254 THE GUHAYNA GROUP iii. 2. xv.
Bruce^ places them in the Mazaga district near the junction of
the Setit and the Atbara,and speaks of " the Dobenah,the most power-
ful of all the Shangalla, who have a species of supremacy, or command,
over all the rest of the nations": he sees in them the descendants
of Ptolemaeus's "elephantophagi." Again he calls^ "Dobenah" a " general name" for the tribes who shared with the Basa of the
Atbara ("Tacazze") "the peninsula formed by that river and the
Mareb" (the Kash^). He recalls^ the attack made upon them by Yasus I of Abyssinia (i 680-1 704) and concludes^: "Thus ended the campaign of the Dobenah....And yet, notwithstanding the smallpox,
which, in some places, exterminated whole tribes, the Dobenah have
not lost an inch of territory, but seem rather to be gaining upon
Sire." On the other hand, relating the expedition of Yasus H in
1736 into the territories of the Fung Bruce says^: "The King, in
five days marching from Gidara, came to a station of the Daveina, which is a tribe of shepherds, by much the strongest of any in
Atbara." These "Daveina," whom Bruce seems to have forgotten to
connect with the "Dobenah," although he himself in different places'
tells us of each that it inhabited Mazaga district, are certainly the Pubaina or Dubania of the present day, and must surely represent
a more arabicized branch of the Shangalla "Dubena^" settled rather
farther west than their kinsfolk®.
Werne in 1840 speaks of the DuBAfNA as a very large tribe in the neighbourhood of Kedaref and Kallabat, "second to neither the Beni-Amer nor Haddenda^°."
Baker met them and their sheikh 'Adlan wad Sa'id in 1861 with
the Shukria on the Atbara round Tomat. They were then still a
considerable tribe owning many cattle and sheep, and at enmity with
the Ga'aliin refugees of Mek Nimr's family, who were settled on the
Abyssinian border^^. In his map Baker shews them as occupying all
^ Vol. IV, Bk. IV, p. 30; and Vol. iii, p. 4; and map ("Dubeno").
^ Vol. Ill, Ch. IV, p. 472.
^ In Vol. VI, p. 244, however, Bruce speaks of "The Baasa, or Dobena Shan-
galla."
* Vol. Ill, Ch. IV, p. 472. ^ Ibid. p. 479.
^ Vol. IV, Bk. IV, p. 119. ' Ibid, as quoted, and Bk. vi, Ch. i, p. 44.
* Bruce's editor (Vol. iii, Introd. p. 4) says: "To the north of Abyssinia they
[the Shangalla] are mixed with Arabs, the Beja, and the Belowe [i.e. the Belu] ; in which quarter they are called Dubena."
* Mansfield Parkyns (map to Vol. i, and cp. Vol. 11, p. 404) places the " Daveina Arabs" between the Rahad and the Atbara, immediately south of the fifteenth
parallel.
10 Werne, p. 187. ^^ Baker, pp. 136, 279, 447. Cp. M. Parkyns (11, 404), who speaks of "Abu Jin, great chief of the Daveinas." As Abu Gin was head-sheikh of the Hammada we must suppose the Dubaina were under the overlordship of that tribe.