Chap. LI. FOUNDATION OF MA'S-SENA'. 
433 
But, to proceed with our principal inquiry, the 
emigrants, led on by their chief Dokkenge, penetrated, 
it would seem, towards the west by the road marked 
by the sites of Hirla, Kirsuwa, and Nairoma — a place 
situated near Mas-eha, on the Bachikam. 
The state of the country where this pagan prince 
was to found the new kingdom, at the time when 
this happened (that is to say, about 300 years ago), 
was as follows. On the spot where the capital 
now stands, there is said to have been nothing but a 
strao-alino; settlement of Fulbe cattle-breeders ; and 
the Bagirmaye themselves state that they named 
the place from a large ardeb or tamarind-tree ("mas" 
in the Bagrimma language), under which a young 
Fellani girl of the name of Ena was selling milk. 
These Fulbe (or Fellata, as they are called in all the 
eastern parts of Sudan) are said to have been much 
oppressed by annual inroads of the Bulala ; and it 
was Dokkenge who undertook to protect them against 
these invaders. With the exception of this Fellata 
settlement, a few Arab or Shiiwa tribes*, who at that 
time had already begun to spread over the country, 
principally the Beni Hassan, and the solitary settle- 
ment of a Fellata sheikh, or holy man, in Bidden, 
a place about nine miles east from M&s-ena (who, 
however isolated he was, nevertheless exercised a 
very remarkable influence over the introduction of 
Islamism into these countries), all the rest of its in- 
* The fact of the spreading of the Arabs at so early a period, 
is entirely confirmed by Imam A'hmed's account. 
VOL. III. F F 
