EGYPT. 



309 



him by an American officer in the service of 

 Egypt, constituting himself a vassal of Egypt, 

 and the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ismail 

 Pasha in 1875 hastened to communicate Egypt's 

 pretensions in a circular addressed to the 

 powers. It was in 1821, at a moment when 

 Mehemet All had founded the dynasty of the 

 Khedives over the slaughtered Mamelukes, 

 that he sent his son Ismail, and subsequently 

 the Defterdar, to subdue the Soudan (including 

 Darfour, Sennaar, and Kordofan). He founded 

 Khartoum, now a city of 30,000 inhabitants, 

 situated on the left bank of the Bahr-el-Azrak 

 (Blue Nile), about two miles from the point 

 (Ras Khartoum) which marks the junction ot 

 the Blue Nile with the Bahr-el-Abiad (White 

 Nile). As the natural entrepot of the com- 

 merce of Sennaar, Kordofan, Darfour, Fazogli, 

 and Yaka, Khartoum has realized in commer- 

 cial importance the hopes of the distinguished 

 pasha. The Central African provinces annexed 

 these late years, although undeveloped, have 

 materially added to its commerce. The trade 

 is roughly estimated as netting one hundred 

 millions, of francs. The fabrics and general 

 merchandise that find their way to the Sou- 

 dan are mostly English. Lord Dufferin, in 

 1883, proposed that the country should be 

 evacuated, and that the authority of the Mahdi 

 should be recognized, claiming that Egypt was 

 unable to bear the expense. He drew the po- 

 litical and physical boundary of Egypt as far 

 north as Assouan. Sir Samuel Baker, a dis- 

 tinguished fellow-countryman, vigorously pro- 

 tested. He said : " The unwarranted interfer- 

 ence, by which an enormous area of Ottoman 

 Empire was sought to be wrested from its 

 legitimate ruler and thrown into the direst 

 anarchy, was an act which awakened Egypt to 

 the hypocrisies of British declarations." This is 

 strong language, but Sir Samuel was indignant 

 at the flagrant violation of the rights of the 

 Sultan of Turkey. The firman of investiture, 

 delivered to Tewfik the 19th Chaban, 1296 (Aug. 

 17, 1879), contains this pertinent clause : " The 

 Khedive shall not, under any pretext or motive, 

 abandon to others, in whole or in part, the 

 privileges accorded to Egypt, which are emana- 

 tions of the rights and natural prerogatives of 

 my Imperial Government, nor shall he abandon 

 any part of the territory." 



Lord Dufferin's proposition to construct a 

 railway from Suakin to Berber, in view of the 

 proposed abandonment of the Soudan to the 

 Mahdi, was incomprehensible to those who 

 could not understand the real intentions of his 

 government with regard to the Soudan. Once 

 eliminated from Egypt, England could easily 

 establish an entente with the Mahdi, or, failing, 

 smash him. Some such idea was in the mind 

 of the optimists in England, as evinced in this 

 fatal proposition of Lord Dufferin. Applicants 

 for the concessions appeared before Cherif 

 Pasha, then President of the Council. They 

 were told by a gentleman familiar with the 

 whole country, and whom Cherif had asked to 



act as counselor, that every interest of Egypt, 

 economical and political, forbade its construc- 

 tion. The road, two hundred and eighty- eight 

 miles in length, ran through a sandy and rocky 

 desert, with insufficient water, and the land 

 absolutely irreclaimable. An army of five 

 thousand men would be required to protect it 

 against the Amhra, Bishareen, and other tribes, 

 whose animosity would be invited, to say 

 nothing of the incursions of the natural ene- 

 mies of Egypt along the frontier. In the valley 

 of the Nile the unfinished road projected by 

 Fowler presents none of these obstacles; its 

 completion is an absolute necessity for the de- 

 velopment of Upper Egypt, Nubia, and the 

 Soudan, and the irrigation and reclamation of 

 the land along the Nile. Direct communication 

 with the Soudan, secure from interruption by 

 an enemy beyond the borders of Egypt, is thus 

 obtained. Khartoum, three or four days distant 

 by rail, will be then, in fact, an Egyptian city, 

 and a great emporium of trade. Permit the 

 road to be built from the Red Sea, and the 

 trade of the Soudan will be diverted from 

 Egypt, and Suakin will become an English 

 port. Nubar succeeded to Cherif as Minister, 

 and, possessing none of his predecessor's patri- 

 otic motives, he gave ready assent to the Suakin 

 proposition. Osman Digna has, however, by 

 his military prowess rendered a positive service 

 to Egypt by putting a stop to the construction 

 of the road from Suakin. Had the same energy 

 and material been early applied to the Nile 

 road, it had been completed in time to have 

 rendered timely aid to Khartoum. 



The eastern Soudan is a level region, sur- 

 rounded by a rim of mountain -chains. The 

 provinces of Sennaar, Fasogle, and Taka, border- 

 ing on the Abyssinian plateau, are exceedingly 

 fertile, being copiously watered and enriched 

 by annual alluvial deposits, like the Delta of 

 the Nile. They produce abundant crops of 

 cotton, sesame, pulse, dourah, wheat, and other 

 grains. Their jungles and forests harbor the 

 elephant, the rhinoceros, the lion, the leopard, 

 the giraffe, zebra, and buffalo. The provinces 

 of Khartoum, Kordofan, and Darfour have 

 many of the characteristics of a desert climate. 

 Except in the districts of Bara and Abou Haras, 

 in Kordofan and other depressed oases or 

 mountain-regions, the vegetation is scanty and 

 the earth clothed with green only during the 

 brief rainy season. The climate of the Soudan 

 is divided into sMttah and saif (winter and 

 summer), which is better interpreted as a rainy 

 and a dry season, varying in length according 

 to latitude. At the Nile sources, where the 

 Lakes Victoria, Albert, and Ibrahim act as 

 water-sheds, it rains almost constantly. 



Khartoum is a great entrepot for the prod- 

 ucts of the eastern and western provinces from 

 Darfour, Kordofan, Sennaar, and Abyssinia. A 

 local slave-trade existed, but the principal lines 

 of the traffic had their centers in the districts 

 of the Bahr Ghazal and Bahr Zaraf, and farther 

 south, and ran eastward and westward to the 



