THF SOUDAN.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1971, 24 February 1885, Page 4

THF SOUDAN.

The following at tide, dttciiptivc of the >oudan and its p'-ople, fifin tlie pen of Su !>a.inuel liiUei, which i pi eared in the L'liulon Times on I>jceinUr 7tli, ISS.'I, will lie of inteiist at the. present t.nie, when England Ims under Liken to pa<il\ fits rxtei.sive teuitoiy bir Sumul Baker occupied the post of Gov«inoi Gliici il of tlie Soudan undei Ismail P.iaha : - 1 In 1773 the groat cxploicr James Bruce, of Kimiaiid, uas painfully vvoil* ing Ii s w.iy homewaids from Ins Hist di.s co\ery of the Blito- Nilo soutco--', through St*iKiiir and the deserts of the Soudan. At t Mb time tin- desert tubes were wide penduit Aiahs, geneinlly host'le to each othei. Senaar was ,i kingdom, and Biuee empl atio.illy describes the inhabitants i.i one shoit sentence :— " War and treason seem to be the only employment of this lion id people, whom Heaven Ihu separated by almost impissablc deserta fiom the rest of mankind " I ha\e travel sed much of Bruces ground, and was struck by his extraotdinary powcis of observation, and the extreme accuracy of his desciiptions, which mulcted a pocket edition of his u'oik invaluable during my exploiation of the Nile ttibutaties in 18(51. A journey to the Blue Nile, which in t'te days of Bmce was end mgered by the anarchy existing among the Aiab tubes, was icndetul safe by the d<termined policy of Mehemet Ali Pa«ha, that great viler of Eg) pt, giaudtather of Hia Highness tsm nl Pasha, the ex Khedive, who coiKjiiend the Soudan, and established a po\\i 1 ful Gov eminent. Maiiy years wet e expended in the irtadual accomplishment ot his deti^n Tlie vast deserts which commence at Cairo, for n an unbiokcn line u Inch extends to tlie river At bam upon th« 17dog. north latitude, the fust nlllti'-nt that adds its waters to the hide-pendant stieain which flows thiough 12 h'Midwri miles of sands, unnounsiied by a tnbutiry until it meets the s>ea — the Nile. The horrors of that aica of burning sands should have been sufiic ent to deter an imader from wiest ling with a skeleton, whoso diy bones would be a batten trophy of success : but Mi'hcnict Ah had iecei\ed trustworthy infoim.'ttion of lands teen.ing with fertility, w hero cotton was indigenous, and corn -vas pioduced with little labour in quantities tli.it were incredible to the cuttivatois of nch lands in Egypt. The N.le souices wlic concealed within the dark int»i lor of I lie Soudan, and the ruler of Egypt, attiactcd by an in stinctivc impulse to penetrate into that mysteiioua legion tnnn whence the fertdiMiig liver (lowed, determined to exteud Ins tenuory to embrace those lands* beyond the desert that were wateied by the rainy zot.e. A Fiench traveller from the Soudan arrived in ClllO, and first introduced the seeds of cotton to the notice of Mehemet Ali, which he had discovered in the fettile countiy south of tlie Nub an desert, wheie the plant, although cultivated, was indigenous. Tins veiitiul the assertion of the histotian Pliny eoncv riling "the wool-beaiing trees of Ethiopa " MUumct Ah, a tar-seeing rulei , himself "•upei intended the sowing of this piecious be d. The grains were actually count* d, and distriliHtcd among ceitaui i trtistwoi thy persons who werj held reapoiiiilile foi theii success. '1 his was the coinir.eiicment of cotton cultivation in Egypt, which has become the stiple product of the country and the great so'irce of revenue. The invasion and ultinute annexation of the Soudan piovinccs was effected by a combination of military force and dip lomacy. In many engagements the Egyptian ti oops woro worsted, but the spirit of the invaders was never broken, as the material consisted of a sterner stuff than the Egyptian " fellaheen ;"' the tegimeuts being mainly composed of Tuiks and Albanians, olHcered by Turks and Circassians. The mutual livalry and animosity of Arab tribes were skilfully employed by the agents of Mehemet Ali ; they sowed dissension, which prevented a coalition agaiiibt tlr* invading force, and gained allies among the desert population, who furnished the necessary transport camels and supplies. Ismail Pasha, who commanded the expedition, had entered Shcndy, the capital of that province upon the Nile, not quite halfway between Berber and Khartoum ; this country wis under the rule of Mek Nimmur, who determined to encounter the enemy by treachery, instead of forcible resistance. Supplies were poured into the camp of the unMispcetiny Ismail, and vast quantities of dhurra straw were piled around the station as fodder for the cavalry and camels. Dining