HISTORY.
European travellers. — Early inhabitants. — Delil or Dali. — Intestine
wars. — Sulieman Solon. — Meissa. — Achmet Bokr. — Mohommed Dowra. —
Omar Leyle. — Aboo-el-Ghassam. — Mohommed Tirab. — Abd-er-Rhannem el
Rasheed. — El Fasher made the capital. — Mohommed-el-Fadl. — Loss of
Khordofan. — Mohommed Hassim. — Brahim. — Annexation to Egypt. — Maps. —
Geography. — Products.
PREVIOUS to our visit to Darfoor only three European travellers had
visited the country; Browne in 1795, Dr. Cuny, a Frenchman, in 1850, and
Dr. Nachtigal in 1874.
Browne travelled from the north by the desert route from Siout on the
Nile, two hundred and ten miles above Cairo, and restricted his
exploration to El Fasher and Kobbe, a town about thirty miles distant to
the north-west. He had but limited opportunity of seeing much of the
country, and did not acquire much knowledge of the customs of the
people. Dr. Cuny died in the country, not unsuspected of having poisoned
himself. His effects and papers were packed and sealed by the generally
honest Sultan Mohommed Hassim, but when they came to be sought for, in
order to be sent to Egypt, the cases were found broken open and the
contents scattered and lost. Dr. Nachtigal, shortly after his return,
contributed, in 1875, a paper, accompanied by a map, to the German
Geographical Institute, to which paper I am indebted for the historical
information contained in this chapter.
Although the boundaries of Darfoor have never been ascertained with
precision, the country may be considered as lying within and nearly
filling the area bounded by the parallels 9° and 16° north latitude and
the degrees 22° and 28° east longitude. In shape it is a more or less
regular parallelogram, measuring about five hundred miles from north to
south and four hundred miles from east to west. In the centre stands
Gebel Marra, a range of mountains a hundred miles from north to south
and sixty miles from east to west, and varying in height from one
thousand to fifteen hundred feet above the general level of the
surrounding country. This mountain system is the cradle of the Foorawee
people; here they originally dwelt with the Dadyos, a people far less
numerous and important. On the arrival (when is not recorded) of the
Arabs, of whom the Tunyoor were the principal tribe, the Dadyos,
recognising their superior civilisation and moral codes, lived with them
in common, and finally became completely subject to them. The gain was,
however, not altogether on the side of the Tunyoor: in course of time
they not only forgot their origin but lost all recollection of the
Mohommedan religion, if, indeed, they had ever been acquainted with it.
About four hundred years ago, after a long series of troubles, they
allied themselves by marriage with the Foorawee, and in turn became a
subject race.
The first ruler sprung from this union, King Delil, generally known by
the people as Dali, was the true founder of the kingdom of Darfoor.
Although his dominion scarcely reached beyond the limits of the Gebel
Marra he subdivided his country and established the basis of regular
government. The fixed “laws of justice,” afterwards reduced to writing,
and generally known by the name of “Dali’s Book,” prove incontestably
that in his time Islamism was not known, or that it had, at least,
passed into nearly complete oblivion; they deviate throughout from the
principles which the Koran inculcates.
The reign of King Delil was followed, for a long number of years, by
struggles for the throne, and general intestine war. This period is
veiled in nearly impenetrable darkness; the chief occurrence was the
separation from the main body of one portion of the Foorawees, and its
expulsion from the central mountain home. This unhappy state of affairs
was for a long time continued by a war of succession carried on between
Tonsam and Koro, two grandsons of King Delil. At first Tonsam, the
elder, was, it seems, victorious, for we find Sulieman, called Solon,
son of Koro, fleeing to the Massabât, in the east of Darfoor, to which
tribe his mother belonged. Arrived at man’s estate, Solon elected to try
the fortune of war with his uncle; the warlike young man was victorious,
and by degrees drove Tonsam from the Gebel Marra. From this time dates
the separation, from the Foorawee stem, of the Massabât, who had lost
their native language and had adopted the manners and customs of the
Arabs. They gave the followers of Sulieman Solon considerable trouble,
and appear to have become at one time so powerful, that in some of the
lists of the kings of Darfoor the names of their chiefs or kings are
found intermingled with those of the legitimate rulers.
With the reign of Sulieman Solon (“Solon” in the Foorawee language
signifies “the red-skinned man of the Arabs”) the history of the country
becomes clearer. He firmly established the unity of the government,
carried on wars with success, and extended the area of his power. He
died after reigning forty-one years from 1596 to 1637. He introduced
Mohommedanism into his own family and the districts near, but the people
of the provinces looked upon this faith with very little favour.
The reign of his son Meissa was less illustrious; he reigned for forty-
five years till 1682, and was succeeded by his son Achmet Bokr, who
shares with Delil and Sulieman Solon the fame of a founder of the state.
