I. 2. IV, 13

were little concerned, and until late years that subject remained

sufficiently obscure.

The Present Inhabitants of Nubia

III At the present day the inhabitants of Nubia, which may be

taken as extending along the Nile banks from Aswan as far south approximately as the eighteenth parallel, to the vicinity, that is, of Debba and Korti^, are commonly known to the north as Barabra

(" Berberines ") and to the south as Danagla, i.e. inhabitants of Dongola^.

The term "Barabra" is used to include the Kanuz between Aswan and Korosko, a people whom we shall see to be an element

distinct, the "Nuba" round Haifa, the Sukkot, the Mahass proper, and frequently the Danagla. The Danagla extend as far north only

as the vicinity of Arko Island and do not admit that they are Barabr.\.

Physically and linguistically the Sukkot and Mahass fall into a single group and are distinct from the Kanuz and Danagla. The two latter, however, bear obvious resemblances to one another and their lan- guages are similar. This curious fact is due without doubt to the

geographical peculiarities of the Nile valley between Korosko and Dongola, the effect of which is to leave the Mahass and Sukkot more or less isolated^.

IV All these people are Muhammadans and have Arab blood in

their veins, but racial characteristics derived from non-Arab ancestors have survived very persistently, and more noticeably so among the Mahass and Sukkot. The Kanuz and Danagla approximate very much more to the Arab type.

At the same time, the importation of slave women from the

south, which has proceeded uninterruptedly for centuries, has lent

a further measure of spurious homogeneity to all of these Nubian

peoples*.

^ The southern limit of " Kush" under the Pharaohs of the eighteenth dynasty was practically the same, viz. Napata (Breasted, A. R. 11, 1020).

* "Danagla," or more correctly "Danakia" is the plural of "Dongolawi" or " Donkolawi." There is probably a connection between "Danakia" and the " Danakil" of the northern Somali coast (see Johnston, The Nile Quest, pp. 34-42).

* Cp. Beckett, Cairo Sc. Journ. Aug. 191 1; Burckhardt, Nubia, pp. 25, 26; and Anglo-Eg. Sudan, 1, 83, where the term Barabra is used to include the Danagla. Burckhardt {loc. cit.) says: "The inhabitants of Nouba, and Wady Kenous, as far as Dongola, are known in Egypt under the name of Berabera (sing. Berbery); but that appellation is seldom made -use of by the inhabitants themselves, when speaking of their own nation." As usual, he is accurate. By "Mahass proper" are meant the Mahass of Mahass district as distinct from the Mahass settled, e.g. on the Blue Nile.

* Cp. Schweinfurth, 11, 194.