2 - Shendi's economy on the eve of the Turkiyya

Summary

Contemporary descriptions of Shendi prior to the Turkiyya survive only for the years 1772, 1814, and 1821–2, but together they offer a vivid picture of the town and the market. Earlier travellers except perhaps David Reubeni in 1523, seem to have crossed the Nile further south, usually at QarrI where there was a quarantine station on the west bank.2 De Maillet's reports from 1692 onwards, as well as the accounts left by Poncet, Krump, Brevedent and other missionaries, doctors or ambassadors travelling around 1700 all show that the caravans left the Nile in the Manfalut/Aysut region in Egypt. After passing along the valley of al-Wah (Ar. ‘the oasis’), they reached the oasis of Sallma, where the Dar Fur caravan turned south-west and the Sinnar caravan turned south-east and reached the Nile at Mushu. The caravans then passed by (Old) Dongola on the east bank. At al-Dabba, Ambuqol or Kurti they left the Nile again and crossed the Bayucja to Dirayra opposite Wad Ban al-Naqa. Following the Nile on the west bank, they then crossed at QarrI near the Sixth Cataract.

Qarrī was the seat of the 'Abdallāb mānjil or governor of the northern Funj province. Caravans from Egypt had to pay customs there, usually in luxury items and in cash. Those who were not jallāba (sing, jallāb or jallābl), itinerant or caravan traders, of the king of Sinnar, were thoroughly searched.

About seventy years later, Bruce noted that there had been a second crossing point at Dirayra in Dār al-Ja'aliyīn, but the insecurity of the area had made it unattractive.