Under him Mohommedanism became the universal religion. With the object
of civilising his country he offered inducements to foreigners to
settle, and from his time dates the arrival of the Fellâta, of the
Bornoos, and of the various tribes from Wadâi at present found in
Darfoor. He reigned for forty years till 1722 with undisputed sway, and
extended his empire as far as the Nile and even beyond to the banks of
the Atbâra.
After him came his son Mohommed Dowra, or Harot, a blood-thirsty tyrant,
who, on his accession, caused seventy-two of his relatives, most of them
his brothers, to be put to death. He, fortunately, only reigned ten
years.
In the time of his successors occurred the long wars between Darfoor and
Wadâi which had, however, been commenced in the glorious reign of Achmet
Bokr. They were now carried on with less good fortune. Omar Leyle, the
son and successor of Dowra, was taken prisoner in 1739, and was
succeeded by Aboo-el-Ghassam, his uncle, a son of Achmet Bokr. He also
was vanquished in battle and died of his wounds. He was followed by his
brother Mohommed Tirâb, who came to the throne in 1752. After a reign,
not undistinguished by certain success in war, he was killed in 1785,
after reigning thirty-three years, in a war-like expedition he was
carrying on against Khordofân. His brother, Abd-er-Rhannam, called El
Rasheed, was proclaimed king in the field by the military chiefs,
although his son, Ishâga, had been left behind as Sultan during Tirâb’s
absence. Tirâb, although he had some brilliant qualities, remarkable
learning, dexterity with his pen, and a knightly spirit, exhausted the
country by his extravagance and love of display, and his son, Ishâga,
promised to walk in the footsteps of his father. Abd-er-Rhannam, a poor
priest almost without descendants, was, on the other hand, a very plain,
learned, and upright man; but avaricious, suspicious, intriguing, and
vindictive. He it was who fixed Tendelti, or El Fasher, as the capital,
and in whose reign the Englishman Browne visited Darfoor. In civil war
he conquered and slew Ishaga, and died, after a reign of fourteen years,
in 1799.
His son Mohommed-el-Fadl, a minor, in whose time the famous Tunisian
shiekh, Sheriff Mohommed, lived in Darfoor, reigned at first under the
guardianship of the energetic eunuch Mohommed Korra, whose rank was that
of “Aboo shiekh,” or “Father of the shiekhs,” and who had been formerly
governor of Khordofân. As Mohommed-el-Fadl grew to manhood the grasping
ambition of the Aboo shiekh grew more and more evident; envy, mistrust,
and jealousy sprang up between them ultimately resulting in open war in
which, only by a combination of fortunate circumstances, Mohommed-el-
Fadl was victorious, and Mohommed Korra lost his life. From this time
Mohommed-el-Fadl ruled undisturbed till the year 1839, in all thirty-
nine years. In youth, although a high-spirited, thoughtless, and violent
man, he was mostly accessible to proper influences; in later years he
became a tyrannical, unjust, and blood-thirsty ruler. Like Mohommed
Dowra, he died of leprosy. In this reign took place the loss of
Khordofân, the inglorious victory over Wadâi, and the almost complete
extermination of the Arab tribe of Eregât. Of Mohommed-el-Fadl’s
numerous sons the third, Mohommed Hassim, succeeded his father, and,
after reigning thirty-five years, died blind in 1874 while Dr. Nachtigal
was in Wadai. He was an intelligent and well-intentioned man, prone to
peace, but paltry and covetous, and generally placed his private
advantage above that of the State. His wars were mostly waged against
the Ritsegât, in the south-east of Darfoor, against whom he equipped
fourteen different expeditions, with the only result that the few last
years of his life were passed in tolerably good relationship with this
restless and warlike Arab tribe. He was succeeded by his third and
youngest son, Brahim, on the whole a sensible and well-intentioned man,
who was, however, not equal to dealing with the complications which
arose with the Egyptian Government. He was misled, and allowed himself
to be persuaded into making an open attack on Zobaire Pacha, thus
provoking Egypt to war. He died in battle in the autumn of 1874 at
Menowâtshi.
After his death, his uncle, Prince Hassaballah, placed himself at the
head of such forces as he could collect, and withdrew into the
fastnesses of the Gebel Marra, mountains which had never hitherto been
successfully invaded from the plains, and which were looked upon as
inaccessible and impregnable.
While, however, Ismail Pacha Ayoob was fast succeeding, by peaceful
measures, in reconciling the inhabitants of the eastern provinces, and
of El Fasher, the bold adventurer Zobaire, penetrated, without delay,
into the mountains and established his head-quarters at Torra. The elder
brother of the late king, Abd-er-Rhannem Shatool, shortly after tendered
his submission, and in the spring of 1875 the news reached Cairo that
Prince Hassaballah, the last defender of the independence of Darfoor,
had voluntarily placed himself in the power of the conquerors, and that
Darfoor, the notoriously evil home of fanaticism, had been finally
pacified and annexed to the dominions of the Viceroy.
