194 



EGYPT. 



navigation. A general disarmament was carried 

 out as thoroughly as possible, and only the Ki- 

 nana tribe remained at large in the Ghezireh be- 

 tween the Blue and White Niles and an emir with 

 3,000 warriors in the Bahr el Ghazal. When Lord 

 Kitchener was summoned to South Africa Sir 

 lieu-maid Wingate succeeded him as sirdar and 

 as Governor General of the Soudan, the post which 

 at present goes with the supreme command of the 

 Egyptian army. The Anglo-Egyptian rule was 

 strictly and severely military. The arrest of de- 

 cay and the restoration of productive activity in 

 this country made little progress because the first 

 aim of the new authorities was to impress the 

 inhabitants with their power, and they had too 

 little money for military purposes. The work 

 they set before themselves after the establishment 

 of law and order was to increase the revenue, settle 

 the frontiers, redistribute the population, register 

 lands, rebuild the cities, and establish communi- 

 cations. The encouragement of European com- 

 mercial enterprise, the readmission of missiona- 

 ries, the establishment of a system of education, 

 and the ultimate substitution of a civil for a mili- 

 tary administration were objects less immediate 

 and pressing. The British authorities concluded 

 that it was impossible to abolish slavery, but 

 kidnaping and buying or selling slaves were 

 made punishable with seven years' imprisonment 

 as a maximum. Attempts were made to check 

 the importation of black slaves from the south, 

 especially girls, and decrees were issued against 

 ill treating or overworking slaves, but if slaves 

 ran away the authorities restored them to their 

 masters, although the status of slavery was 

 not officially recognized. Greek traders came 

 in when the embargo was removed, and the 

 export of gum arabic was renewed. A caravan 

 trade sprang up between the Blue Nile and Abys- 

 sinia. Besides the land and date taxes imposed 

 early in 1899, taxes were placed on houses in 

 towns, boats, and herds; 20 per cent, royalty was 

 collected on gum, ivory, tobacco, ostrich feathers, 

 and rhinoceros horns; and license dues were re- 

 quired for carrying firearms, selling liquor, ferry- 

 ing, selling at auction, peddling, weighing, slaugh- 

 tering, and selling in the markets. The Soudan 

 military railroad, which was begun at Wady 

 Haifa on Jan. 1, 1897, reached Halfaya, on the 

 bank of the Blue Nile opposite Khartoum, on Dec. 

 31, 1899. The extension eastward to Abu Harraz 

 was postponed for a year. If the line is carried 

 on by way of Gedarif and Kassala to a port on 

 the Red Sea it will probably divert the bulk of the 

 trade of the Soudan, and it will strengthen the 

 hold of, England on the Soudan and tend to de- 

 tach from Ejopt its dependency in case of the 

 withdrawal of the British from Egypt. A tele- 

 graph has been erected along the Blue Nile and 

 by way of Lake l.'ndolph to Uganda. The project 

 of cutting the sudd in the White Nile was under- 

 taken in order to establish military communica- 

 tion between the Soudan and Uganda. It was ex- 

 pected, moreover, to increase the water supply of 

 !'._'> pt by making dikes where the river overflows 

 at Shambe, and thus save a vast quantity of water 

 that is lost by evaporation. Major Peake's ex- 

 pedition, comprising 4 British officers with 4 

 steamers and 700 men, mostly dervish prisoners, 

 to be increased later to 2,000^ left Omdurman in 

 December, 1899. The work was completed accord- 

 ing to the plans of Sir William Garstin in April, 

 1900. A navigable passage was cut in the Bahr 

 el Jebel through 4 sudd barriers. 



The Anglo- Egyptian authorities set to work to 

 rebuild Khartoum, with the intention of abandon- 

 ing and destroying Omdurman and transferring 



the trade as well as the seat of government to the 

 old capital. The Khalifa's city was healthier, be- 

 cause its site is higher and drier, but the prestige 

 of England and Egyptian sentiment seemed to 

 demand a return to the place in which Gordon died 

 and from which Egypt ruled, and the destruction 

 of the Mahdist city in retaliation for the destruc- 

 tion of the Egyptian city by the Mahdists. A con- 

 sideration of great weight was also the fact that 

 Khartoum could be better fortified. The city 

 was laid out on a metropolitan scale, 3 miles 

 long along the river front, and a mile and a half 

 deep. The Gordon Memorial College was erected 

 at the southeast end and the new palace of the 

 Governor General in the center, on the exact site 

 of Gordon's palace. Farther northwest were built 

 the Government offices and the supply and ord- 

 nance stores. A large hotel was built with British 

 capital. Near the center was placed the bazaar, 

 surrounded by shops, and a covered market was 

 constructed on Indian models. A mosque and an 

 English church were built at Government expense. 

 At the margin of the city, fronting the desert and 

 reaching from the White to the Blue Nile, is a 

 line of barracks and redoubts. The broad street- 

 have tramways running through them and are 

 illuminated by electric lights. In order to compel 

 the inhabitants of Omdurman to remove to Khar- 

 toum a law was made requiring owners of lots to 

 erect buildings of brick conforming to the regula- 

 tions within two years on pain of forfeiture of 

 their land. Most of the land of the restored capi- 

 tal, which no person valued while it remained 

 desert, was bought up by wealthy Greek specu- 

 lators. Whether the people are to be forcibly re- 

 moved if they cling to their present abodes and 

 Omdurman razed to the ground, has not been d 

 cided. Almost the only labor at present availabl 

 for any purpose in the Soudan is the forced labo 

 of soldiers, prisoners of war, and convicts em- 

 ployed by the Government. 



The immense forest stretching from Gallabat 

 the Beni Shangul and from the Blue Nile to the 

 Abyssinian hills is the home of vast herds of ele- 

 phants, and abounds in giraffes, buffaloes, lion- 

 leopards, warthogs, and many species of antelo 

 The Sobat region east of Fashoda and most of th 

 country south of El Duem is also full of game. 

 and is more accessible. Indeed, the whole region 

 round the upper waters of the Blue Nile, as well as 

 the White Nile and its tributaries beginning about 

 100 miles south of Omdurman, is the most attrac- 

 tive part of Africa for hunters of big game. The 

 Government has issued regulations forbidding the 

 killing of zebras and ostriches, and allowing only 

 a limited number of the elephants, buffaloes, hip- 

 popotamuses, rhinoceroses, and giraffes to be killed, 

 no limit being placed on the killing of warthogs 

 antelopes. For this privilege a license fee of 

 must be paid and a separate fee for every animal 

 killed, ranging from 24 for an elephant down, 

 For a lower fee one may shoot warthogs and 

 antelopes, and all animals on which no restrict ion- 

 are placed. Natives require no license except lor 

 buffaloes, elephants, and the other big game. The 

 Governor General has reserved the right to declare 

 a game reserve and to grant leases of the spoil- 

 ing rights over the whole or any part of such 

 reserve. 



Immediately after the opening of the Soudan 

 missionaries rushed up to Omdurman English 

 Church missionaries, American missionaries, a 

 Coptic bishop, and the Roman Catholic bishop 

 who formerly presided over the Austrian mission 

 at Khartoum. Other Catholic and Protestant mis 

 sionaries followed. The military authorities did 

 not welcome them, and would not let them settle 



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