accrue de quelques mots empruntes aux vocabulaires des negres, est cependant encore la langue du Hedjaz plus harmonieuse, plus concise, plus energique, plus grammaticale, et plus arabe que les jargons paries en iSgypte et dans le Gharb.

It would, however, be difficult to give a detailed history of the Arab race in the Sudan in the form of a single narrative. To deal with it tribe by tribe is an easier method, and this I will now attempt briefly to do.

In the second Part mention was made of the largest or most important of those well-known Arabian tribes which sent branches to the Sudan, and the plan was adopted of following the fortunes of each in turn, as a single whole where feasible, or otherwise as a number of subdivisions which had become practicaHy independent of one another, down to the point of their entry into the Sudan.

In this chapter, whenever occasion arises, it will be more convenient to reverse this process, and taking in turn the best-known Sudanese Arab tribes of the present day, to attempt to connect each of them with its respective parent stock.