Stretching from the main group in a westerly direction for a distance of 30 or 40 miles is a huge dyke of white quartz with a sandstone plateau raised some 300 feet above the plain which is itself about 3,200 feet above sea level.
The inhabitants report a large lake of brackish water, from which salt can be obtained, on the north-eastern part of the mountain; while, at a day’s journey to the west, salt is also found at Karunga, and the Wadi Burka is strongly impregnated with soda.
In all the depressions sand rich in iron is met with.
In a southerly direction from Jebel Marra, there stretches a broad alluvial plain which is dotted all over with peaks of granite, giving the impression of a range of mountains, buried all but its highest points.
Inhabitants.The original tribes of the country are the Fors and the Dago; the latter ruled for centuries over the entire district from their inaccessible strongholds in Jebel Marra. Tradition relates[125] that about the 14th century the Tungur Arabs, emigrating south from Tunis, scattered throughout Bornu and Wadai, and eventually readied Darfur, the first arrivals being two brothers, Ali and Ahmed, who settled with their flocks on the western slopes of Jebel Marra. Of these brothers, Ahmed, nicknamed El Makur, was destined to become the founder of a new dynasty in Darfur. He became very popular with the then king Kor who not only gave him his favourite daughter as wife, but nominated him as his successor to the throne. Accordingly on Kor’s death Ahmed succeeded to the throne of Darfur, and on the news spreading to the Tungur of Wadai and Bornu, they flocked into the country in such numbers as to partially displace the Teigo. The only small settlements now left of the former rulers are near Dara, where there is a Dago sheikh, and also at Dar Sula, a long way to the west, where there is a semi-independent ruler called “Sultan Bekhit El Dagawi.”
A regular male succession was now established and a great grandson of Ahmed’s was the celebrated Sultan Dali, who wrote the Kitab-Dali or Penal Code. Another noted Sultan was Suleiman who took the name of Solon, who being the son of an Arab mother and himself married to an Arab woman, introduced Arab blood into the Royal Family. It was through him, some 400 years ago, that the country became Moslemised, and his descendants now proudly boast of their Arab descent and quite ignore the black element which is undoubtedly there, and which may account for the bitter enmity which exists between the ruling Darfur family and the Nomad Arabs of the country. At the end of the 18th century Sultan Abdel Rahman married a Beigo girl and her son, Mohammed El Fadl, became Sultan about the beginning of the next century. The Beigo tribe, originally slaves, were from that time declared free.
DARFUR GIRL.
To turn to more recent times, Darfur has during the last 20 years been so devastated and depopulated that many formerly important tribes such as the Maharia, Nawaiba, Mahamid, Ereigat, Beni, Hussein, etc., have become so disintegrated and scattered that they now practically cease to exist as tribes and are seldom heard of.
The population of Darfur, prior to the Mahdi’s revolt, was estimated at 1,500,000. It is now probably less than half that number.