Natural products.Honey and gum are practically the only products of this country. A good deal of game still exists, but it has suffered both from the depredations of cattle plague, as well as from professional game dealers with their parties of armed natives who have hunted this district for years: these are now rigidly excluded by the Sudan Government. The inhabitants of Nogara are also mostly armed with modern breechloading rifles.
Abyssinian outlaws.Two Abyssinian outlaws have haunted this region both during and since the Mahdia. One, whose name is Hakos,[58] reputed to have some 150 rifles, has lately (1902) been actively raiding villages along our frontier. Kidana Miriam, the other brigand chief, has remained comparatively inactive, and is now (March, 1903), reported to be on the Upper Bahr El Salam or Angareb with 50 to 200 rifles.
(f) The Atbara[59] and Tributaries.
The Atbara.—The Atbara rises near Chelga in Abyssinia, where it is known as the R. Goang. Coal is found in the valley of the Goang near its source. Both the Atbara and Setit in their course through the Sudan flow for the most part through a flat alluvial plain, and have cut for themselves a deep channel, which is, in the upper reaches of the Atbara at any rate, over 150 feet below the level of the plain. The banks, too, have been washed away by the drainage from either side and are cut up into numerous ravines and khors for several miles on either side of the actual bed.
Thus it is that the banks of the Atbara from Gallabat, to a point 15 miles north of Goz Regeb, are so intersected with ravines and watercourses, that it is seldom possible to march within 2 or 3 miles of the river, which is only approached at intervals. At Gallabat the width of the bed, which is generally shingle, and in which during the dry season the water stands in pools as it does throughout its course from here to the Nile, varies from a minimum of twenty yards at a spot where the river passes through perpendicular cliffs of rock to an average width of 100 to 150 yards.
At Asubri the width between the banks, which are some 15 to 30 feet high, is about 350 yards.
At Gallabat (1899) the spate commenced to come down on 17th May, and the river was still just fordable at Fasher in the same year on the 15th June; after about that date it does not again become fordable until the beginning or middle of November. The flood water reaches the Nile about the end of June.
There are usually ferries at Sofi, Fasher, Suweihil (near Asubri), and Goz Regeb during the flood season.
South of Sofi a road leads up the left bank to Gallabat.
North of Sofi, which is on the left bank near the junction of the Setit, roads run parallel with the river on both banks, that most generally used being from Sofi to Asubri by the left bank, thence to the Nile by the right bank. The country from the Setit to Fasher (right bank) belonged formerly to the Hamrans; it is now practically uninhabited except by Nomads during the dry season. Fasher to Mitateb (right bank) belongs to the Hadendoas, who go there in large numbers for grazing during the dry season. Their country practically extends from the Atbara to Suakin. From Mitateb (right bank) and Goz Regeb (left bank) to the Nile the country belongs to the Bisharin. From a point about 50 miles south of Adarama northwards to the Nile the banks are fringed with dom palms. Few people live along the river during the rains, and though the alluvial soil brought down by this river is one of the chief fertilizing agents of Egypt, there is at no season any system of irrigation in use along it. Here and there where nature causes the river to overflow its banks a certain amount of cultivation may be met.