The Ababdeh occupy the country to the northward of the Bishari ;
viz. : from the parallel of Derr to the frontiers of Egypt, and in the
eastern desert as far northward as Qosseyr : they were scarcely known
previously to the French Expedition to Egypt. M. du Bois Aymé, a
member of Napoleon's Egyptian commission, affords the earliest description
of the Ababdeh : —
“ Les Ababdeh sont un tribu, nomade, qui habitent les montagnes situées a l’orient du
Nil, au sud de la vallée de Qoçeyr. ils diffèrent entièrement, par leur moeurs, leur language,
leur costume, leur constitution physique, des tribus d’Arabes, qui, comme ceux ci,
occupent les deserts qui environnent l ’Egypte. Les Arabs sont blancs, se rasent la tête,
sont vêtus. Lès Abâbdeh sont noirs, mais leur traits ont beaucoup de ressemblance avec
ceux des Européens. Ils ont les cheveux naturellement bouclés, mais point laineux.”
Belzoni, who knew them well, says their complexions are naturally
of a dark chocolate ; their hair qnite black ; their teeth fine and white,
protuberant and very large.
It will be seen, from what precedes, that considerable is the discrepancy
among descriptions by travellers of these Ababdeh and Bisha-
reen, as well as of other races. This arises, doubtless, from two facts :
1, That they are a mixed population, descended from several primitive
races ; 2, That they have been described at different topographical
points.
The following observations of M. P r is s e— whose résidence among
these tribes in Upper Egypt counts years where others reckon months,
or, more frequently, weeks, is a guarantee for the accuracy of his
ethnological drawings — completely demonstrate the truth of our
deductions : —
“ The manners of the Bedjah described by Arab authors are even yet those of these
populations, who, under the name of Ababdeh, of Bishari, or Bichareen, and others less
known, inhabit the same countries at this day................In 1836, out of 500 men (Ababdeh)
of the tribe, assembled at Louqsor for the transportation of wheat to Cosséir, nearly 100
Arabs were found, who had married Ababdeh girls to avoid the conscription and the taxes.
The Ababdeh have a peculiar idiom, which seems to be that of the aborigines, or
the ancient Ethiopians.............. The Bishari commence at the north, where the Ababdeh
finish, and extend to the south as far as the vicinity of Souakim. They occupy all that
chain of mountains which runs along the eastern coast of Africa, and that seems to be the
cradle of all these wandering septs, living iu grottoes, and designated in consequence under
the name of Troglodytes. They derive their origin from the Blemmyes, a nomad people of
the environs of Axum, which the love of pillage drew towards Egypt [that is, in Koman
times ; when Coptic annals recount the ravages as low as Esneh of the Bal-n-Moui, “ Eye-
of-Lion,” or Blemmyes. 243] The manners of the Bishari differ little’from those of the
Ababdeh, with whom, nevertheless, they are ever at war..............Their language has drawn
nothing from the Arabic, and seems to approach the Abyssinian and the Berber [*. e. Ber-
berree. ] This people, truly indigenous to Africa, is cruel, avaricious, and vindictive ; these
dispositions are restrained by no law, human or divine.” 244
We copy (Fig. 120) one of Prisse’s engravings. It exhibits the
perfect Bishari, hut differs too slightly from the Ahabdeh characteristics
not to exemplify both trihes equally well.
Among Dr.
papers we find
of a letter, addressed from
the Isle of Phïlæ, Sept. 15,
1844, hy Chev. Lepsius, to
our erudite countryman,
the late J ohn P ickering,
of Boston. Being inedited,
and mentioned only hy one
writer215 that we know of,
we translate such passages
as bear upon Nubian subjects,
Morton’s Fio. 120.
not merely for their
intrinsic value, hut in tribute
to the memory of the
profoundest native philologist
that our country has
hitherto produced.
I l have no need, certainly, to insist, as regards yourself, upon the high importance
which linguistic researches always possess in ethnographical studies. I have not neglected,
either, to study, to the extent that time permitted, the different tongues of the Soudàn,
whenever I'could find individuals who were in a state to communicate anything about their
own language, through the medium of Arabic. The three principal tongues which I have
studied in this manner, and of which I now possess the grammar and vocabulary, sufficiently
complete to give an idea of their nature, are— the NoUnga, or Nouba, ordinarily
known under the strange name of Berber, which is spoken in three different dialects in the
valley of the Nile, from Assouàn to^the southern frontier of the province of Dongola, as also
in certain part3 of Kordifal (this is the true pronunciation in lieu of Kordofàn) : 2d, The
Kongàra, or language of Bar-Four, a very extended speech of Negroes, of which until now
even the name was unknown: 3d, The Bigawie, or the language of the BichaHba, who occupy
the country west of the Nile from 23» to 15°, and principally the fertile province of
Taka. The most interesting among these three tongues is, without doubt, the third. The
grammar causes it to be recognized without difficulty as appertaining to the great family of
Caucasian languages, as I think I was the first to demonstrate of the Egyptian tongue (in
1835, by comparison of the pronouns ; in 1836 by that of the names of number) ; and as
known concerning the Abyssinian tongue. This fact alone proves that the primitive origin
of all these people, of this eastern part of Africa, must have been in Asia. [We do not
perceive why such deduction necessarily follows. “ Caucasian” is a term that physiology
must abandon, as a misnomer productive of confusion ; but the above was penned in haste,
nine years ago, and the erudite writer may since have seen occasion, as we have ourselves, '
to modify first impressions] Finally, this tongue becomes to us of a far higher importance,
through the circumstance that I think I shall be able to prove that the same people,
sPeak this tongue> formerly inhabited the Isle of Meroë; built the temples and the
Pyramids, of which we still there find the ruins. . . . The people who ruled then, in this
great kingdom, called themselves Bêga (Bedja) ; a name which is now entirely lost as the
name of a people, but which originated the name of the tongue Bigawie., of which I have
po en above. . . . One facilely perceives at once, by many well-preserved paintings, that the
peop e who built the pyramids [o f Meroë] were a red people, or, rather, very reddish [bien
ouge ire], as might have been expected if they spoke veritably a Caucasian language. But