sweep of the harbour and is European in character. The streets are wide and regularly laid out. The public buildings, which are large and handsome, include the government and customs offices on the quay opposite the spot where the mail boats anchor, the governor’s house, state hospital, post office, and the Boma or barracks. Adjoining the governor’s residence are the botanical gardens, where many European plants are tested with a view to acclimatization. There are various churches, and government and mission schools. In the town are the head offices of the Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Gesellschaft, the largest trading company in German East Africa. The mangrove swamps at the north-west end of the harbour have been drained and partially built over.
Until the German occupation nothing but an insignificant village existed at Dar-es-Salaam. In 1862 Said Majid, sultan of Zanzibar, decided to build a town on the shores of the bay, and began the erection of a palace, which was never finished, and of which but scanty ruins remain. In 1871 Said Majid died, and his scheme was abandoned. In 1876 Mr (afterwards Sir) William McKinnon began the construction of a road from Dar-es-Salaam to Victoria Nyanza, intending to make of Dar-es-Salaam an important seaport. This project however failed. In 1887 Dr Carl Peters occupied the bay in the name of the German East Africa Company. Fighting with the Arabs followed, and in 1889 the company handed over their settlement to the German imperial government. In 1891 the town was made the administrative capital of the colony. It is the starting point of a railway to Mrogoro, and is connected by overland telegraph via Ujiji with South Africa. A submarine cable connects the town with Zanzibar. Dar-es-Salaam was laid out by the Germans on an ambitious scale in the expectation that it would prove an important centre of commerce, but trade developed very slowly. Ivory, rubber and copal are the chief exports. The trade returns are included in those of German East Africa (q.v.).
DARESTE DE LA CHAVANNE, ANTOINE ELISABETH CLÉOPHAS (1820–1882), French historian, was born in Paris on
the 28th of October 1820, of an old Lyons family. Educated at
the École des Chartes, he became professor in the faculty of
letters at Grenoble in 1844, and in 1849 at Lyons, where he
remained nearly thirty years. He died on the 6th of August
1882. His works comprise: Histoire de l’administration en
France depuis Philippe-Auguste (2 vols., 1848); Histoire des
classes agricoles en France depuis saint Louis jusqu’à Louis XVI
(2 vols., 1853 and 1858), now quite obsolete; and a Histoire de
France (8 vols., 1865–1873), completed by a Histoire de la
Restauration (2 vols., 1880), a good summary of the work of
Veil-Castel, and by a Histoire du Gouvernement de Juillet, a
dry enumeration of dates and facts. Before the publication of
Lavisse’s great work, Dareste’s general history of France was
the best of its kind; it surpassed in accuracy the work of Henri
Martin, especially in the ancient periods, just as Martin’s in its
turn was an improvement upon that of Sismondi.
DARESTE DE LA CHAVANNE, RODOLPHE MADELEINE CLEOPHAS (1824– ), French jurist, was born in Paris on the
25th of December 1824. He studied at the École des Chartes
and the École de Droit, and starting early on a legal career he
rose to be counsellor to the court of cassation (1877 to 1900).
His first publication was an Essai sur François Hotman (1850),
completed later by his publication of Hotman’s correspondence
in the Revue historique (1876), and he devoted the whole of his
leisure to legal history. Of his writings may be mentioned Les
Anciennes Lois de l’Islande (1881); Mémoire sur les anciens
monuments du droit de la Hongrie (1885), and Études d’histoire du
droit (1889). On Greek law he wrote some notable works: Du
prêt à la grosse chez les Athéniens (1867); Les Inscriptions hypothécaires
en Grèce (1885), La Science du droit en Grèce: Platon,
Aristote, Thêophraste (1893), and Étude sur la loi de Gortyne (1885).
He collaborated with Théodore Reinach and B. Haussoullier
in their Recueil des inscriptions juridiques grecques (1905), and
his name is worthily associated with the edition of Philippe de
Beaumanoir’s Coutumes de Beauvaisis, published by Salmon
(2 vols., 1899, 1900).
