Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/669

NUBIA 611 wells, but of vital strategic and commercial importance as affording the most direct access from the coast to the in terior, and the shortest highway from the Nile to Suakin, the only outport of Nubia ; (4) a better but much longer route from Tokar below Suakin by the Kh6r Barka south wards to Kassala on the Mareb, a tributary of the Atbara, and thence through the Shukurieh country westwards to Khartum. This route, Avhich has been recently explored by G. Casati, 1 traverses the province of Taka, the most fertile and productive region in the whole of Nubia. Taka, being well watered by the Atbara, Mareb, and other streams from Abyssinia, is a true African tropical land, covered in some places with dense forest, in others with extensive pastures and arable tracts. Hence this route has lately been proposed in preference to that from Suakin to Berber for the projected line of railway from the coast to the interior. Besides Taka the only other fertile and permanently inhabitable region is the valley of the Nile itself. But this valley, expanding above Khartum into open alluvial plains, is in Nubia proper confined mainly to very narrow limits, with a mean breadth of scarcely more than half a mile (Burckhardt). The river is here almost everywhere hemmed in between granite and sandstone hills, which approach at some points to the very banks, at others run transversely to it, thus giving rise to the continuous wind ings and rapids which characterize its course throughout Nubia. Nor does the Nile now flood its banks to the same extent as formerly in this region, as appears from the "nilometer" discovered by Lepsius. But it is a mistake to suppose, as is often stated, that no rising takes place. In Taka much humus and alluvial soil overlie the older crystalline beds and later sedimentary rocks. Elsewhere throughout Nubia these rocks are now mostly denuded, and consist mainly of new sandstones, with large masses of granite, porphyry, and trachyte cropping out in many places. The extensive syenite range on the Egyptian frontier is pierced for 80 miles by the Nile, and runs thence interspersed Avith sandstones eastAvards to the Red Sea, Avhere it forms the bold headland of Ras Benas, pro jecting round the Gulf of Berenice. WestAvards the same system develops the J. Kukur, beyond Avhich it extends to about 25 E. long, in the direction of the Libyan desert. Higher up, at the second or " Great " cataract of Wady Haifa, the sandstone is broken through by huge masses of granite and diorite rising 500 feet above the river-bed. Still farther south sandstones also prevail throughout Dongola, where the Nile presents the aspect of a mountain stream rushing for 250 miles over rapids. At Batn-al- Hajar the granite hills attain an altitude of 2000 feet above the river, and in this district the sandstone mostly disappears under the eruptive basalts, trachytes, diorites, phonoliths, and large beds of shale. None of the porphyries appear to be metalliferous, and the only gold mines hitherto discovered are those in the east about Mount Elbe , Avhich were Avorked by the ancient Egyptians, and even during mediaeval times, but which are noAv abandoned, although apparently not yet quite exhausted (Linant de Bellefonds). This auriferous district of Nob or Nub, Avhich according to some authorities has given its name to the whole country, lies close to the Red Sea in 22 N., nearly opposite Jidda. The only other minerals of economic importance are salt and alum, occur ring at various points on the plateaus. The granites and syenites afford magnificent building materials, largely utilized by the ancient Egyptians. The greater part of the land lies almost Avithin the rain less zone, for the tropical rains are noAV arrested about the 1 Esploratore for August 1883, and Boll. Ital. Geogr. Soc., July 1883, p. 538. latitude of Khartum (Petherick), beyond which point very little moisture is precipitated in any part of the Nile basin. Hence the Nubian climate, while intensely hot (108 to 114 Fahr. in the shade in May on the eastern plateau) is excessively dry and not unhealthy. The plague, formerly endemic in Egypt, never originates in Nubia; nor does the cholera penetrate up the Nile valley beyond Wady Halfci. North of this point, however, the riverain parts are often rendered dangerous, especially to strangers, by the exhalations from the stagnant pools left after the subsi dence of the Nile waters. It is noteAvorthy that here the right bank being