THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 4ss 



CHAP. ix;. 



Cdnverfat'iom withAchmet — Hl/lory andGoveniment ofSennaar-'^Heat—^ 

 Difcafes — l^rade of that Coufitry-^The Authors dijlreffcd Situation—' 

 Leaves Sennaar. ■ 



FROM Salidan's time, till the conqucil of Selim empe* 

 ror of the Turks, who linifhed the reign o'i the Ma- 

 malukes by the murder of Tomum Bey, that is, from the 

 twelfth to the fixteenth century, the Arabs in Nubia and Beja, 

 and the feveral countries above Egypt, had been incorpora- 

 ted with the old indigenous inhabitants of thofe territo- 

 ries, which were the Shepherds^ and, upon converfion of thefe 

 laft to the Mahometan religion, had become one pcopla 

 with thofe Saracens who over-ran this country in the Kha-« 

 lifat of Omar. The only diftindlion that remained was^ 

 that the Arabs continued their old manner of life in tents, 

 while the indigenous inhabitants lived in huts, mollly by 

 the fides of rivers, and among plantations of dace-trees.; 



i 



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It: 



