EGYPT — NEWBERRY 441 



those prevailing on the banks of the White Nile to-day. (2) The 

 deserts bordering the Lower Nile Valley on both sides were much 

 more fertile, and their fauna and flora resembled that of the Taka 

 country in Upper Nubia. Of tlie animals that frequented the 

 wadies only the ass and the wild ox were capable of domestication. 

 If man inhabited Egypt in pre-agricultural times — and there is no 

 valid reason to suppose that he did not — he probably lived a wan- 

 dering life, partly hunter, partly herdsman, in the fertile wadies 

 tJiat bordered the valley, only going down to the river to fish or 

 to fowl or to hunt the hippopotamus. In the valley itself there 

 was certainly no pasture land for supporting herds of large 

 or small cattle. It was probably also in these wadies that agri- 

 culture was first practiced in Egypt. Even at the present day a 

 considerable number of Ababdeh roam the wadies of the Arabian 

 Desert between Keneh and the Red Sea, where, at certain seasons 

 of the 3^ear, there is fair pasturage for small floclts of sheep and 

 goats. I have myself seen many of these people in the course of 

 several journeys that I have undertaken to the Red Sea coast. 

 Some of these nomads sow a little barley and millet after a rain- 

 storm, and then pitch their tents for a while till the grain grows, 

 ripens, and can be gathered. They then move on again with their 

 little flocks. What the Ababdeh do on a very small scale, the 

 Hadendoa of the Taka country do on a much greater one. 



If we turn to the Taka country we see there people living under 

 much the same physical conditions as those which nmst have pre- 

 vailed in the Arabian and Libyan desei-ts in early times. The 

 inhabitants of the Taka country are Hamite, and, as Professor 

 Seligman has pointed out,i« ^-1,,^ jg^st modified of these people are 

 physically identical with the predynastic Egyptians of Upper Egypt. 

 I vrould suggest that they, like the fauna and flora of ancient Egypt, 

 receded southward under the pressure of the advance of civilization, 

 and that the physical conditions of the country have preserved 

 them to a great extent in their primitive life and pursuits. The 

 picture of the Taka as Burckhardt draws it would, I believe, describe 

 almost equally well the earliest predynastic Egyptians. This coun- 

 try, called El Gash by its inhabitants, has been described by Burck- 

 hardt.^^ In his day the people there were in the transition stage 

 between the pastoral nomad and the agriculturist. It was a fertile 

 and populous' region. About the end of June large torrents coming 

 from the south and southwest pour over the country, and in the 

 space of a fortnight or so cover the whole surface Avith a sheet of 

 water, varying in depth from 2 to 3 feet. These torrents were 

 said to lose themselves in the eastern plain after inundating the 



" C. G. Seligman, Journal of tho Anthropological Institute, Vol. XLIII, p. 595. 

 -» Burckhardt, Travels in Nubia, p. 3S7, et seq. 



