34 I- 2. XLIV.

century, it seems to have been still held by the darker people whose

affinities we have discussed. In the sixteenth and seventeenth

centuries the Arab element entered the country from two sides. In

the first place the nomads came in from the direction of Dongola and soon obtained a predominance in the plains north of the latitude

of Kaga. Here at the present day the so-called Nuba, whose type

ranges from the negroid to the debased Arab, and a smattering of Danagla, hold only the largest of the hills, el Haraza, Kaga, Katul, Um Durrag, and Abu Hadi'd, which alone possess a water supply

sufficient to support their population. They live in comparative amity

with the nomads, and are not afraid to place their villages at the foot

of the hills instead of, as previously, on the slopes, and to cultivate and graze in the plain. In a few generations they seem likely to be

indistinguishable from the sedentary inhabitants of central Kordofan.

XLV In the second place, in the sixteenth century the allied forces

of Fung and Arab, having taken Soba and Kerri from the 'Anag or Nuba and founded the kingdom of Sennar, began to push north- wards and westwards. By the middle of the following century they had begun definitely to assert themselves in central Kordofan. The

population there in all probability was still essentially Nuba, but it may already have become to some extent adulterated with the negroid

Darfurian races i, some remnants of whom still exist in the northern

hills and further south.

^ Q.v. Chap. 4. For an account of the people of el Haraza, Kaga, etc. see Chap. VI of my Tribes of Northern and Central Kordofan. They are still known as Nuba and the common people call themselves so. Their subdivisions shew traces of totemistic origin : five of them are named respectively (in Arabic) " Cattlefolk," "Ratfolk," "Sheepfolk," "Woodfolk," "Horsefolk." For this subject refer to Robertson Smith, pp. 186 ff. and 217 ft"., and for other examples see p. 94 et passim.