Nubian

“ It is no doubt the ancient Nubian, and has continued under that name in somewhat distant south-westerly regions; for the languages of the Nubians in and about Kordofan are, to some extent, evidently related to the Berber language. That this last, which is now only spoken from{231} Assuan to Dar Shaiqîeh, south of Dongola, in the Nile valley, ruled for a time in the province of Berber, and still higher up, I have found enough proof in the names of the localities. ”

“ The habits and customs of the inhabitants of the middle Nile valley display a remarkable amalgamation of inherited and acquired characters. Taciturn and carelessly pliant, the Nubian seems as willing to adapt himself to what is new as to forget the traditions of his home. Worshipper of Islam more in name than in reality, he is as innocent of strict adherence to the tenets of his creed as of intolerance towards those of another faith. Until he has reached mature manhood or old age, he seldom or never respects the commandments of the Prophet with the conscientiousness of Arab or Turk. ”

“ While it is difficult to tell to what degree the Nubian has been influenced by his surroundings, or made by them the manner of man he is, this at least may be safely said, that he is as markedly differentiated from his neighbour, the modern Egyptian, as his home is different from the land of Egypt. ”

“ On—on—the slumberer breathed on, but he thought not, felt not, perceived not. A revolution, an earthquake might heave around him, but the convulsive throes of man or of nature would have been as nothing to him. The brow would have remained as calm and as cold, and the cheek as pale and as still, while, in all human probability, the faithful Nubian would have sat as immovable upon his rug at the bedside of his beloved master, and have gazed upon him as untiringly with his dark and sleepless eye. ”

“ Barren as is the soil, and scanty as are his means of living, the Nubian loves his rocky home, and can with difficulty be induced to leave it, even if he is offered a more kindly climate and surroundings. ”

“ In color the Nubians are mostly black, some being of quite a jetty hue, while others are of much lighter color. Even in the blackest Nubian, however, the tint of the skin is not that of the tropical negro, but there is a certain transparency about it, which, in the sunbeams, gives a sort of amber hue to the limbs. Besides being a fine and well-built race, the Nubians possess pleasing features, the only fault being that the lower part of the face is somewhat apt to project. ”

“ Except along the narrow valley of the Nile only the southernmost portion of Nubia contains arable land. The greater part is within the almost rainless zone. An auriferous district lies between the Nile and the Red Sea, in 22° N. Politically the whole of Nubia is now included either in Egypt or the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, and has no administrative existence.
Ethnology.—As an ethnical expression the term Nuba or Nubian has little value. ”

“ The camels of the Bisharins and Ababdehs are no less famous for their speed than the horses of Dongola. Inhabitants. Often conquered, and consisting of little more than the double riverain zone of the Nile, Nubia is peopled with tribes of very mixed origin, such as Ilamites, Arabs, Nigritians, and Turks. Nevertheless the basis of the Nubian population may be said to consist of Bar&bras, who call themselves " the people of the soil." ”

“ There is nothing now spoken in this whole neighbourhood but Arabic; but there is still a recollection of the former Nubian population, as there are yet a number of villages distinguished from the others as Nuba villages. Above the province Dongola, the following were pointed out to me as such:—Gebel Maqál and Zûma on the right shore, and near the island Massaui, which also bears the Nubian name of Abranârti; then on the left hand Belled e’ Nûba, between Debbe and Abu Dôm, Haluf or Nuri, and Bellel, opposite Gerf e’ Sheikh and Kasinqar. ”

“ Nevertheless, the Nubian type remains essentially negro, being characterized by a very dark complexion, varying from a mahogany brown and deep bronze to an almost black shade, with tumid lips, large black animated eyes, doli-chocephalic head (index 73, 72) , hair often woolly or strongly frizzled, and scant beard worn under the chin like the figures of the fugitives (Uaua?) in the battle-pieces sculptured on the walls of the Egyptian temples. At the same time the nose is much larger and the zygomatic arches less prominent than in the full-blood negro. ”

