Dongola

DONGOLA, a mudiria (province) of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. It lies wholly within the region known as Nubia and ex tends along both banks of the Nile from about 18° N. to 2o° N. The rainfall is very slight, and the area of fertility is mainly con fined to the lands watered by the Nile, and to the Wadi el Kab (Gab), west of and parallel to the Nile. Farther west is the ex tensive plateau of Jebel Abiad, and beyond, some 25o m. due west of Debba, is Bir Natron, or Bir Sultan, a valley whence na tron is obtained. In this desert region is found the addax, the rarest of Sudan antelopes. The province is noted for a breed of strong, hardy horses. The largest town is Dongola, but the ad ministrative headquarters of the mudiria are at New Merawi (Merowe, Meroe), on the left bank of the Nile, below the 4th cataract. Other towns, also on the Nile, are Debba and Korti, whence start caravan routes to Kordofan and Omdurman. Old Merawi, on the right bank of the Nile, and Sanam Abu Dom, on the left bank, indicate the site of the Ethiopian city of Napata. From Kareima, on the right or northern bank of the Nile, 6 m. above New Merawi, a railway (opened in March 1906) runs to join the main Sudan Government line at Abu Hamed. From Kareima downstream the Nile is navigable to Kerma, just above the 3rd cataract.

The Dongolese (Dongolawi, Danaglas, Danagalehs) are Nubas in type and language, but have a large admixture of Arab, Turk and other blood. They are great agriculturists and keen traders, and were notorious slave-dealers. South of Old Dongola the inhabitants are not Nubians but Shagia (q.v.), and the Nubian tongue is replaced by Arabic. Of the nomad desert tribes the chief are the Hawawir and Kabbabish.

History.

Dongola was once part of the empire of Ethiopia (q.v.), Napata being one of its capital cities. From about the beginning of the Christian era the chief tribes were the Blem myes and the Nobatae. The latter became converted to Christi anity about the middle of the 6th century. A chieftain of the Nobatae, named Silko, before the close of that century, con quered the Blemmyes, founded a new state, made Christianity the official religion of the country, and fixed his capital at (Old) Dongola. This state, generally known as the Christian kingdom of Dongola, lasted for eight or nine hundred years. Christianity, after the wars of Silko, spread rapidly, and when the Arab con querors of Egypt sought to subdue Nubia they met with stout resistance. Dongola, however, was captured by the Muslims in 652, and the country laid under tribute (bakt)-400 men having to be sent yearly to Egypt. This tribute was paid when it could be enforced; sometimes the Nubians gained the upper hand, as in 737 when their king Cyriacus, marched into Egypt to redress the grievances of the Copts. By the close of the loth century the Nubians seem to have regained almost complete independence. They did not, however, possess any part of the Red Sea coast, which was held by the Egyptians, who, during the gth and loth centuries, worked the emerald and gold mines between the Nile and the Red sea. The kingdom, according to the Armenian historian Abu Salih, was in a very flourishing condition in the 12th century. It then extended from Aswan southward to the 4th cataract, and contained several large cities. Gold and copper mines were worked. The liturgy used was in Greek. In 1173 Shams ed Daula, a brother of Saladin, attacked the Nubians and captured the city of Ibrim (Primis). The Egyptians retired, and for about 1 oo years the country was at peace. In 1275 the Mame luke sultan Bibars aided a rebel prince to oust his uncle from the throne of Nubia; the sultans Kalaun and Nasir also sent ex peditions to Dongola, which was several times captured. Though willing to pay tribute to the Muslims, the Nubians clung tena ciously to Christianity, and, despite Arab raids, the country ap pears during the 12th and 13th centuries to have been fairly pros perous. It is not certain how far south the authority of the Dongola kingdom (sometimes known as Mukarra) extended. Another Christian state, Aloa (Alwa), with its capital Soba on the Blue Nile, was its near neighbour on the south.

Cut off from free intercourse with the Copts in Egypt, the Nubian Christians at length began to embrace Jewish and Mo hammedan doctrines. The decay of the State was hastened by dissensions between Mukarra and Aloa, but the Nubians were strong enough to invade upper Egypt during the reign of Nawaya Krestos (1342-72), because the governor of Cairo had imprisoned the patriarch of Alexandria. The date usually assigned for the overthrow of the Christian kingdom is 1351. Only the northern part of the country (as far as the 3rd cataract) came under the rule of Egypt. Nevertheless, according to Leo Africanus, at the close of the 15th century Christianity and native states still sur vived in Nubia, and in the 16th century the Nubians sent mes sengers to Abyssinia to Father Alvarez, begging him to appoint priests to administer the sacraments to them—a request he was unable to grant. Thereafter the Nubian Church is without rec ords. The region between Dongola and Shendi appears to have been depopulated. In the north the Turks introduced in the i6th century numbers of Bosnians, whose descendants ruled the district, paying a nominal allegiance to the Porte. At Ibrim, Mahass, and elsewhere along the banks and on the islands of the Nile, they built castles, now in ruins. South of Hannek the kings of Sennar became overlords of the country. As the power of the Sennari declined, the nomad Shaggia (or Shaikiyeh) at tained pre-eminence in the Dongola district.

About Mamelukes fleeing from Mohammed Ali, the pasha of Egypt, made themselves masters of part of the country, de stroying the old capital and building a new one lower down the Nile. In 182o both Mamelukes and Shaggia were conquered by the Egyptians, and the Dongola province annexed to Egypt.

After the failure of the British relief expedition of 1884-85 and the Mandist capture of Khartum it was decided to with draw to the region of the 2nd cataract, and the Dongola Province was evacuated. The British rearguard left Dongola town in June 1885 and the Mandists occupied it at the end of August. They held the province for 11 years, during which its northern villages were depopulated and their riverside lands laid waste. It was re occupied by Kitchener's forces in 1896, Dongola being recaptured on Sept. 23. As a province of the reorganized Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, the country has been prosperous, and there is an increas ing annual production of cotton.

Travels in Nubia (1819) ; W. S. Churchill, The River War 0890 ; Naum Bey Shucair, History and Geography of the Sudan (Arabic, 1903) ; E. A. Wallis Budge, The Egyptian Sudan (1907) , and Nile & Tigris (192o) ; C. M. Frith, Archaeological Survey of Nubia (1915) ; P. F. Martin, The Sudan in Evolution (rg21) ; A. R. Dugmore, The Vast Sudan (1924) ; also the annual Government Reports and the official Sudan Handbook.