the Negroes of the Coast of Guinea; their hair ||g* generally
fhort and woolly, though some are seen with it of the length
of eight or ten inches, which they esteem.. Their complexion
is for the most part perfectly black.”
The Fezzaners are thus described by Captain Lyon. “ The
general appearance of the men is plain, and their complexion
black; the women are of the same colour, and ugly in the
extreme. Neither sex is remarkable for figure, height, strength,
vigour, or activity. They have a very peculiar cast of countenance,
which distinguishes them from other blacks; their cheekbones?
arejpgher and more prominent, their faces flatter, and
their noses less, depressed and more pointed at the top than
those of other Negroes. Their eyes are generally small, and
their mouths of an immense width, but their teeth are generally
good; their hair is woolly, though not completely friz-
zled." They are a dull, phlegmatic people. The females bear
children at twelve and thirteen years of age, and at fifteen1 or
sixteen assume, the appearance ofoM women. THeir language
is Arabic.”
S e c t io n III.— Of the Eastern Nubians, or Bisharine or
Bejawy Race.
To the northward of the country occupied by the Hazorta
nation in the neighbourhood of Massowah, and through all
the eastern deserts of Nubia and the mountainous’^country
lymg eastward of Egypt, different tribes and nations are
spread belonging to one race, which is one of the most
widely extended in Ethiopia. The Bishari are the more powerful
of these nations. The Hadharebe, to the southward of
the Bishari, and the Ababdeh, to the northward, belong, as it
appears, to the .same stock.
IT 1. Of the Hadharebe.
We are informed by Mr. Salt, that “ the tribes of people who
inhabit the country near Souakin on the Red Sea, though divided
into numerous hordes, are all subject to one chief, styled
Sultaun Mohammed, who reside's at Uddukud: the particular
tribes; are Artéda, Betmala, Karub, Bartoom, Adarnar, Sabde-
rat, HarekàK, Arandoah, Bishaïeen, and Wmma-ra. All these
tribèsfbear- th^geMraliappellatiom-ilSPAdareb. LThe Bartoom
reside near- Shendy; <haf e -mahy downs, and’ towards ti^ JIu th
border on the Rasrea, atifefoe OfShangalla/Who* are accustomed
to make incursions into Walkayt. The Adareb are connected.
with the Haldinga Taka-^and'resideheat'îthe’confluence
«f.the Nile and the Tacazze. -iMbsft of thèse’hâtions' change
their habitations*âcebjdin’g »fofh^«Baléhi, They are nominally
attached to the .Mohammedan- religion^
pl^CheHadharefepr Adareb, as'they are termed"by Mr. Salt,'
are identified by their language with the Bishari. Mr. Salt
has given a-vocabulary of the idifiih of the Adareb, which hi?
terms the Adareb and Bishari languagé/ and ■ Burckhardt
collected a vocabulary m ‘. the Bishari : fkh€M^ vocabularies,
though,in a different orthography^and written with ocCaU
sional inaccuracies:on the part of one of the collectors, belong
manifestly to the same language. ' "
Sfiakin is the principal settlement of the Hadharebe. We
have from Burckhardt an ample account of this place and its
inhabitants.
At Sfiakin, as in other places in Africa inhabited by Mot-'
hammedans, the principal people affect an Arabian origin ;
and it is to the supposed settlers from Hadramaut, as Burckhardt
believes> or to their descendants, that the name of Hadharebe
properly belongs.* The etymology of tge^ame appears
fanciful, but Burckhardt says that “ the principal families
claim this appellation exclusively, while'by strangers- it is given
generally to the whole people as well as to the neighbouring
tribes. The supposed descendants frôin Arabian patriarchs
are, however, at present in no respect distinguished, from the
rest of the population : they have all the same African features
and manners. The Suakiny or indigenous people are
■principally from the tribes of Hadendoa, Amarer and Bisha-
rein.” The Hadendoa themselves are, as we shall see, à Bisharine
tribe.
* He derives Hadhereme—-of which Hadharebe is supposed to he a corruption__
in the singular, Hadhramy—from Hadhar-el-Mout— —meaning in
Arabic {Come death ! * Which Europeans have corrupted into Hadhramaut.