Although these kings began with a very remarkable conquest, it does not appear they added much to their kingdom afterwards. Ounsa, son of Nasser, is said to have first subdued the province of Fazuclo. I shall but make three observations upon this list, which is undoubtedly authentic. The first is, that this monarchy having been established in the 1504, it must answer to the 9th year of the reign of Naod in the Abyssinian annals, as that prince began to reign in 1495.—The second is, that Tecla Haimanout, the son of Yasous the Great, writing to Baady el Achmer, or the White, who was the son of Ounsa, about the murder of M. du Roule the French Ambassador, in the beginning of this century, speaks of the ancient friendship that had subsisted between the kings of Abyssinia and those of Sennaar, ever since the reign of Kim, whom he mentions as one of Baady's remote predecessors on the throne of Sennaar. Now, in the whole list of kings we have just given, we do not find one of the name of Kim; nor is there one word mentioned of a king of Sennaar, or a treaty with him, in the whole annals of Abyssinia, till the beginning of Socinios's reign. I therefore imagine that the Kim[37], which Tecla Haimanout informs us his predecessors corresponded with in ancient times, was a prince, who, under the command of the Caliph of Cairowan, in the kingdom of Tunis in Africa, took Cairo and fortified it, by surrounding it with a strong wall, and who reigned, by himself and successors, 100 years, from 998 to 1101, when Hadec, the last prince of that race, was slain by Salidan, first Soldan of Egypt, with which country the Abyssinians at that time were in constant correspondence, though I never heard they were with Sennaar, which indeed did not exist at that time, nor was there either city or kingdom till the reign of Naod; so it was a correspondence with the sovereigns of Cairo, Tecla Haimanout mistook for that with Sennaar, which monarchy was not then founded.—The third observation is, that this Baady el Achmer, being the very king who murdered M. du Roule in 1704, did, nevertheless, live till the year 1726, having reigned 25 years; whereas M. de Maillet[38] writes to his court, that this prince had been defeated and slain in a battle he had with the Arabs, under their Shekh at Herbagi in 1705.
Upon the death of a king of Sennaar, his eldest son succeeds by right; and immediately afterwards as many of the brothers of the reigning prince as can be apprehended are put to death by the Sid el Coom, in the manner already described. Achmet, one of the sons of Baady, brother of Nasser, and Ismain now on the throne, fled, upon his brother's accession, to the frontiers of Kuara, and gathering together about a hundred of the Ganjar horse, he came to Gondar, and was kindly received by the Iteghé, who persuaded him to be baptised. Some time after he returned to Kuara, and joined the king's army a little before the battle of Serbraxos, with about the same number of horse, and there he misbehaved, taking flight upon the first appearance of the enemy, before a man was killed or wounded on either side. He was graceful in his person and carriage, but a liar and drunkard beyond all conception.
The practice which obtains at Sennaar of murdering all the collaterals of the royal family, seems to be but a part of the same idea[39] which prevails in Abyssinia, of confining the princes all their lives upon a mountain. The difference of treatment, in cases perfectly parallel, seems to offer a just manner of judging, how much the one people surpasses the other in barbarity of manners and disposition. In Abyssinia, the princes are confined for life on a mountain, and in Sennaar they are murdered in their father's sight, in the palace where they were born.
As in Abyssinia, so neither in Sennaar do women succeed to sovereignty. No historical reason is given for this exclusion. It probably was a rule brought from El-aice, their own country, before founding their monarchy, for the very contrary prevailed among the Shepherds, whom they subdued in Atbara. The princesses, however, in Abyssinia, are upon a much better footing than those of Sennaar. These last have no state nor settled income, and are regarded very little more than the daughters of private individuals. Among that crowd of women which I saw the two nights I was in the palace, there were many princesses, sisters of the king, as I was after told. At that time they were not distinguishable by their manners, nor was any particular mark of respect shewn them.
The royal family were originally Negroes, and remain so still, when their mothers have been black like themselves; but when the king has happened to marry an Arab woman, as he often does, the black colour of the father cedes to the white of the mother, and the child is white. Such was the case of Baady, therefore named Achmer; his father Rebat was black, but marrying an Arab, his son who succeeded him was white. The last Baady who was slain at Teawa was a perfect Negro; and by a slave from his own country he had the late king Nasser, who, like his father, was a perfect black. By an Arab of the tribe of Daveina he had Ismain the present king, who is white, and so it has invariably happened in the royal family, as well as in private ones. But what is still more extraordinary, though equally true, an Arab who is white, marrying a black woman slave, has infallibly white children. I will not say that this is so universal as that an example of the contrary may not be found, but all the instances I happened to see confirmed this. The Arabs, from choice, cohabit only with Negro women in the hot months of summer, on account of the remarkable coolness of their skins, in which they are said to differ from the Arab women; but I never saw one black Arab in the kingdom of Sennaar, notwithstanding the generality of this intercourse.
There is a constant mortality among the children in and about this metropolis, insomuch that, in all appearance, the people would be extinct were they not supplied by a number of slaves brought from all the different countries to the southward. The men, however, are strong and remarkable for size, but short-lived, owing, probably, to their indulging themselves in every sort of excess from their very infancy. This being the case, this climate must have undergone a strange revolution, as Sennaar is but a small distance from where the ancients place the Macrobii, a nation so called from the remarkable length of their lives. But perhaps these were mountaineers from the frontiers of Kuara, being described as having gold in their territory, and are the race now called Guba. It is very remarkable, that, though they are Mahometans, they are so brutal, not to say indelicate, with regard to their women, that they sell their slaves after having lived with, and even had children by them. The king himself, it is said, is often guilty of this unnatural practice, utterly unknown in any other Mahometan country.
Once in his reign the king is obliged, with his own hand, to plow and sow a piece of land. From this operation he is called Baady, the countryman or peasant; it is a name common to the whole race of kings, as Cæsar was among the Romans, though they have generally another name peculiar to each person, and this not attended to has occasioned confusion in the narrative given by strangers writing concerning them.
No horse, mule, ass, or any beast of burden, will breed, or even live at Sennaar, or many miles about it. Poultry does not live there. Neither dog nor cat, sheep nor bullock, can be preserved a season there. They must go all, every half year, to the sands. Though all possible care be taken of them, they die in every place where the fat earth is about the town during the first season of the rains. Two greyhounds which I brought from Atbara, and the mules which I brought from Abyssinia, lived only a few weeks after I arrived. They seemed to have some inward complaint, for nothing appeared outwardly. The dogs had abundance of water, but I killed one of them from apprehension of madness. Several kings have tried to keep lions, but no care could prolong their lives beyond the first rains. Shekh Adelan had two, which were in great health, being kept with his horses at grass in the sands but three miles from Sennaar: neither rose, nor any species of jessamin, grow here; no tree but the lemon flowers near the city, that ever I saw; the rose has been often tried, but in vain.