150 OBSERVATIONS ON EGYPTIAN ETHNOGRAPHY, 
nations, though it is still far from the Negro lip. Their hair is bushy and strong, but 
not woolly.” The same intelligent traveller subsequently speaks of their language, re- 
specting which he was certainly well qualified to judge: he assures us that the people 
south of Siout are ancient Bedouin tribes, who speak a very pure Arabic; and he makes 
a nearly similar remark respecting those who inhabit the river banks from Dongola to 
Senaar, and thence westward to Bornou, although they speak many different dialects.* 
It is well known, however, that there are whole tribes in Nubia whose language is not 
derived from the Arabic; and these may be more nearly allied to the primitive popula- 
tion. ‘The inhabitants of Dar Dongola,” says Dr. Ritppell, “are divided into two prin- 
cipal classes, namely, the Barabra, or descendants of the old Ethiopian natives of the coun- 
try, and the races of Arabs who have emigrated from the Hedjar. The ancestors of the 
Berabra, who, in the course of centuries have been repeatedly conquered by hostile tribes, 
must have undergone some intermixture with people of foreign blood; yet an attentive 
inquiry will enable us to distinguish among them the old national physiognomy which 
their forefathers have marked upon colossal statues, and the bas-reliefs of temples and 
sepulchres. A long, oval countenance, a beautifully curved nose, somewhat rounded 
towards the tip, proportionately thick lips, but not protruding excessively, a retreating 
chin, scanty beard, lively eyes, strongly frizzled but never wooll y hair, a remarkably beau- 
tiful figure, generally of middle size, and a bronze colour, are the characteristics of the 
genuine Dungolawi.”+ He adds, that the same traits of physiognomy are generally found 
among the Ababdeé, the Bishareen, and partially among the people of Shendy and Abys- 
sinia. 
It must be acknowledged, however, that we can hardly expect to find the genuine 
Egypto-Ethiopian lineaments in any considerable number among the modern Nubians. 
Placed as the former were, between the Egyptians on the north, the Indo-Arabian nations 
on the east, and the Negroes on the south and west, and this, too, through the long period 
of several thousand years, their features must have become sensibly modified, even in the 
earliest times, by that blending of race which was inseparable from their position; and as 
the Koldagi and other Negro tribes have, at different times, established themselves in 
large bodies in Nubia, we need be at no loss, I conceive, in accounting for any traces of 
Negro lineage in some Barabra communities of the present day. 
Dr. Prichard considers “the descent of the modern Nubians, or Berabra, from the 
Nouba (a Negro nation) of the hill country of Kordofan, to be as well established as very 
many facts which are regarded as certain by writers on ethnography.” With every 
deference to that distinguished ethnographer, we may inquire, what became of the pre- 
existing inhabitants when the tribes of Kordofan colonized Nubia? Were they destroyed 
or expelled? History makes no mention of either; and we are justified in the opinion 
that an amalgamation of races took place, whence some of those diversities of organization 
observable in the modern Nubians. That this intermixture of races has continued to the 
present time, the reader will find abundant evidence in other parts of this memoir; yet I 
cannot here refrain from adding an observation from Cailliaud, who, remarking on the 
shortness of life among the people of Senaar from disease and dissipation, declares that 
the number of Negroes which pours into the country, and the fruitfulness of the women, 
* Trav. in Nubia, p. 353, + Prichard, Researches &c. vol. Il. p. 174, 
