418 Sir Colin Scott-Moncrieff on The Nile. [Jan. 25, 



lost opportunity for England of making such a splendid reservoir. 

 And as a friend to Egypt, I sigh still more that the country will not 

 have such a splendid supply of water as would enable Upper Egypt 

 to have the full benefits now possessed by Lower Egypt, and Lower 

 Egypt to expand and flourish. 



The reduced scheme will, however, be a great boon to the country, 

 and I trust will now be put in hand without delay. 



In 1884, when the expedition up the Nile was first being con- 

 sidered, I was asked by the general officer commanding in Egypt, 

 whether I thought there was any possibility of the Mahdi diverting 

 the river in the Soudan, and depriving Egypt of its water. The 

 late Sir Samuel Baker was in Cairo at the time, and I consulted him 

 as to whether he knew of any place in the Nile valley where during 

 highest flood the water spills off to the right or left, towards the Red 

 Sea or the Libyan Desert. He said he was sure there was no such 

 place, and then I told the general it would be impossible for the 

 Mahdi to divert the Nile. I was sure that with his savages he would 

 never dam up the low supply until its surface attained the height of 

 flood supply, and if even then during flood there was no spill channel, 

 Egypt was safe enough. 



But what the Mahdi could not do, a civilised people could do. 

 A government official has no business to talk politics, and the Royal 

 Institution is no place for politics ; but I may be allowed to point 

 out an evident enough fact, that the civilised possessor of the Upper 

 Nile valley holds Egypt in his grasp. 



At this moment the Italians are on the eastern edge of that valley 

 — a nation, I must say, who have been consistently most friendly to us 

 in Egypt. Supposing that they occupied Khartoum, the first thing 

 they would naturally and very properly do would be to spread the 

 waters of the Low Nile over the Soudan ; and no nation in Europe 

 understands irrigation so well. And what then would become of 

 Egypt's cotton crops ? They could only be secured by a series of 

 the most costly dams over the river, and the fate of Phila3 would 

 surely be sealed. But more than this : a civilised nation on the 

 Upper Nile would surely build regulating sluices across the outlet 

 of the Victoria Nyanza, and control that great sea as Manchester con- 

 trols Thirlmere. This would probably be an easy operation. Once 

 done, the Nile supply would be in their hands ; and if poor little Egypt 

 had the bad luck to be at war with this people on the upper waters, 

 they might flood them, or cut off their water supply at their pleasure. 



Is it not evident, then, that the Nile from the Victoria Nyanza 

 to the Mediterranean should be under one rule? That time is 

 perhaps far off. I conclude what I have to say to-night by giving 

 you the assurance, and I challenge contradiction, that at no time in 

 the long history of Egypt under Pharaoh or Ptolemy, Roman or 

 Arab, or Turk, have the people of the country been so prosperous, or 

 so justly ruled as during the last nine years. 



J ^ ° [C.S.-M.] 



