SOUDAN ROMANCE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 383, 7 May 1910, Page 10

SOUDAN ROMANCE

CITY OF THE FUTURE. Khartoum, said Major A. E. Stanton, • late governor of that city, in an address delivered at the Royal Colonial institute, London, recently, will some day be the largest city in Africa; it will be the centre of an enormous cotton trade, for tne Soudan will in 50 years provide all the cotton that Lancashire can take, while wheat, sugar, rice, gum arabic, rubber, hides, and oils will be among its exports. The population of the Soudan is increasing enormously, for the Soudanese are a prolific race, and already the hundreds of children to be seen in every village bora since the re-occupation, and called by their elders "children of the Government," testify to an administration of peace and prosperity. Major Stanton, in surveying the past history of the Soudan, said: "One of the first mentions in ancient history of the country •was in the Old Testament. In the Second Book of Kings, chapter 19, we read that Tirhakah, King of Ethiopia, offered to assist Hezekiah, King of Assyria. The Ethiopia of the ancients was the Soudan of to-day. with Abyssinia and Erythrea included, and stretched from Thebes in Egypt to the countries inhabited by savages south of the junction of the Blue and White Xiles, but how far south cannot be ascertained. The ancient kings of the Soudan often conquered Upper Egypt, and consequently we find sculptured figures and hieroglyphics after the manner of the old Egyptian ones on certain ancient monuments in the Soudan, but with meanings of their own-which so far have proved a sealed book. The ancient city of Meroe appears to have been the ancient capital. Here .the famous Meroe pyramids are to be seen, different in shape from any m Egypt, the base being about one-third of the height, which also is lower than any of the Egyptian ones, and only some 30ft to 40ft. Professor Petrie is credited with saying that Meroe was most prpbably the home of the great Queen of Sheba, and that her famous expedition to Solomon took place from here. Certain it is that there was a succession of great queens known as Candace, and the portraits of these are to be seen on the ancient monuments to this day, and formidable looking ladies they must have been, u their portrait* in stone are to be believed. They ar* pictured as being extremely stout, grasoing a crowd of prisoners by the hair in one hand, and holding a battle-axe in the other. A condition of civilisation existed many hundreds of years B.C. which did not exist in the country ten years ago. There is the great past and the very modern present marked in stone and other work, but of the handiworic of the countless generations, that have passed between there is nothing but a 'blank.

The Soudan was a Christian country before it became Mahommedan. Christianity appears to have been introduced through Abyssinia, it is said, by St. Athanasius, but how far this can be relied on is uncertain. The remains of Christian churches are to be seen to this day at Soba, ten miles south of Khartoum, on the Blue Nile, and in various places in the Dongola province. The invasion of Ethiopia by the Arabs from Arabia, about 700 A.D., brought the Moslem creed into the country, and all Christian churches and monuments were speedily raised to the ground. In IS2O the all-conquering Turkish and Egyptian armies iof the first Khedive Mohammed Ali invaded the Soudan. On arriving at the junction of the Blue and White Niles, the strip of land occupied only by a few fishermen's straw huts, and known as Khartoum, or the "Elephant's trunk," was recognised as affording a most excellent and suitable site for the headquarters of the invading army, owing to its strategical position. Accordingly Khartoum became the administrative capital of the newly conquered territories. From this point Major Stanton described the history of the Soudan to the British occupation. In passing, he referred to the battle of Omdurman, where the Mahdi's mower •was broken. There was, he said, a moment in the battle when victory hung in the balance, and this was when Macdonald's Soudanese brigade, with which he had the honor to serve all through the campaign in 1896, 1897, and 1898, was caught between two fires, when the Khalifa's main force attacked it in front and his son's army attacked it on the right rear flank. Timely assistance came, but not before their ammunition was reduced to two rounds a man. Had these been expended the brigade would have been overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers, and the loss of the brigade might have turned Omdurman into a defeat, as it would also have meant the loss of the stores, baggage and hospital, for there only remained a weak Egyptian brigade to protect them. The first year's revenue (1899) of the country after British occupation was £BOOO. It is now well over £1,000,000, and every prospect is pleasing, save in one point. Although Khartoum boasts of splendid buildings, educational establishments unequalled in North Africa, hotels, shops, electric light, steam trams, water works, broad avenues, etc., although every creed is represented by a church or mosque, although the fla,g of England floats proudly over the town, still in Khartoum there is as yet no completed Anglican Church. The oath- | edral being built to the memory of Gordon, the twenty-fifth anniversary of whose death has just been celebrated, is still only a few feet high, for want of sufficient funds to complete it. An appeal has been issued, says Major Stanton. "I hope it will not have been in vain." It is the Southern Soudan that the future of the country will depend on. Here, between the Blue and White Niles, exists a vast alluvial plain, over 9,000,000 acres in extent, all of which can and some day will be made to produce cotton, sugar-cane, wheat, barley, maize, rice, etc. This vast district, known as the Gezira,, is already the granary of the country for the supply of dhura. What is needed is population, which will soon be there, and an irrigation scheme.