A work on Darfoor, with a map, was published in Cairo by Shiekh
Mohommed, the Tunisian, a learned Mohommedan, referred to above, who
resided for many years in the country in the reign of Mohommed-el-Fadl.
Although his pictures of the life and customs of the people are faithful
and graphic, his map is so confused and distorted as to be utterly
valueless. Another map was made by the, so-called, Sultan Tayima, the
Foorawee governor of Khordofân, previous to the conquest of the latter
dependency by Egypt, and all our hitherto published maps of Darfoor are
based upon it. The latitude and longitude of El Fasher, 13° 54′ N. and
28° 15′ E., given in this map, and copied in our atlases, place that
town nearly one hundred and eighty miles away from its true position,
and an estimate of its value may be formed from this circumstance.
Dr. Nachtigal himself places it a few minutes east of 26° E. longitude
from Greenwich, and 13° 45′ N. latitude, but adds that his calculations
can only be looked upon as preliminary, and that further examination
must modify them.[14] Our own calculations, the mean of nearly one
hundred astronomical observations, checked by the through chainage and
triangulation both from Wady Halfa and Khartoom, fix the town some
forty-five miles west by south of this position.
As the Gebel Marra has formed the political centre of the country’s
history, so it forms the centre whence all the rivers flow which water
Darfoor.
The greater proportion and the largest of these, such as the Sonot, the
Bargo, Baray, the Gheldâma, and, above all, the Adsom, with its many
affluents, flow towards the west and south-west. The smallest of these
are from two hundred to three hundred yards across; in the rainy season
they are perfect torrents, and, although their beds are dry soon after
the cessation of the rains, water is always to be found in abundance at
a depth of five or six feet. Two considerable streams, the Ghendi and
the Boolbul, flow towards the south, and uniting about a hundred miles
from the mountains, are said, in seasons of excessive rainfall, to reach
the Bahr el Arab, a perennial river flowing eastward between 9° and 10°
N. latitude into the Bahr el Gazâl, a large tributary of the White Nile.
Like all the other streams in Darfoor, these are dry in the dry season.
On the eastern side of the mountains rise the Wady el Kho, and the Wady
Amoor; the fall of the ground eastward towards the Nile being only very
gradual, their course is almost due south. Neither of them reach the
Bahr el Arab, but are finally lost in the sand about two hundred miles
to the south of El Fasher.
The goal of our own journey into Darfoor was the last-named town, and of
the country west of the mountains I am not able to speak from
experience. All the natives of whom I inquired, agreed in saying that it
is by far the richer and more densely populated half of the country;
that this should be so is easily conceivable. Every day of our journey
south-west from Old Dongola brought us perceptibly further away from the
utter desolation of the desert skirting the cultivated land on the banks
of the Nile. At Bagghareeyeh the ground in the low valleys is cultivable
in the rainy season, but is only capable of yielding “duchn” in limited
quantity, and of very inferior quality. In the neighbourhood of Om-Badr
the clearings are of greater extent. No grain had been sown in 1875 at
either of these places, but the short stubble remaining showed that in
more favourable years crops are raised. At Om-Badr the “Adansonia
digitata,” monkey-bread tree, or “gangaloos,” as the natives call it,
first grows, as also the “ziraffa,” or giraffe tree. These trees, as
well as numerous varieties of the sycamore, became plentiful on nearing
Karnac and Boota. In Ergoodt and El Fasher “duchn” is plentiful and
good, but I saw no signs of “doura.” Cotton, onions, garlic, senna,
hasheesh, melons, tomatos, lettuces, rice, and tobacco are produced near
El Fasher, but are of very inferior description. No perishable fruits or
vegetables are obtainable for any length of time after the rains. All
these products are credibly said to be yielded in much greater
profusion, and of much better quality, in the south and west of the
country; there “doura” is cultivated; the plane-tree is found, but is
scarce; and the “gangaloos” attains to a greater height and diameter
than it does in the north and east. The fruit of this tree, called
monkey-bread, is a yellowish-white pod, some five inches long by two and
a half inches or three inches wide, filled with large white seeds. The
outer part only is eaten; it is very hard, crisp, and dry, with a slight
acid taste not unpleasant, but it certainly cannot be considered a
delicacy. From the circumstance of the trunk of the tree forming a
reservoir, which retains considerable quantities of water after the
rains, it is highly valued by the natives, who are thus saved the
trouble of drawing what they require from the wells.
Dr. Nachtigal, in the pamphlet alluded to, states that wheat is grown in
Gebel Marra, and mentions it as a remarkable and, perhaps, isolated
instance of its cultivation in Central Africa.
Of that portion of Darfoor through which I have travelled, namely, from
Om-Badr to El Fasher, I estimate one-sixth part only to be cultivable,
of which sixth part, perhaps, one-hundredth part is cultivated. No
system of irrigation exists, and for the eight or nine dry months of the
year the ground is incapable of producing anything at all.
[Decoration]
[Illustration: MAP OF EL-FÂSHER.
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