230 



EGYPT. 



tranquil since its occupation by the Anglo-Egyp- 

 tian forces. The Sultan of Darfur, who pays 

 tribute to the Government at Khartoum, had 

 trouble with his own people, against whom he 

 sent an expedition. Government posts have been 

 established in Kordofan, which is developing rap- 

 idly. The Agar Dinkas in January, 1902, raided 

 a camel caravan near Kumbek and killed Lieut. 

 Scott Barbour and 40 of his men. They were 

 promptly punished by Lieut.-Col. Hunter from 

 Nao cooperating with an expedition sent from 

 Shambeh to Kumbek. The Bahr-el-Ghazal was 

 occupied by an expeditionary force under Lieut.- 

 Col. Sparkes, who has cut the sudd in the Djur 

 river so as to permit steamers to ascend to Wau, 

 the chief military station in the province. The 

 only railroad project favored by the Government 

 is the proposed line from Berber to Suakin, which 

 will furnish a shorter outlet than the river-and- 

 rail route northward through Egypt, and will 

 supply the Soudan with fuel. Beds of coal have 

 been discovered near Rosaites and Abu Harras. 

 The Egyptians, who have provided the money for 

 the conquest and development of the Soudan, 

 regard with dismay the prospect of losing their 

 trade with the Soudan, and European merchants 

 fear that India will capture the market. In the 

 southern parts of the Soudan a little roadmaking 

 in the uneven places will enable motor cars to 

 transport freight all over the country. The 

 money taken out of the Egyptian treasury to 

 build the Khartoum railroad and for barracks 

 and other purposes in the Soudan is treated as an 

 advance to be repaid at some future date. In 

 1901 the expenditure of Egypt in the Soudan was 

 E. 417,000. The Caisse de la Dette has ceased 

 to dispute the financial sacrifices Egypt is called 

 upon to make for the Soudan. Of E. 1,287,000 

 in the special reserve fund on Dec. 31, 1901, the 

 amount pledged for future expenditure, mainly 

 in the Soudan, was E. 567,000. The finances 

 of the Soudan are in a more satisfactory condi- 

 tion than was anticipated, but it is not yet pos- 

 sible to balance the budget without a heavy 

 deficit, which for 1902 was 2,268,000. Vast 

 tracts of fertile country and valuable mineral 

 lands in the Soudan lie idle because there are no 

 facilities for bringing produce to market. En- 

 gineers who are studying the question of irriga- 

 tion have found plenty of water available. Cot- 

 ton of good medium grade is now grown. Wheat 

 and barley grow freely. Indigo is cultivated. 

 Rubber is obtained in some sections. The soil 

 is exceedingly rich, capable of producing all 

 kinds of useful plants. 



Suez Canal. The number of vessels that 

 passed through the Suez Canal in 1900 was 3,441, 

 of 13,699,238 tons, of which 1,935, of 7,771,346 

 tons, were British; 462, of 2,047,230 tons, were 

 German; 285, of 1,167,987 tons, were French; 

 232, of 704,458 tons, were Dutch; 126, of 467,605 

 tons, were Austro-Hungarian; 100, of 451,152 

 tons, were Russian; 63, of 351,854 tons, were 

 Japanese; 82, of 247,167 tons, were Italian; 34, 

 of 153,248 tons, were Spanish; 27, of 97,240 tons, 

 were Danish ; 30, of 90.205 tons, were Norwegian ; 

 22, of 78,314 tons, were American; 28, of 43,125 

 tons, were Turkish; 7, of 16,895 tons, were Bel- 

 gian; 3, of 6,424 tons, were Portuguese; 2, of 

 2.996 tons, were Swedish; 1, of 1,777 tons, was 

 Argentinian; and 2, of 214 tons, were Greek. 

 The receipts in 1900 were 3,624,944. The num- 

 ber of passengers that passed through was 

 282.203. 



The Storage Dam at Assouan. It is hardly 

 credible that the engineers of the Pyramids and 

 the builders of league-long colonnades beside the 



Nile could have failed at least to make estimates 

 for harnessing the great river upon w r hich the 

 Egypt of antiquity as well as of to-day depended 

 for its wealth and power. It is certain, however, 

 that nothing was accomplished on a scale at all 

 commensurate with the importance of the work. 

 If one of the early Pharaohs had set the exam- 

 ple of perpetuating his memory by means of a 

 great irrigating and regulating dam, instead of 

 a mere pyramid, his example would have prob- 

 ably been followed by his successors and the Nile 

 would have been put in training thousands of 

 years before the earliest English was spoken, and 

 it would not have been left for a nation then 

 unborn to rejuvenate Egypt in her declining 

 years. 



It is not intended to ignore the achievements 

 of the early engineers who utilized the great 

 valley of Fayum as a reservoir (Lake Mceris) 

 or to belittle the importance of the irrigating 

 canals, partly natural and partly artificial, which 

 they constructed with wonderful skill; but appar- 

 ently they made no serious attempt to control 

 the river itself, being perhaps appalled at the 

 magnitude of the undertaking and not having at 

 hand resources of the twentieth century. It must 

 have been obvious to them, however, that the 

 storage in great reservoirs of the surplus flood, 

 for use during the season of low water and con- 

 sequent drought, was a problem demanding com- 

 plete solution. The Nile, as we have all learned 

 at one time or another, cuts its way northward 

 from the great lakes of Central Africa for 2,000 

 miles and more through a region that, with 

 proper irrigation, is among the most productive 

 on earth. It breaks through ranges of hills in 

 its course, forming numerous rapids and six 

 " cataracts," as they are called, some of which 

 are barely more than rapids, which at high-water 

 are navigable, though with some difficulty and 

 danger, by the river craft, but are impassable at 

 low water. 



The lower or first cataract is at Assouan, about 

 600 miles from the mouth of the river and 250 

 miles above Cairo, which marks the southern 

 angle of the famous delta. Here, after protracted 

 consideration of the whole problem, it was de- 

 cided to build the first dam. Sir W. Willcocks, 

 K. C. M. G., was appointed director-general, with 

 a large staff of assistants. The preliminary sur- 

 veys were accomplished, and the work of con- 

 struction was begun in 1898, that being the year 

 in which the British were fighting the Mahdi in 

 the upper reaches of the Soudan. The work was 

 completed and the structure formally accepted by 

 the Khedive and the Duke of Connaught, with 

 due ceremony, on Dec. 10, 1902. 



Many changes have taken place in the staff of 

 engineers entrusted with the work so many that 

 the officials who deserve the credit can not all 

 be named here, but the original plan was car- 

 ried out with but few changes, and the work 

 was completed under Maurice FitzMaurice as 

 resident engineer. 



The dam is located at what was the head of the 

 first cataract. Its total length is 1,950 meters, 

 or a little less than a mile and a quarter. It is 

 laid in a straight line directly across the chan- 

 nel of the river, and not with the curve up-stream 

 which is often introduced in such structures with 

 a view to increasing their strength. To receive 

 and retain the foundation, a trench was exca- 

 vated mainly through solid rock in the river-bed. 

 In this was laid a wall of solid masonry, 29 me- 

 ters in width at its deepest section and narrow- 

 ing to 7 meters (nearly 23 feet) at the civ-t. 

 The lower face of the dam is very steep, and the 



