A little above Kom Omboo and on the same side of the river is Dera’weh [Daraw], the principal abode of the Ababdeh Arabs who have settled near the river. It is also the place whence caravans of Shendeh and Sennar [both in Sudan] generally start, striking off from this point into the desert: and hither the Ababdeh frequently bring for sale camels, sheep, senna, and charcoal.
-Description of Egypt, Edward Lane, written in 1829, first published in 2020
Daraw is across the river from Binban where the daboukas when I rode with them first entered Egypt’s Nile Valley. Until arriving in Daraw, for forty days we had been on the outside, looking in. The town had a livestock quarantine station where the camels stayed overnight before being shipped by rail to Cairo’s butchers. All that has changed since the asphalt road was built to Argueen on the Sudanese border, from where they are trucked straight north. Now Daraw is quiet, the trade in senna having long passed too.