Nubia Located in North-eastern Africa, extending from Sennar south to beyond Khartoum and including the Egyptian Sudan. The southern section includes Sennar with Dschesireh-el Dschesire (Island of Islands), the ancient Meroe; the western, Bahr el Abiad, Kordofan, and Darfur; the eastern, Tarka; the central, Dongola; and the northern, Nubia proper. The various tribes belong to the Ethiopian or Berber family, intermixed with Arabians; in the south negroes preponderate. Nubia embraces 335,597 square miles and contains 1,000,000 inhabitants; Dongola, Berber, Khartoum, Fashoda, Sennar, Fassuglo, 75,042 square miles with 2,500,000 inhabitants; Taka, 7766 square miles with 1,000,000 inhabitants; Kordofan, 35,069 square miles with 300,000 inhabitants; Darfur, 106,070 square miles with 4,000,000 inhabitants; Shegga, 85,017 square miles with 1,400,000 inhabitants. The chief cities are: Khartoum, at the junction of the White and Blue Niles, founded in 1823 and the starting-point of all scientific and missionary expeditions, destroyed in 1885 by the Mahdi, rebuilt in 1898; Omdurman, on the Abiad, founded by the Mahdi; Sennar, capital of Southern Nubia; Kassala, capital of Taka. On the Nile are Berber, Abu-Hammed, Old Dongola, and New Dongola, capital of central Nubia; in Nubia proper, Derr, Wadi Halfa, and Assuan; in Kordofan, El-Obeid; in Darfur, El Fasho. Formerly the port of Nubia was Suakin on the Red Sea; from 1906 it has been Port Sudan. Nubia is administered by the Viceroy of Egypt. HISTORY Nubia is said to be derived from the Egyptian Nub (gold), as the Egyptians obtained most of their gold there. In the Bible it is called Cush. Egypt sought repeatedly to extend its southern boundaries, and during the eighteenth dynasty reached Wadi Halfa. A temple was built at Napata (near the Fourth Cataract) by Amenophis III, and Rameses II waged successful war with the Ethiopians. After this there arose in Napata near the sacred mountain Gebel Barkal an independent theocratic state; the remains of many of its temples are still to be seen. During the twenty-third dynasty the Nubians shook off the Egyptian yoke, and even conquered Egypt (750 B. C.); three Nubian kings ruled the united territory (732-668). Psametich I (664-10) drove out the Nubians, and Meroe replaced Napata, which maintained its sovereignty over Nubia until destroyed by the native king Ergamenes during the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-47) . During Roman rule, the Nubians attempted to gain the Thebaid, but Petronius in 25 B. C. conquered Napata and forced Queen Candace to make a treaty of peace. In the third century after Christ marauding incursions of Nubian tribes called the Biemmyer forced Diocletian to summon the Nobatæ from El Charge in the Nile valley as confederates of the empire. Nevertheless Prima, Phœnicon, Chiris, Taphis, and Talmis yielded. In. the fourth and fifth centuries the Thebaid was so often devastated that Emperor Marcian was forced to conclude an unfavourable peace in 451. Christianity, brought probably by the hermits and monks of the Thebaid, began to spread through the country. The various accounts of this event are confusing; Pliny and Mela give the name of Ethiopia to all the countries in this region, including Abyssinia, while ecclesiastical writers speak of an Ethiopian Church, but give no account of the conversion of individual lands. Christianity was not yet well established, when about the middle of the sixth century under the protection of the empress Theodora, the Alexandrian priest Julian introduced Monophysitism. Its adherents called themselves Copts. The Nobatæan kings Silko and Eirpanomos accepted Christianity in this form, and the Monophysite patriarch Theodosius, Bishop Theodore of Philæ, and Longinus, Julian's successor, put the new doctrine on a firm basis. In 580 Longinus baptized the King of the Alodæ. The final victory of the Monophysites was secured by their union with the Arabs, soon to be masters of Egypt. In 640 Amr Ben el-Asi'S, the commander-in-chief of the Arabs, conquered Egypt and ended Byzantine supremacy. The Melchite (Catholic) patriarch, George of Alexandria, fled to Constantinople and his see remained vacant for over a hundred years. The Copts secured peace only by becoming confederates of the enemy, and in return received nearly all the Catholic churches; their patriarch alone exercised jurisdiction over the entire territory. According to the Arabian Makrizi, as related by Ibn Selim, when the Nubians requested bishops they received from Alexandria Monophysites, and in this way became and remained Jacobites or Copts. In the following centuries numerous churches and monasteries were built even in Upper Nubia and Sennar, the ruins of which yet remain. Other documents show that Nubia was divided into three provinces with seventeen bishops: Maracu with the suffragan Dioceses of Korta, Ibrim, Bucoras, Dunkala, Sai, Termus, and Suenkur; Albadia with Borra, Gagara, Martin, Arodias, Banazi, and Menkesa; Niexamitis with Soper, Coucharim, Takchi, and Amankul. Yet Christianity was in continual danger from the Mohammedans. Nubia succeeded in freeing itself from the control of Egypt . In 1275 the Mameluke sultan Djahn Beibars sent an army from Egypt into Nubia.