44 



NA TURE 



{Nov. 1 8, 1875 



" Moomtaz Pacha, who had been there but four months 

 and a half, had done more work than all his predecessors 

 combined. He was the first man who appreciated 

 the resources of this country ; who formulated plans to 

 utilise them ; and who with a resolute hand began what I 

 am firmly convinced will eventually come to be a pros- 

 perous empire, reaching from the equator to the tropic of 

 Capricorn, and from the Indian Ocean to the Desert of 

 Sahara." 



Mr. Southworth's evidence is extremely valuable at this 

 moment of general depression, when doubts have been 

 expressed concerning the future prosperity of Egypt. 

 There is the unanimous testimony from numerous travel- 

 lers that a mine of agricultural wealth lies upon the 

 southern limit of the great Nubian deserts, simply 

 requiring a line of railway for its immediate development. 

 There are lands in many portions of the globe that are 

 adapted by soil and climate for the cultivation of cotton, 

 but in most cases where such facilities exist there is a 

 scarcity of labour. In the Soudan we find not only an 

 apparently boundless extent of fertile soil where the cotton 

 shrub is indigenous, but a large population is at hand 

 who are only too ready to work for a fair remuneration. It 

 may perhaps be forgotten by many that the ancient his- 

 torian Pliny calls attention to the " wool-bearing trees 

 of Ethiopia." In the days of Herodotus, whose descrip- 

 tions of Egypt are so graphic, cotton was unknown, and 

 the Egyptians were renowned for the manufacture of the 

 finest linen from the native flax ; it was only in the reign 

 of Mehemet Ali Pacha, the grandfather of the present 

 Khedive, that cotton was introduced into Egypt. Curiously 

 enough, this was seed from the "" wool-bearing trees of 

 Ethiopia," which was brought into Egypt by an enter- 

 prising French traveller upon his return from the Soudan, 

 When we consider the important assistance that was ren- 

 dered to England by Egypt during the American civil 

 war by an extraordinaiy effort in the production of 

 cotton, we must feel a more than usual interest in the 

 development of the vast cotton-producing resources of 

 the Soudan. It is the natural hot-bed of the cotton 

 plant, where it has existed from time immemorial ; we 

 have only to construct a railway either to the Port of 

 Souakim on the Red Sea, or direct to Cairo according to 

 the plan of Mr. Fowler, and the Soudan will at once 

 deliver its vast burden of riches. 



Mr. Southvvorth upon his arrival at Khartoum disco- 

 vered that owing to the impediments to navigation caused 

 by the vegetable obstructions on the White Nile, it was 

 quite impossible to carry out his original idea of joining 

 the expedition of Sir Samuel Baker. The enterprising 

 Governor of the Soudan, Moomtaz Pacha, showed him 

 every attention, and invited him to an excursion by 

 steamer up the White Nile. During this voyage Mr. 

 Southworth was struck by the extraordinary fertility of 

 the soil in the vicinity of the river, together with the 

 great advantages of water communication as a means of 

 transport from the interior. 



In spite of the vast natural resources of' the country, 

 Mr. Southworth, who was now fairly behind the scenes, 

 quickly perceived the moral cancer that preyed upon the 

 Soudan and completely paralysed all progress ; this was 

 the slave trade, which engrossed the attention and energies 

 of the population. He writes (page 355) : "A slave expe- 



dition starting under the title of an ivory enterprise 

 means war. As high as 5,000 soldiers are employed by 

 a single trader. Agate had over this number on the 

 White Nile ; Cushick Ali, 4,000 ; Gatase, 4,000 ; Bizelli, 

 800. Thus the slave trade in the valley of the Upper 

 Nile is sustained by an active force quite as large as the 

 standing army of the United States." ..." By examin- 

 ing the most exhaustive consular statistics on the ivory 

 trade, I find that no expedition could pay the first cost. 

 The traders do not expect it ; so that when you read 

 of a great ivory trader you may substitute, 'with little 

 fear of doing an injustice, * an infamous slave-trader.' ' 

 At the time that Mr. Southworth's sympathies were en- 

 listed against this abominable traffic, he thus speaks 

 (page 216) of the Khedive's expedition under Sir Samuel 

 Baker to' suppress the slave-hunters : " As long as Baker 

 remained a Pacha at Gondokoro (now Ismailia) there 

 was no danger of a direct White Nile slave trade. Indeed, 

 the traffic may be said to have been closed." ..." When 

 I say ' direct slave trade,' I mean no slaves could be made 

 to descend within the reach or knowledge of Baker Pacha. 

 But unhappily he could not cover a whole continent." In 

 page 213 he writes : " Sir Samuel Baker has been in that 

 region its only vigorous European combatant, and more 

 to him than any other man will be due the praise of its 

 utter eradication, if the day ever arrives." 



Mr. Southworth, as Secretary of the American Geogra- 

 phical Society, has a perfect right to express his opinions 

 upon the " sources of the Nile," although he did not per- 

 sonally travel far upon the White River. He is some- 

 what perplexed by the pretensions of Col. Long, who, as 

 a member of Col. Gordon's staff, travelled up to the 

 capital of the King M'Tes^, with whom Sir Samuel Baker 

 had established a permanent alliance. Col. Long, on his 

 return from the Victoria N'yanza Bay, which forms the 

 embouchure of the Victoria Nile exit (discovered by the 

 late Capt. Speke), continued his course down stream by 

 canoe to Foweera, the headquarters of Rionga. He 

 reported that the mighty Victoria N'yanza was only 

 fifteen miles broad, and that Speke had greatly exagge- 

 rated the size. He further reported that he had himself 

 discovered an immense lake a few miles south of M'rooli 

 (N. lat. 1° 36'), which he suggested was the "source of 

 the Nile." These pretensions were never accepted by, 

 geographers, it being well known that at certain seasons 

 the Victoria Nile floods many leagues of country above 

 M'rooli ; this would give a stranger an erroneous impres- 

 sion of a permanent lake. The recent explorations of 

 Mr. Stanley, who claims to have coasted in his boat 1,000 

 miles of the Victoria N'yanza along the southern, eastern, 

 and northern shores, is a sufficient refutation of Colonel 

 Long's disparaging assertion that Capt. Speke's Victoria 

 N'yanza was only fifteen miles across. , Mr. Southworth 

 with true discrimination suggests on page 302 : " It is 

 possible that Col. Long's lake was only the Nile in a very 

 swollen condition ; for I have seen the Nile at latitude 13° 

 N. at very high water resemble a vast lake." On page 

 316 Mr. Southworth writes : " Dr. Livingstone's claims 

 may be considered as out of the question. Lieut. Cameron 

 has almost completely proven that Livingstone never saw 

 the Nile, but that his operations were confined to the 

 Congo Basin." On p. 317 the author thus summarises : 

 " It practically reduces the Nile problem to this. The 