the night a preconcerted attack was made upon the camp, and the stons of inflammable material were ignited on all sid^s. Isinal Pasha and a portion of the troops perished in the conflagration, while the remainder were overpowered and destroyed. A fiesh expedition was immediately organised at Oaiio. There were no panics in the reign of Mehemet Ali. The Soudan was conquered, and a position was selected upon the point of junction between the White and Blue Niles which would nfFoid a strategical base of operations, pioteuted opuii three sides by these broad and deep rivers. The cimp of temporal y huts in the secure angle, which at that time was covered with forest, has now become Khartoum. The situation is low and unhealthy, as it is selected only with a view to defensive possibilities. On the north side of the Blue Nile, exactly opposite, the ground is more elevated, and accordingly moie favorable for a station. In 1801, under the rule of His Highness Said Pasha, the southern limit of Egyptian territory in the Soudan was about GO miles from Khartoum, in N, latitude I4deg 30min on the White Nile. The Soudan comprised the entire deserts from Assouan upon both sides of the river, including Dongola and Koidofan upon the west, with Berber and Shendy upon the east bank, until Khaitonni was 1 cached at the confluence of the two Niles in N. lat. lodeg :j4min. Senaar, upon the west bank of the Blue Nile, icpresented the peninsula between these two important rivers ; and Fuzokie", in lat. lldeg 20min, upon the Blue Nile, was considered to be the limit of Egyptian jurisdiction in that direction. The rivers Rahad and Dinder flow through a most fertile district east of the Blue Nile. Between these livers and the Atbara, which enters the Nile in N. lat. lOf leg 4Smin, a day's march south of Berber, a magnificent extent of fertile land represents the ancient Mcroe. This is inhabited by nomadic Arabs, who generally evade diiect taxation. The Red i-ea coasts, including Suakim and Massowah, wer? not Egyptian territory until 18(34, when they were transfen ed by Turkey, and by this addition the Soudan was completed within a ring fence, boidcicd throughout the eastern frontier by the Red Sea. When His Highness Said Pasha visited England in 18S2 Sir Roderick Murchison, then Piesident of the Royal Geographical Soeietj', requested some information respecting the actual frontieis of Egyptian teuitoiy. The leply of Said Pa-hi, " iY«s fiaiitiiitt en Ft/i/pte iqiil ?><\ (hislirjius," was thoioughly exemplified by the encroachments on Abyssinia Bogiios \v as absoi bed ;Gallabat, which dining my visit in ISCI was Ahys'iuian, and governed by a Tokroori oilicer in the ray of 'J heodoro, has become Egyptian, The

magnificent countiy at the base of a high large of mountains, ii-cluding that ino^t ft i tile diitiiut boitlticd by t lie Atbaia to il o junction of the Titca//\ 01 Scttite inei, -it Toniat, is rinhtlv Ah^sunan, 1 lit is now s ats«ly populated thiough a sense of insectii it) . Tin 1 liver Maul), or G ish, t'lbouchcs into a pi 1111 below the gi mite mountnin of Cicala, .1 fortitit'fl tt)\vn upon the m-ugiu ot tlic liver, which is the capitil of the T.ika distiiut. This was a poition of Abjbsinm before the conquest of the Soudan The Soudan in 18G5 was roushly outlined by Abyssinia s-outh of Boghos, with most iriogular frontier lines fiom Cissala to the Rahad, Dmdcr and Blue Nile to Fa/okle. A constant bonier warfare was cmricil on by the Aiab tubes, upon whom repnsals weie nndr by the Ahys ainians. The towns or markets weie few and at distant interval?, Cassala and Kadanf lepicsenting the only stations of mipoi lance between the Blue Nih and the Red Sea, excepting the ports of Siukim . nd M issow .tli In ISO 9 the Khedive, Hi-> Highness Ismail Pasha, extended his rule to within one degiec of the Equator, to include the b.ibin of the Nile Between ISO-2 and IS6O the Kgyptian Government had gradnally cicpt 101 ward up the stieam, anil had estahl shed the post of £\i->hodi upon the White Nile, N. Int. Odeg. 