T he royal family were originally Negroes, and remain»
fo Hill, when their, mothers have been black-like themfelvcs;
but when the k in g has happened to marry an Arab woman,.
as he often does, the black colour o f the father cedes to the
white o f the mother, and the child is white.i Such was the
eafe o f Baady, therefore named A chme r; his father Rebae
was black, but marrying an Arab, his fo n jvh o fucceeded
him was white. The laft Baady who was -Haiti at Teawa
was a perfeft Negro ; and by a Have from his own country
he had the late k in g Naffer, who, like his father, was a
perfect black. By an Arab-of the tribe o f Daveina he had
Ifmatn 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 Hill more extraordinary, though equally
true, an Arab w ho is white, marrying a black woman Have,,
has infallibly white children.’ 1 will not fay that this Is fo
univerfal as that an example o f thexontrary may not be
found, but all the inflances I happened to fee confirmed
this. The Arab's,.from choice, cohabit on ly with Negro«
women in the hot months o f fum'mer, on account o f th e -
remarkable coolnefs o f their ikins, in which they are faid
to differ from the Arab women p but X never faw one black
Arab in the kingdom o f Sennaar, notwithftanding the generality
o f this intercourfe..
T h e r e is a eonftant mortality among the children in;
and about this metropolis, infomuch that, in all appearance;-,
rhe people would be e x tin ff were they not fupplied by a
number o f Haves brought from all the different countries,
to the fouthward. The men,, however, are flrong and re*
markable for fize, but fhort-lived, owing, probably, to-
their in dulging themfelvcs in every fort of, excels from;
their;
tfieir very infancy. This being the cafe, this climate muff;
have undergone a flrange revolution, as Sennaar is hut
■fmall diftance from where the ancients, place the Macrobii,
a, nation fo called from die remarkable length o f their'
lives. But perhaps thefe were mountaineers from-the frontiers
o f Kuara, being defcribed as having g o ld in. their territory,
and are the race now- called Gubar I f is very remarkable,
that, though they are Mahometans, they are fo-
brutal, not to fay indelicate, w ith regard to their women,!
that they fell their Haves after ha vin g lived with, and even*
had children.by them. The k in g himfelf, it is laid, is often
guilty o f this unnatural praClice, u tterly unknown in any/
other Mahometan country.
ONCE.in his reign the K ing is obliged; with His own hand,/
to plow and fow a piece o ffen d. From this operation he ■
is called Baady, the countryman or peafant f it is a name
common to the whole race o f kings, as Cafar was among the
Romans, though they have generally another name peculiar
to .each perfon, and this not attended to-has occafioned«
confufion in the narrative- given by ftrangers writing con-
cerning-thcm. -
No horfe/ mule,afs,, o r any beaff o f burden,will breed, orr
even live at Sennaar, or many miles about it. - Poultry doe»*
not live there. Neither dog nor cat, fheep nor bullock, can
He preferved a feafon there; They muff go a il, every ha lf
year, to the. Lands. Though all poflible care be taken of
t h e m , they die in every place where the fat earth is about-;
the tpwn during the firft feafon o f the rains. Two greyhounds
which -I .brought from Atbara, and the mules which ;
I brought;