The royal family were originally Negroes, and remain so still, when their mothers have been black like themselves; but when the king has happened to marry an Arab woman, as he often does, the black colour of the father cedes to the white of the mother, and the child is white. Such was the case of Baady, therefore named Achmer; his father Rebat was black, but marrying an Arab, his son who succeeded him was white. The last Baady who was slain at Teawa was a perfect Negro; and by a slave from his own country he had the late king Nasser, who, like his father, was a perfect black. By an Arab of the tribe of Daveina he had Ismain the present king, who is white, and so it has invariably happened in the royal family, as well as in private ones. But what is still more extraordinary, though equally true, an Arab who is white marrying a black woman slave, has infallibly white children. I will not say that this is so universal as that an example of the contrary may not be found, but all the instances I happened to see confirmed this. The Arabs, from choice, cohabit only with Negro women in the hot months of summer, on account of the remarkable coolness of their skins, in which they are said to differ from the Arab women; but I never saw one black Arab in the kingdom of Sennaar, notwithstanding the generality of this intercourse.
There is a constant mortality among the children in and about this metropolis, insomuch that, in all appearance, the people would be extinct were they not supplied by a number of slaves brought from all the different countries to the southward. The men, however, are strong and remarkable for size, but short-lived, owing, probably, to their indulging themselves in every sort of excess from
