56 



SAVAGE SUDAN 



solid way is building up throughout the length and 

 breadth of the Dark Continent, for the development of 

 the Empire, which connotes that of world-wide civilisa- 

 tion. This particular section, starting from our brand- 

 new British harbour of Port Sudan (700 miles away), 

 and linking up at Atbara with the Egyptian lines, already 

 connects London directly with Khartoum, and even 

 with remote Kordofan. There lack to-day but a few 

 leagues to join up with our Uganda railway and the 

 Indian Ocean at Mombasa to say nothing of a final 

 extension to the Cape. 



If blood be the price of 

 Admiralty, assuredly labour 

 and high emprise are the re- 

 sponsibility of Empire, and 

 we are paying both in full 

 measure. Yet, gazing on 

 these works, one wonders 

 what percentage of the folks 

 at home know even the bald 

 names of the places just 

 mentioned ; or of the services 

 being rendered by hundreds of gallant Britishers, exiled 

 beyond the fringe of the known world ? 



For, equally important with this binding-up of the 

 African Continent in terms of iron and steel, comes the 

 simultaneous binding of its savage peoples in bonds of 

 sympathy and goodwill. That process is simultaneously 

 being effectuated by fair-dealing and friendship, by firm- 

 ness and example. Even the humblest hunter or pioneer 

 can do his bit. Each is an advance-guard of civilisation, 

 and each can help to establish confidence and to set 

 agoing the long latent faculties of his dark fellow-subjects. 



As above indicated, the river here completely changes 

 its character. Low foreshores and level littorals give 

 place to deeper and narrower channels, winding (in places) 





SACRED IBIS. 



