232 THE GA'ALlfN AND DANAGLA GROUP in. i. xxxvii.

Duab ibn Ghanim^. El Samarkandi included them in his genea-

logical treatise as descended from the Beni 'Abbas, and not only their own children—and apparently these were numerous—but probably

all their dependants in subsequent ages claimed a like origin.

XXXVIII About the close of the sixteenth century^ the Ga'aliin

proper were under Sa'ad ibn Dabus, the eponymous ancestor of the Sa'adab section, who appears in the "nisbas^" as grandson or great- grandson of 'Adlan the son of 'Arman ; and it is from this period that

the real history of the Ga'aliin begins.

Cailliaud^ gives a "chronology of the princes of Shendi" begin-

ning with "Sadab Dabbous" and ending with Nimr, the Mek who murdered Isma'il Pasha in 1822, but if any reliance is to be placed on the ''nisbas"—allowing plentiful inaccuracies of detail—this

chronology is hopelessly incorrect in its earlier stages. For instance, A 1 1 gives the relationships as follows

:

Ghanim

1

1 Didb Duab

* I I BIshara 'Armdn

I 'Adlan

I 'Abd el Ma'abud

I 'Abd el Salam

I I I El Kanbalawi Sa'ad Idris

Sula^Tiian el Adhab ( ?)

and ABC (tree 2) as follows

:

'Armdn

I 'Adlan

I 'Abd el Ma'abud

\

,

I 1 'Abd el Salam el Asfar Sa'ad Abu Dabus

El Kanbaldwi Idris

^ This Duab in the MSS. has a brother Diab. The name Diab ibn Ghanim occurs in the Abu Zayd cycle of romances as that of one of the Beni Hilal notables

(see Burton, Land of Midian, 11, 233, and Ibn Khaldun, ed. ar. Vol. 6, pp. 14 and

16); but there is no evidence that this is more than a mere coincidence.

^ I arrive at this date by accepting as roughly correct the 235 years (i.e. about 228 solar years) said by Cailliaud (ni, 106) to have elapsed in 1821 since the accession of Sa'ad el Dabus. It will be seen that this computation agrees fairly

closely with that made already on other grounds for the date of 'Armdn.

^ See trees to A 11 and ABC 2. * hoc. cit.