III. 9. III. THE 'ABABDA and THE KERRArISH 339

It is this branch which from time immemorial has controlled the camel transport over the Butn el Hagar between Korosko and Abu Hammad and has thereby become wealthy^. A few 'Ashabab and 'Abudiin live with them.

There is also a considerable colony of 'Ababda, of a stock much mixed with the Ga'aliin elements among which they live^, based on

el Hosh, a few miles west of Shendi. They number some 850 men and own perhaps 2000 camels and 33,000 sheep and goats.

Until the second decade of the nineteenth century other 'Ababda were settled at Dongola, "where they had acquired great wealth and

influence^": these latter were compelled by the immigrant Mamluks

to retire to Egypt.

THE I^ERRArISH

III Connected with the 'AbAbda, though remotely, are the Ker-

RARISH. A portion of these were until lately in Upper Egypt*, but most of them graze their camels and flocks in the deserts west of Dongola and south of the latitude of Haifa. Others have long been

settled on the Nile, more particularly to the south of the Mahass

country and on Arko Island.

"These Bedouin, a remote branch of the Ababde," says Burckhardt ^ in

181 3, "pasture their cattle on the uninhabited banks of the river, and on

its islands, from Derr southwards, as far as Mahass and Dongola, where

they are said to be more numerous than in Nubia. They are poor... but, notwithstanding their poverty, they refuse to give their daughters in

marriage to the Nubians, and have thus preserved their race pure...The

Kerrarish are, for the most part, in the service of the governors of Nubia,

to whom they are attached as a corps of guards, and guides, and accompany them in their journeys through their dominions....They are a very honest and hospitable people."

Others, he adds, worked as guides to merchants or made a living by collecting senna and nitre from the deserts.

^ Isma'il Pasha had 700 of them as irregulars with him in the expedition of

1821. CaiUiaud {q.v. n, p. 51) characterizes them as the worst soldiers in the army, accustomed rather to trade and guide than xS fight.

2 They contain Hasanab, Magadhib, Sulaymania, Kanzab, Harfrab, Bisharab, Mukabirab, etc.

* Ibid. p. 67.

* There are also "Kerarsha" near Tor in the Sinai Peninsula, subdivided into

Nasirat and Awlad Tihi (see Na'um Bey, Hist. Sinai..., pp. 112-3).

'" Nubia, pp. 30, 31.