CHAPTER XXIII 



BLUE NILE AND BINDER RIVER 



(i) BLUE NILE 



DIFFERING from its twin-stream, White Nile which 

 traverses desert sand and level steppe the Blue River is 

 mountain-born and bred. Springing from Lake Tsana, 

 6372 feet above sea-level in Abyssinia, Blue Nile drops 

 more than 4000 feet during a course .of less than a 

 thousand miles. Hence, even in its lower and flatter 

 reaches, Blue Nile runs on a relatively steeper gradient, 

 and is enclosed between well-defined banks often 20 or 30 

 feet in height. 



The traveller ascending Blue Nile has scarcely left 

 Khartoum ere he quits Sahara and enters upon a region 

 of alluvial "cotton-soil," which needs nothing but irriga- 

 tion to assure perennial crops. During the dry season, 

 it is true, these richer lands display but little external 

 difference they appear arid and barren enough. But 

 no superficial view affords sufficient criterion. The wealth 

 of soil is demonstrated when once one comes to see 

 the comparatively tiny patches which have already 

 been experimentally irrigated, and contrasts their green 

 luxuriance of cotton, maize, and other crops alongside 

 the sterile desolations which surround them. During our 

 sojourn here in December 1913, Lord Kitchener of 

 Khartoum inaugurated the first " Barrage" of Blue Nile, 

 a work which despife interruptions then unforeseen 

 bespeaks the dawn of agricultural developments, the 

 limits of which the future only can define. 



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