DARFUR, a country of east central Africa, the westernmost
state of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. It extends from about
10° N. to 16° N. and from 21° E. to 27° 30′ E., has an area of some
150,000 sq. m., and an estimated population of 750,000. It is
bounded N. by the Libyan desert, W. by Wadai (French Congo),
S. by the Bahr-el-Ghazal and E. by Kordofan. The two last-named
districts are mudirias (provinces) of the Anglo-Egyptian
Sudan. The greater part of the country is a plateau from 2000
to 3000 ft. above sea-level. A range of mountains of volcanic
origin, the Jebel Marra, runs N. and S. about the line of the 24° E.
for a distance of over 100 m., its highest points attaining from
5000 to 6000 ft. East to west this chain extends about 80 m.
Eastward the mountains fall gradually into sandy, bush-covered
steppes. North-east of Jebel Marra lies the Jebel Medob
(3500 ft. high), a range much distorted by volcanic action, and
Bir-el-Melh, an extinct volcano with a crater 150 ft. deep. South
of Jebel Marra are the plains of Dar Dima and Dar Uma; S.W.
of the Marra the plain is 4000 ft. above the sea. The watershed
separating the basins of the Nile and Lake Chad runs north and
south through the centre of the country. The mountains are
scored by numerous khors, whose lower courses can be traced
across the tableland. The khors formerly contained large rivers
which flowed N.E. and E. to the Nile, W. and S.W. to Lake
Chad, S. and S.E. to the Bahr-el-Ghazal. The streams going
N.E. drain to the Wadi Melh, a dry river-bed which joins the
Nile near Debba, but on reaching the plain the waters sink into
the sandy soil and disappear. The torrents flowing directly east
towards the Nile also disappear in the sandy deserts. The khors
in the W., S.W. and S.,—the most fertile part of Darfur—contain
turbulent torrents in the rainy season, when much of the southern
district is flooded. Not one of the streams is perennial, but in
times of heavy rainfall the waters of some khors reach the Bahr-el-Homr
tributary of the Bahr-el-Ghazal. (For some 200 m. the
Bahr-el-Homr marks the southern frontier of the country.) In
the W. and S. water can always be obtained in the dry season by
digging 5 or 6 ft. below the surface of the khors.
The climate, except in the south, where the rains are heavy and the soil is a damp clay, is healthy except after the rains. The rainy season lasts for three months, from the middle of June to the middle of September. In the neighbourhood of the khors the vegetation is fairly rich. The chief trees are the acacias whence gum is obtained, and baobab (Adansonia digitata); while the sycamore and, in the Marra mountains, the Euphorbia candelabrum are also found. In the S.W. are densely forested regions. Cotton and tobacco are indigenous. The most fertile land is found on the slopes of the mountains, where wheat, durra, dukhn (a kind of millet and the staple food of the people) and other grains are grown. Other products are sesame, cotton, cucumbers, water-melons and onions.
Copper is obtained from Hofrat-el-Nahas in the S.E., iron is wrought in the S.W.; and there are deposits of rock-salt in various places. The copper mines (in 9° 48′ N. 24° 5′ E.) are across the Darfur frontier in the Bahr-el-Ghazal province. The vein runs N.W. and S.E. and in places rises in ridges 2 ft. above the general level of ground. There is an immense quantity of ore, (silicate and carbonate) specimens containing 14% of metal. Camels and cattle are both numerous and of excellent breeds. Some of the Arab tribes, such as the Baggara, breed only cattle, those in the north and east confine themselves to rearing camels. Horses are comparatively rare; they are a small but sturdy breed. Sheep and goats are numerous. The ostrich, common in the eastern steppes, is bred by various Arab tribes, its feathers forming a valuable article of trade.
Inhabitants.—The population of Darfur consists of negroes and Arabs. The negro For, forming quite half the inhabitants, occupy the central highlands and part of the Dar Dima and Dar Uma districts; they speak a special language, and are subdivided into numerous tribes, of which the most influential are the Masabat, the Kunjara and the Kera. They are of middle height, and have rather irregular features. The For are described as clean and industrious, somewhat fanatical, but generally amenable to civilization, and freedom-loving. The Massalit are
