310 



EGYPT. 



Commerce. The latest reports place the value 

 of exports and imports as follows : 



Cnstoms at Port of Alexandria. The receipts of 

 the custom-house at Alexandria for the year 

 1881 amounted to 71,449 ; for the year 1882, 

 66,880; for the year 1883, 73,180; for the 

 year 1884, 83,129; and for the year 1885, 

 114,590. 



Railways, Telegraph, and Post. Egypt has a 

 railway system of a total single-line length of 

 1,276 miles. The length of the lines working 

 in 1885 was 900 miles. The proportion of 

 the working expenses to the receipts in 1884 

 was 40 per cent., the average proportion from 

 1880 to 18S3 being 36^ per cent. : 



The receipts in 1881 1,290,332 



The receipts in 1882 1,240,573 



The receipts in 1883 1,212,798 



The receipts in 1884 1,403,564 



The receipts in 1885 1,482,379 



The telegraphs belonging to the Egyptian 

 Government at the end of 1885 consisted of 

 a total length of 2,701 miles, the length of 

 wire being 5,221 miles. This includes a line 

 of 75 miles constructed in the year 1884, in 

 the province of Fayoum. The Eastern Tele- 

 graph Company have a line to Cairo, 453 

 miles in length (with ramifications). The Egyp- 

 tian post carried 6,575,000 letters inland and 

 4,631,000 foreign during the year 1884, being 

 an increase of 16 per cent, over the year 1883. 

 The number of post-offices at the end of the 

 year 1884 was 187. 



The Sondan. The Egyptian Government des- 

 ignates, under the generic name of Soudan, all 

 that country situated south of the second cata- 

 ract. The Eastern Soudan is a level region, 

 surrounded by a rim of mountain-chains. The 

 provinces of Sennaar, Fasogle, and Taka, bor- 

 dering on the Abyssinian plateau, are exceed- 

 ingly fertile, being copiously watered and en- 

 riched by annual alluvial deposits like the delta 

 of the Nile. They produced abundant crops 

 of cotton, sesame, pulse, durrah, wheat, and 

 other grains. Their jungles and forests harbor 

 the elephant, the rhinoceros, the lion, the leop- 

 ard, the giraffe, zebra, and buffalo. 



The Western Soudan proper, which com- 

 prises the provinces of Kordofan and Darfour, 

 has many of the characteristics of a desert cli- 

 mate. 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 shittah and saif (winter 

 and summer), which is better interpreted as a 



rainy and a dry season, varying in length ac- 

 cording to latitude. At the Nile sources, where 

 the Lakes Victoria, Albert, and Ibrahim act 

 as water-sheds, it rains almost constantly. To 

 the south of Khartoum there is a great waste 

 of marsh 1,200 miles in extent, whose in- 

 habitants present the most wretched state of 

 misery and degradation. At Gondokoro terra 

 firma begins, and both the climate and the 

 natives are vastly superior to the country in the 

 north. 



Rhartonm and Adjacent Provinces. The splendid 

 conquest of the great Mehemet Ali in 1821 be- 

 came a source of much revenue during suc- 

 ceeding administrations. Ismail Pasha, anxious 

 to link his own name with that of his illustri- 

 ous grandsire, named Gen. Gordon the Gov- 

 ernor-General of the Interior Provinces, and 

 attached to him an American officer as his 

 chief of staff, with orders to carry the Egyptian 

 flag to the Great Lakes. Col. Chaille "Long, 

 following the river to its sources, executed the 

 order of the Khedive, and not only made a 

 treaty whereby the powerful negro monarch, 

 M'Tse, King of Uganda, recognized the au- 

 thority of the Egyptian Government, but, re- 

 turning, discovered in the navigation of the 

 hitherto unknown river (from a point from 

 which Capt. Speke had been driven) a third 

 great basin and lake, which was named Lake 

 Ibrahim by the Khedive in honor of his father, 

 Ibrahim Pasha. The navigation of this river 

 and discovery of the lake solved finally and 

 definitely the vexed question of the Nile 

 sources, the honor of the discovery of which, 

 on the authority of Gen. Gordon, belongs en- 

 tirely to Speke, Baker, and Chaille Long. The 

 importance of water communication between 

 the Egyptian posts and the newly acquired ter- 

 ritory was incalculable, and subsequently led 

 to the appointment of Dr. Emin Bey as the 

 Egyptian governor. The insurrection of the 

 * Mahdi, the causes that led thereto, the return 

 of Gen. Gordon to the Soudan, the rescue ex- 

 pedition of Sir Garnet Wolseley, the fall or 

 evacuation of Khartoum, and the disappear- 

 ance of Gen. Gordon, have been treated at 

 length under the head of EGYPT in the " Cyclo- 

 paedia " for the preceding year. The English 

 expedition, having failed, retired from the Sou- 

 dan, and was followed by the victorious bar- 

 barians to Wady Halfai. The authority of the 

 Egyptian Government in the Soudan has been 

 suspended in view of the successes that have 

 attended the insurgents. Since the 26th day 

 of January, 1885, when Khartoum was re- 

 ported by Gen. Wilson as having been seen in 

 the hands of the Mahdi, there has not been one 

 reliable word as to the fate either of Gen. Gor- 

 don or of the city of Khartoum. As late as 

 the 15th of December it was reported that the 

 Soudan capital had been razed to the ground ; 

 but since then this account has been positively 

 denied by an intelligent Arab. The mystery 

 with which the whole matter has been en- 

 shrouded is absolute. The rebels send their 



