MISCELLANEOUS SUBJECTS 



Sir Samuel Baker, in describing his travels in 1861, 

 remarks that " the Provinces were utterly ruined and 

 only governed by military force. The revenue was 

 unequal to the expenditure, and the country paralysed 

 by excessive taxation. Shut in by deserts, all communi- 

 cation with the outer world was most difficult, and the 

 existing conditions rendered these countries so worthless 

 to the State that the annexation could only be accounted 

 for by the fruits of the slave trade.'' These remarks 

 refer mainly to the Southern Sudan. 



Colonel Stewart writing in 1883 paints a companion 

 picture of the northern districts. " Many were reduced 

 to destitution, others had to emigrate, and so much land 

 went out of cultivation that in 1883 in the Province of 

 Berber there were 1,442 abandoned water-wheels and in 

 Dongola 613." 



s< Irregulars (Bashi Bazouks) were employed to collect 

 the taxes. Many, if not most, of these men," he says, 

 " are very indifferent characters: they are mostly swag- 

 gering bullies, robbing, plundering and ill-treating the 

 people with impunity, and are a constant menace to public 

 tranquillity. 



The sores inflicted by these methods of barbarism are 

 gradually being healed, but years must elapse before the 

 hundreds of deserted villages are re-occupied, and the 

 population suffices to cultivate the millions of acres of 

 fertile land awaiting tillage. 



There is thus no prosperous past or even any normal 

 standard with which to compare the state of affairs to-day. 



Roughly speaking the regeneration of the Sudan, so 

 far as it has proceeded, may be divided into three periods. 



The first of these may be styled the period of pacific- 

 ation, in that measures to provide security for life and 

 property naturally took precedence over those of which 

 the principal aim was economic development. 



Although the situation still needs careful watching 

 this first phase may be said to have ended some years ago. 



It was followed by a period characterized mainly by 

 progress made in railway construction, the effect of 

 which was to place the Sudan on a completely different 

 economic basis. 



