The inhabitants of Mahass pretend to be descendants of the Arabs Koreysh, the tribe to which the prophet Mohammed belonged, and who, as is well known, were partly Bedouins, and partly husbandmen. It is the tradition of Mahass, that a large party of Koreysh took possession of the Wady at the same period when numerous Bedouins from the East invaded Egypt and Nubia. The chief, or king of Mahass (ملك الدار) is of the family of Djama (جامع). He collects the revenue of his kingdom, and pays tribute to the governors of Nubia, who receive, annually, from each of the six principal places in his dominions, five or six camels, as many cows, two slaves, and about forty sheep, besides making extraordinary requisitions. I had the honour of seeing the king of Mahass, a mean looking black, attended by half a dozen naked slaves, armed with shields and lances. From hence, along the Nile to Sennaar, about thirty-five days journies, there are upwards of twenty kings and kingdoms, every independent chief being styled Melek. The power of each of these petty-sovereigns is very arbitrary, as far as relates to exactions upon the property of his own subjects, but he dares not put any of them to death, without entailing upon his own family the retaliation of blood by that of the deceased. All the respectable inhabitants of Mahass are merchants; they buy slaves in Dóngola, Berber, and in the country of the Sheygya, and dispatch a caravan to Cairo twice a year; Mahass is the nearest place, in the Black country, from whence slave traders arrive at Cairo; the distance is about a thousand miles. A male slave in Mahass is worth from twenty-five to thirty Spanish dollars, a female, from thirty to forty. At Cairo they sell at a profit of one hundred and fifty per cent.; and the merchandize taken in return produces from two to three hundred per cent., or even more under the present circumstances, as the Mamelouks are eager purchasers. Dollars are the currency in concerns of great amount; but in trifling bargains, the medium of exchange is the measure of Dhourra, before mentioned,[37] and the pike of linen cloth, of which shirts are made; thirty pike make a piece, which is worth one dollar; at Siout its value is two piastres, or two-sevenths of a dollar. The Nubians, from Derr to Dóngola, have no commercial intercourse with Darfour, or Bournou. An Arab told me, in Mahass, that Bournou was from twenty-five to thirty days journies distant from thence, but that there was scarcely any water on the road.