“ The Nubian recognizes the general physical superiority of the Egyptian, and thoroughly acknowledges the intellectual culture of the prominent members of the neighbour-people, but he seems to be scarcely conscious of his own deficiency in culture, and is even inclined, in his turn, to enslave the less strong or less gifted people of the interior. ”

“ The houses are constructed only of mats, made of palm leaves, fastened to high poles, the extremities of which rise considerably above the roof. The countenances of the people are much less expressive of good nature than those of the Nubians; in colour they are perfectly black; their lips are like those of the Negro, but not the nose, or cheek bones; numbers of the men go quite naked, and I even saw several grown up girls without any thing whatever round the middle. The Nubian language here has certainly superseded the Arabic, which none of the peasants understand. ”

“ South of Aswân and Philse begins Nubia. The Nubian language, which is quite different from Arabic, is spoken by everybody on the island of Elephantine, and its various dialects are used as far south as Dongola, where Arabic again is generally spoken till we reach the land of the negroes, south of Khartum. In Ptolemaic and Roman days the Nubians were a powerful people, and the whole of Nubia and the modern North Sudan formed an independent kingdom, ruled by queens who bore the title or name of Candace. ”

“ It must also be remembered that these Nubian natives of the Nile district have for centuries not only intermarried with each other, but have also mixed so indiscriminately with slaves of every origin, that they have lost all traces of being other than a single race. ”

“ The result of this relative abundance of the rains on the coast region is a great contrast between the Nubian districts near the Red Sea and those of the interior. To the east the Arab nomads find abundance of wells, fountains, and pasturages for their cattle ; but to the west nothing is visible but rocks and sands, the eye of the traveller seldom lighting upon a grove of palms or mimosas, or any trailing shrubs growing on the banks of the wadies. In some years the drought is so complete that no shepherd dare venture into the desert. Nubia thus offers some well-defined natural divisions. ”

“ If the controllers of the Seribas had a sufficient number of these Farookh, they might well dispense altogether with their Nubian soldiers, except for one reason, to which I have already referred, viz. the constant danger of their running away, a risk that makes them practically less reliable than the Nubians, who never think of such a thing, and even if they did, would only join another company. ”

“ You know Hassan? A large, mysterious figure in the shadows of his little shop, smoking amber-scented cigarettes as though he liked them, and turning his sleepy eyes slowly upon each passer-by. Well, I drifted around in his direction.
Right at the corner of the street, a big limousine was standing; an up-to-date car, fawn cushions, silver-plated fittings, and simply stuffed with fresh-cut flowers. A useful-looking Nubian was chauffeur, and on the step squatted a fat and resplendent being in all the glory of much gold braid. ”

“ The intimacy of the people of Souakin with the Nubian Bedouins, and the unsettled state of their own government, have been the principal causes of their degenerating from the character of their Arabian ancestors. They have every where on the coast of the Red Sea, the character of avarice and ingratitude, or, to use the expression of an Arab of Yembo: “Though you give them water from the holy well of Zemzem to drink when they are thirsty, yet they will suffer you to choke with thirst even when their own wells are full” (حَتَّي اذا سقينهم من مأ زمزم فليخّلوك تموت من الظما و لو كان بير هم مليان) ”

“ PITIABLE CONDITION OF NUBIANS.
In the Nubian Nile-valley all charm is gone. Extremely wretched is the aspect of the country, and equally pitiable are its present social conditions. In the course of the last ten years, as a consequence, first, of the increased taxation, and secondly, of the diminished production, matters have continually become worse and worse. To the cursory glance of a traveller only a small proportion of this deep-rooted misery may be disclosed; he may perceive the consequences, without being able to assign the reasons ”

