SOME MtlNICIPAL ENGINEKRINCi I'KOBLEMS IN THE TTiOrirS 281 



" Siv Samuel Baker visited Khartoum in 1862, and he described it as a miserable, 

 filthy and unhealthy spot. The houses were built chiefly of mud brick, and the town had 

 a densely crowded population of 30,000. He again visited it in 1870 and found the 

 population had fallen to about 15,000, and the town in the same insanitary condition." 



" In 1880, Felkin, a medical man, records improvement in the sanitary arrangements, 

 the existence of good houses and better class shops, and the erection of grand Government 

 buildings, and a large hospital." 



Such, then, was the old Khartoum which was destroyed by the Dervishes when Gordon 

 fell, in 1885, and remained in ruins until the reconquest of the country by Lord Kitchener 

 in 1898. 



The early development of the new Khartoum (Fig. 84) is thus described : — Xew 



"With the occupation of Khartoum and Omdurman the formation of a civil 

 administration for the government of the country was immediately begun. 



"The Municipality of Khartoum was established by order of the Governor-General in 

 Sudan Gazette No. 29 of November 1, 1901. 



"Major E. A. Stanton, late Governor of Khartoum, in a lecture • at the Royal 

 Colonial Institute, described the early development of the new Khartoum. The ruins of old 

 Khartoum, he said, were levelled with the assistance of the troops, streets were driven 

 through the debris, and other necessary works undertaken as funds became available. The 

 various public services were gradually inaugurated. The land settlement appears to have 

 given considerable trouble owing to the 'land grabbing' propensity of the native, but 

 eventually disputes were settled and house building begun. Then the land boom came up 

 from Egypt and prices rose from Id. or 2d. per square yard to £2 or £3 per square yard. 

 The crash came early in 1907 with the breaking of the Egyptian bubble and Khartoum has 

 hardly yet recovered. 



"The Sudanese native villages immediately to the south, outside the old fortifications, 

 were built to accommodate the natives who had been living previously amid the ruins of old 

 Khartoum. In this way an attempt was made to segregate the native population, a very 

 desirable arrangement, more especially from a sanitary standpoint, as the epidemics to 

 which all tropical cities are liable can be so much more easily dealt with. 



"The general scheme on which the town has developed was initiated by Lord The general 

 Kitchener before he left the Sudan, and the most striking feature of the plan is the =<='>^""^ 

 diagonal streets which appear to have been introduced primarily for military purposes. 

 Each crossing of these diagonals commands a considerable portion of the city. The 

 diagonal streets are undoubtedly a useful direct communication between various points, but 

 at the crossings they form awkward building plots, which are somewhat inconvenient 

 in the business quarter of the town. 



"The general scheme of the planning is that the main avenues running parallel 

 to the river intersect those running at right angles, forming rectangles approximately 

 500 yards square. These rectangles are subdivided by three streets running each way 

 parallel to the main avenues and by the diagonal streets connecting the intersections 

 of the main avenues. 



"All the land between the Embankment and Khedive Avenue is Government land, 

 while that to the south, where hatched on the plan, is principally private property. 



" With the laying out of the Government land to the North of Khedive Avenue there 

 was not quite such a free hand owing to the desirability of utilising and preserving what 



' " Khartoum and the Sudan," by Major E. A. Stanton, late Governor of Khartoum. Bead at a Meeting o£ 

 the Royal Colonial Institute on February 15, 1910. 