't'2m. In IS7-A Daitui was annexed to pi event the slave huntcis from joining the Sultan of that eoiuitiy, which would have formed a dangerous combination on the Soudin frontier This annexation per fected the Soudan territory, and included the entile basin of the Nile from the Equator to the Mediterranean. It will now be interesting to divide the useless deserts fiom the fertile districts, and to letiard the geneial capabilities of this extensive area. The rainy zone is not limited by an exact parallel of latitude, as it extends further 1101 th in propoition to the continuation of the lofty mountain range which walls in Abyssinia win 11 approach ing the Red Sea. The fertility of the eountiy depends entirely upon the rain fall. This commences 111 May, and con tinues until the middle of September. None of the rivers overflow their buiks. as ihe beds are far below the geneial level of theC'iintiy. These lvive been opi o'p0 'p do t of the die,> a'luv nl 1 Mm in the couise of ages, and the rich soil thus dissolved lias bien earned by the stieam to deposit its fei tilling principle in the Delta of Lowei K^'.vpt. The margin of the fertile soil Lommen cts near Go/rajup upon the Atbnra river, and continues thence to t'ns-ala. 'Ihiough out the course of the Atbara and Settite (or Taea/zy) rivers the soil is excellent, and the level surface of the rich lo.vn which forms the great flat of Meroe, is cut by the Atbaia to a depth of more than l.'i Oft., the uniform surface of the plains being .scoured to the extent of twomihsin maximum width, which forms' a valley through which the river flows until it teaches the deseit sands to the noith of Go7L'tajuh. For the last 100 miles up to that point the valley of the Atbara is giadually deminushed, until itfoims a simple streak of water slightly below the suiiounding level of yillovv sand ; thtough this sterile area it hai 1 ius in a i.ipid stream, marked in its desert course by the green line of dome palms and mimosas, which fringe the banks, nomished by the only moisture in that land of thirst. The Atbara river joints the Nile about I*2oo miles fiom the Mediterianean, ami there can be no doubt that the Delta of Egypt lias mainly resulted from the vast quantity of mud which is brought down by the periodicil flood during tlm l.uny season of Abyssinia, and deposited 111 the lovt er level The nveis Angrah and Salaam which flow into the Atbara river, south of the Settite, although much inferior, exhibit the same character, having scooped out valleys fiom the lich soil of the level plains ; the cubic contents of all these deep depressions have bten transfeired by the nind-chaiged wateis to the Delta of Lower Ejypf. As Egypt has deiivcd its feitilitv fiom the soil thus delhei id from the higher levels of \by>smia and the Soudan, it can be well imagined that a va-it field of agiicultmal wealth must remain unknown within those distant legions through which the livers flow. The Blue Nile is nlso surchaiged with mm], but not to the same t xtent .is the Atbaia river, which is the actual patent of Lower Egypt. The entire drainage of the Nile basin is fiom south east to north-west. There aie no niHucnts fiom thewesi throughout the whole coui.se of that might nver, with the exception of the Bihr Ga/.elle, which is insigtiificent, about 9 deg 20min N. latitude. It will be easily comprehended that the eastern provinces watered by numerous rivers must be superior to those upon the west bank of the Nile, which sufler from drought, and areaccordingly of little agricultural value The development of the Soudan should be rigidly confined to those countries which aic situated east of the iniin ir.ei, and the wealth of that region will be exhibited upon the banks ot the Blue Nile, Scnaar, and tluoughotit the atn.ient Meioe, the peninsula included between the liver and r.he junction of the Athara with the Nile in N. latitude 17deg 40m. The population of the Soudan is divided into numerous tiibes. Those which inhabit the bordcis of the Blue Nile and the main liver are cultivators of the soil, and dwell in peimnnent villages. The Arabs of the deserts are pastoral and nomadic, for the simple reason that a change of site is necessary when seeking pasture for their Hocks. The spaise herbage of the wilderness aflords but scanty nouiishment ; thus an immense extent of countiy is lequiied foi the grazing of laige heids of camels, cattle, goats am? sheep, which constitute the wealth of nomad people. It must be borne in mind that the Aiabs are nomadic from necessity only, and should tiny be supplied with good land and means of inigation, they would gladly settle in any country that would support their animals, provided that the administration was free from the eoiiuption which is a foundation of the pievail- ; ing discontent. The duty and the policy of good government in the Soudan should be directed to the development of the natural resources of the countiy ami to the industrial employment of the population. Wanderers should be induced to settle in localities that would reward their labour, and the earth would yield a hai vest that would tempt the Ar.ib to exchange his camel-hair tent for the more substantial roof of a village home.