322 



DISCOVERY 



of Darfur (Western Sudan) by Mr. E. G. Sarsfield-Hall, 

 B.L., LL.B., of the Sudan Civil Service. The author 

 writes : 



" Darfur, or the country of the Furs, was formerly 

 one of a chain of ancient kingdoms which stretched 

 across the African continent from east to west, and of 

 which Abyssinia alone survives to-day as an indepen- 

 dent state. Its original inhabitants were a Negro 

 race, who lived a primitive existence in the more 

 mountainous parts of the countr}-, and were ruled by 

 a line of pagan Dagu sultans. In the sixteenth century, 

 however, they were brought into touch with Moham- 

 medan influence, and thereafter gradually converted 

 to Islam. With their conversion, the sultanate passed 

 into the hands of the arabicised Kungara branch of the 

 Fur, and in 1596 Solong, the first Mohammedan sultan 

 of Darfur, whose mother was an Arab, ascended the 

 throne. 



" The old Dagu sultans had been content to rule 

 a circumscribed area suiTounding their mountain 

 fastnesses, but their successors had more ambitious 

 ideas and soon set about extending their dominion. 

 Descending from the great Marra range, they not only 

 conquered the wide plains adjoining it, but also overran 

 the neighbouring province of Kordofan, and finally 

 penetrated victoiiously as far as the Nile. Their 

 triumph was, however, short-lived, and the warlike 

 Fungs soon commenced to drive them westwards 

 whence they had come. By 1770 they had lost even 

 the province of Kordofan, and, though they retook 

 it a few years later, it was finally conquered from them 

 in 1S22 by Mohammed Bey Daftardar on behalf of 

 the Egyptian Government. 



" After this reverse the Darfurians retired westwards, 

 but fifty-two years later Darfur itself was anne.xed to 

 Egypt by the famous Zubeir Pasha, who advanced 

 into it from the south on the pretext that the Darfur 

 sultan was unable to control his people and prevent 

 them raiding into the Bahr-el-Ghazal. In 1S77 

 General Gordon visited Darfur, where Sultan Harun 

 was in revolt, and Suliman, the son of Zubeir Pasha, 

 was carrying out extensive slave raids at the head of 

 a large body of well-armed followers. He succeeded, 

 to a certain e.Ktent, in restoring the confidence of 

 the Government troops and in pacifying the coimtry, 

 but was compelled to return to Khartoum, leaving 

 Sultan Harun still at large and Suliman but tem- 

 porarily submissive. 



" The Fur sultans hotly resented the annexation 

 of their country by the Egyptians, to whom they 

 refused submission, and against whom thev carried on 

 a desultory warfare from their strongholds in Jebel 

 Marra. Whenever a sultan was slain another arose in 

 his place, with the result that the Egyptians never 

 succeeded in completely pacifying the country. In 



18S2 the Mahdists overran Darfur, and two years 

 later their representative, the Amir Mohammed 

 Khalid (Zogal), succeeded in capturing Abdullahi Dud 

 Banga, the last of the sultans to defy the Egyptian 

 Government. Peace reigned until Mohammed Khalid, 

 being summoned by the Khalifa to Omdurman 

 appointed Yusef, the son of the late Sultan Ibrahim 

 Garad, to rule Darfur during his absence. No sooner 

 was his back turned than Yusef raised the standard 

 of revolt, and though he himself was killed in 1888, 

 a small but resolute band of Furs continued to defy 

 the Khalifa's authority. In 1896, however, Ali Dinar, 

 the last of the rebel sultans, finding himself deserted 

 by the greater part of his followers, surrendered 

 to the Dervish Amir Abd el Gadir Wad Dalil. He was 

 sent to Omdurman, and remained there until the eve 

 of the battle of Omdurman, when he fled westwards, 

 intending to seize the throne of Darfur. One Ibrahim 

 Ali, a nephew of the late Sultan Yusef, had already 

 been dispatched to Fasher by Sir Herbert Kitchener 

 with instructions to take over the administration of 

 Darfin- on behalf of the Government. Ali Dinar, 

 howe\'er, reached Darfur before him, and lost no 

 time in disposing of the Dervish Amir in charge oi 

 the province, of another rival claimant to the throne 

 whom he mockingly appointed sultan of the despised 

 blacksmiths, and finally of Ibrahim Ali himself. 



" A short time later, having securely installed him- 

 self, he acknowledged the suzerainty of the Sudan 

 Government, and in 1900 was appointed Governor- 

 General of Darfur, subject to the payment of a nominal 

 tribute of L.E.500 per annum. This tribute was 

 regularly paid until after the outbreak of the Euro- 

 pean War in 1914, when Ali Dinar cast off his allegiance 

 and refused to make any further payments. He had. 

 as he well knew, chosen an embarrassing time to 

 declare his independence. Turkey had just entered 

 the war, and the Sultan of Turkey, as Khalif of Islam, 

 had called his co-religionists to a world-wide jehad. 



" Undesirous of provoking an armed conflict, the 1 

 Sudan Government used every endeavour to bring I 

 the recalcitrant sultan to reason. But Ali Dinar turned , 

 a deaf ear to all counsels, and it soon became apparent 1 

 that nothing but the occupation of his country would I 

 reduce him to submission. ' 



" When the revolt was crushed the Sudan Govern- 

 ment was faced, in the midst of the embarrassments 

 of the European War, with the problem of bringing 

 a newly acquired country, approximately 160,000 square 

 miles in area, under administrative control. The 

 whole country lies between 2,000 and 3,000 feet above 

 sea-level, and down the centre of it zigzags a chain 

 of rocky hills, sometimes assuming the proportion 

 of mountains, which form the watershed of the country 

 and part of the great watershed separating the Nile 



