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The 'Ababdah' are nomads living in the area between the Nile and the Red Sea, in the vicinity of Aswan in Egypt. This name refers to several such African tribes.
Some of them penetrated into Upper Egypt, where they earned a subsistence by the transportation of merchandise on their camels. They traded chiefly in senna, and in charcoal made of the acacia wood. Burckhardt regarded them as Arabs; Carl Ritter conjectured that they are descended from the people known, under the Roman emperors, as Blemmyes (also Beja); but Rüppell was of the opinion that they are a branch of the Ethiopean ethnic group established at Meroë. In their manner and customs (as of 1851), they were similar to the Bedouins.
In 1768, the explorer James Bruce acted as physician to the tribe's sheik.
''This article incorporates text from the 1851 Encyclopedia Americana, a public domain work.''