468 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 
Tfiz royal family were originally Negroes, and remain: 
fo ftill, when their mothers have been black like themfelves; 
but when the king has happened to marry an Arab woman, 
as he often does, the black colour of the father cedes tothe - 
white of the mother, and the child is white. Such.was_the : 
cafe of Baady, therefore named Achmer; his father ..Rebat 
was black; but marrying an Arab, his fon who fucceeded 
him was white. The laft Baady. who was. flain at Feawa 
was a perfect Negro; and by a flave from his own country 
he had the late king Naffer, who, like his -father, was-a 
perfect black. By an Arab of the tribe of Daveina. he. had 
Ifmain the prefent king, who.is white, and: fo it has inva- 
riably happened in the royal. family, as well.as in private 
ones. But what is ftill more extraordinary, though equally 
true, an Arab who is white, marrying a black woman flave, - 
has infallibly white children. . I will not fay that this is fo - 
univerfal as that an example of the contrary may not be - 
found, but all:the inftances Ihappened to fee confirmed — 
this. The Arabs, from choice, cohabit only with Negro 
women in the hot-months of fummer,.on.account of the 
remarkable coolnefs of their {fkins, in:which they are faid . 
to differ from. the Arab women; but I never faw one black . 
Arab in the kingdom of Sennaar, notwithftanding the ge- - 
nerality of this.intercourfe, . 
THERE is a~conftant mortality: among’ the children: in : 
and about this metropolis, infomuch that, in all appearance, . 
the. people would be extinct were they not fupplied by a . 
number of flaves brought from all the different countries . 
to the fouthward. The men, however, are ftrong and re- 
markable for fize, but fhort-lived, owing, probably, to» 
their indulging themfelves in .every fort of excefs from.. 
then.. 
