BERBER, or El-Mecπeref, a town of considerable size on the east bank of the Nile, some distance below the confluence of the Atbara, in about 18° N. lat. and 34° Ε. long. It is of importance as one of the main stations on the direct route from Khartoum to Cairo, and as the starting place of caravans for Suakin, on the eastern coast.

BERBERA, one of the most important seaports on the coast of the Somali country, in East Africa, 160 miles E.S.E. of Zeyla, and nearly opposite Aden, in 10° 26' N. lat. and about 45 ’ 4' E. long. It seems' at one time to have been a town of some size, as there are still remains of an aqueduct extending inland for several miles; but its permanent inhabitants have for a long period been very few. From November to April, however, it becomes the general resort of from ten to twenty thousand persons from all the neighbouring countries. The Habr-auel-Somali, in whose district the town is situated, come down to the place in the beginning of October, with poles and mats and skins, and of these slight materials erect huts and warehouses, which are rented from them by the merchants, who begin to arrive as soon as the south-west monsoon changes into the north-east wind. The chief disadvantage of the locality is that water has to be brought a distance of several miles from the wells of Baraka. (See J. R. G. Soc., 1849, p. 54, et seq.> Petermann’s Mittheil. 1860, p. 427, and 1873, p. 40; Bollet. d. Soc. Geogr. Ital., 1873.)