A tribe living on the banks of the Nile between Wadi Halfa and Assuan are called Barabra.
But the contents of early tombs and dwellings and indications supplied by such objects as stone vases and seal-stones show that the Cretans had already attained to a considerable degree of culture, and had opened out communication with the Nile valley in the time of the earliest Egyptian dynasties.
Cavendish (1896-1897) followed somewhat in Donaldson Smith's steps, and the last named traveller again crossed Somaliland in his journey from Berbera via Lake Rudolf to the Upper Nile (1899-Igoo).
The area devoted to cotton in Egypt is about 1,800,000 acres, and nine-tenths of it is in the Nile Delta.
Schweinfurth declares them the best-looking of the Nile nomads, and the men are types of physical beauty, with fine heads, erect athletic bodies and sinewy limbs.