132 COTTON IN EGYPT AND THE SUDAN. 



trials were also made in the Kassala district with American seed, 

 which gave good results in the neighbouring district of Erythria. 



A long-existing cultivation of cotton, which supplies the main 

 portion of the " Suakin cotton," and in the past supplied almost the 

 whole of the Sudan cotton production is carried on near the Red Sea 

 at Tokar; it is a kind of Delta plain, embracing about 400,000 

 feddans, which has been formed by the Khor Baraka, and is annually 

 overflowed in stretches and manured by this river which comes down 

 from the Abyssinian Highlands. The land so fertilised, belonging 

 entirely to the Government, is divided by the Government into small 

 lots, and rented to the nomadic tribes of the surrounding districts, 

 who settle here for a few months for this purpose. Sowing takes 

 place between August and October, according to the great fluctua- 

 tions of the flood time, and the harvest follows between the middle 

 of January and the middle of June, chiefly in February. The yield 

 per feddan is about 2001bs. of lint. These Delta soils, which are 

 very fertile and moist through the annual floods, can be sown with 

 cotton every year without rotations of crop ; only on the boundaries 

 of the flooded land, and assisted by the local rains, are also durra, 

 duchn, millet, and vegetables grown along with cotton, but, gener- 

 ally, it is preferred to plant cotton, which pays better, and with the 

 cash received for cotton the natives buy the food crops. The village 

 of Tokar is the only fixed settlement of this thinly populated district 

 of nomadic tribes, and in the cotton season possesses about 10,000 

 inhabitants, receding to 2,000 after the picking of the cotton. The 

 seed cotton is sold in Tokar by public auction, having been previously 

 classified by Government officials the qualities are numbered 1 to 4, 

 and another class is made up by an inferior grade. The cotton sold 

 is packed in bales in the market itself, weighed, sealed, and marked 

 with the grade number, and then taken on the backs of camels to the 

 Port of Trincitat, which is situated about 30 km. distant, it is then 

 forwarded in open sailing boats to Suakin, a further distance of 

 35 km., where, up to now, the only large ginning station of the Sudan 

 is to be found. The freight on cotton from Tokar to Trincitat 

 amounts to 20 P.T. per 800 Rottls for the forwarding per camels, and 

 the freight for the sailing boats from Trincitat to Suakin is 5 P.T. 

 per bale of 4001bs. 



One-fifth of the cotton crop and two-thirds of the seed went in 

 1911 from Suakin direct to Liverpool. Suakin cotton reaches the 

 Egyptian market only about April. 



The floods in the Tokar district vary very considerably, and the 

 rainfall is insufficient of itself for the cultivation of cotton. Whereas 

 in the year 1893 only 150 feddans of flood land were cultivated, in 

 the year 1900 as many as 30,000 feddans were under cotton, and the 

 tendency is still upwards ; the development of the cotton crop in 

 Tokar is shown by the following figures : 