periodically flooded is much more fertile than the left, although all the finest ruins lie on the left side._ The contrast is probably due to the Libyan sands continually moving eastward and encroaching on the narroAv arable zone along the great artery. Except in Taka, the natural flora is very poor, all the arable dis tricts being required for the cultivation of useful plants. Amongst these the most important are the dom palm, durra (Sorghum vulgar e), of which several varieties have the stalk from 7 to 10 feet high, maize, dokhn (panicum), barley, lentils, tobacco, beans, and melons. Cotton and the vine flourish in several places, and the dates of Ibrym and Sokkot are much prized. The banks of the Nile are often fringed with the mimosa ; senna abounds in moist, the tama rind in sandy places ; several varieties of gum trees occur in the south, and symka is common, its seed yielding oil, its leaves good camel fodder. Wild animals are rare except in the Taka forests, where the elephant, lion, panther, rhinoceros, giraffe, hya?na, and wild boar are met with. The crocodile and hippopotamus infest all the streams ; many species of large and small snakes occur, but few are poisonous ; the stork, wild goose, partridge, ibis, are amongst the chief repre sentatives of the local avifauna. There is a good breed of horses ; the camel and ass are used as mounts, the ox and buffalo (not numerous) as pack animals and in irrigation, of which there are two methods (as in Egypt), the sakiya, worked by oxen and liable to a tax of 3, and the shadiif, a hand lever and bucket, rated at 30s. (Petherick). The population being almost exclusively agricultural and pastoral, the industries are unimportant, and limited mainly to coarse cottons and woollens, pottery, and household iitensils made of the date tree. The exports also are confined to senna, some grain, leeches, musk, and honey. But although the local traffic is small there is a very large transit trade, carried on chiefly by caravans between Central Africa and Egypt. In this way considerable quantities of ivory, gold dust, ostrich feathers, and slaves have from the remotest times been brought down from the interior through Nubia to the seaports on the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. Of late years the slave trade had been almost entirely suppressed. Few ethnological questions are beset with greater difficulties than those connected with the origin and affinities of the Nubian race ; and, although much light has recently been thrown on the subject by Lepsius in the learned introduction to his Niibische Grammatik, there are several points which still remain matter of conjecture. As an ethnical expression the term Nuba or Nubian itself has become equivocal. Rejected by the presumable descendants of Diocletian s Nobatse, who now call themselves Berber, Barabiia, it has become synonymous in the Nile valley with "slave," or "Negro slave." This is due to the large number of slaves drawn by the Arab dealers in recent times from the Nuba tribes of Kor- dofan, who appear to constitute the original stock of the race. On the other hand, the expression has never at any time been applied to all the inhabitants of the region we now call Nubia. At present this region is occupied by peoples of three distinct stocks the com paratively recent Semitic Arab intruders, mainly in Upper Nubia ; the Hamitic Ababdeh and Beja (Bisharin), everywhere between the Nile and the Red Sea ; and the Negro or Negroid Nubas (Barabira), in Lower Nubia, where they are now almost exclusively confined to the banks of the Nile, from Assuan southwards to Dongola. That these Nilotic Nubas are closely allied to those of Kordofan may now be regarded as placed beyond reasonable doubt. And, as the latter are admittedly of Negro stock and speech, it follows that the former also, hitherto affiliated by some to the Fulahs of west Sudan, by others to the Hamitic Beja, must henceforth be regarded as essentially a Negro people. But, whereas the Kordofan Nubas have preserved their racial purity, those of the Nile, while preserving their Negro speech intact, have in their new homes become physi cally modified, mainly by the admixture first of Hamitic (Beja), then of Semitic (Arab), and even of European blood. Ethnologically the modern Nubians are therefore to be considered as a very mixed people, forming the transition between the three great Hamitic, Semitic, and Negro branches of the human family who converge in the Nile basin. Their ultimate affiliation to the last-named rather