“ Being Mahometans, they shave the hair except one tuft on the crown, and cover their bare heads with a white cotton cap.
The Nubian men mostly go armed according to their ability. The usual weapons are the sword, dagger, spear, and shield. The sword is shaped somewhat like that of the Abyssinian, but the curve is not so abrupt. The general style of the weapon, however, and the shape of the handle, proclaim a common origin. With some of the Nubians the favorite weapon is the straight sword, like that of the Hamran Arabs, which will be described in a future page. ”

“ Notwithstanding all these difficulties and sufferings, our traveller considered the Nubian desert, at least as far south as Shigre, far less terrible than that of Syria or Tyh. Trees and water are much more frequent, and though it be intersected in various directions by shaggy barren rocks, the more desolate and awful appearance which it acquires from this circumstance is, in a great measure, compensated for by its consequent grandeur and variety. “Here,” says the traveller, “during the whole day’s march, we were surrounded on all sides by lakes of mirage, called by the Arabs Serab. ”

“ As we had discovered so few monumental remains since our departure from Barkal, to employ the leisure time which we had in our boat, I busied myself with making every possible research into and comparison with the present language and the Nubian. It offers very remarkable points in the science of language, but does not show the least similarity to the Egyptian. I consider that the whole race must have come at a late period out of the south-west into the valley of the Nile. We have now a servant from Derr, the capital of Lower Nubia, who speaks tolerably good Italian ”

“ The Nubians seldom go unarmed; as soon as a boy grows up, his first endeavour is to purchase a short, crooked knife, which the men wear tied over the left elbow, under their shirt, and which they draw upon each other on the slightest quarrel. When a Nubian goes from one village to another, he either carries a long heavy stick (نَبّوت) covered with iron at one of its extremities, or his lance and target. ”

“ As a matter of fact, however, the Nubian regulars and the black Farookh are equally indispensable to every commander of an expedition. The native soldiers may be the better shots, and they have the advantage of knowing the country more thoroughly and of being accustomed to the climate; moreover, on rainy days (when the Nubians would sit shivering in their huts) they will wrap their guns in their girdles and with the greatest alacrity go perfectly naked over wood and steppe to repel an advancing foe ”

“ Their beard is much more strongly developed than in negroes. 321 The oval formation of their faces approaches more to the Mediterranean than to the Negro type. Their forehead is high and broad, their nose prominent and not flat, their lips not so protruding as in the negro. The language of the Nubian races seems to possess no relationship to those of genuine negroes. ”

“ This people, like their predecessors from the same region, the Cushites who traded with Babylon and Thebes, a branch of whom, "intermarrying with the natives" (Periplus, § 16) , helped found the Nubian Kingdom, and like the Punt or Poen-people of the Theban inscriptions, left their settlements in Mahra, Socotra and Somaliland (the true frankincense country) and migrated westward, settling finally in the Tigre highlands, where for the first time they established an enduring power. But their migration was different from the others, in that it was due to warfare and oppression rather than trade. ”

“ Being situated near the Nubian forest, where elephants abounded, its location was very favorable. The Egyptians had formerly imported their elephants from Asia; but the cost was high and the supply uncertain, and Ptolemy sent his own hunters to Nubia, against the will of the inhabitants, to obtain a nearer supply.
From very early times there was a trade-route from the Red Sea to the Nile at this point, terminating near Meroe, and corresponding closely to the railway recently built between Berber on the Nile and Port Sudan on the Red Sea. ”

“ A Nubian passed me in a state of nudity, armed with a poisoned spear, and guarded by the skin of a hippopotamus, formed into a shield. In this country, the animal called man is fine, although his wants are few,—some rice, a calabash of palm wine, and the fish he himself spears. Are his ancestors the creators of the adjoining temple, covered with beautiful sculptures, and supported by colossal figures fifty feet in height? It is well to ponder, by the roar of the cataracts of the Nile, over the perfectibility of man.
A light has at length broken into the darkness of Egyptian ages ”

“ As northward, from its Nubian springs, The Nile, forever new and old, Among the living and the dead, Its mighty mystic stream has rolled; ”