522 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E. 
River Juba, on the border of Somaliland, which was much too far to the north, 
and, secondly, because it was ordered away by the British Government, which 
considered that it was encroaching on the territories of the Sultan of Zanzibar. 
At the time that Gordon was establishing Egyptian authority in the equatorial 
provinces the Khedive’s dominions were being extended by the conquest of 
Darfur, and the occupation of the province of Harrar, with its port at Zeila, in 
the Gulf of Aden. An excellent reconnaissance of Kordofan was carried out by 
Colonel Prout, of the United States Survey Department, in 1875, and a recon- 
naissance of Darfur was made by Colonel Purdy, another American in the 
Egyptian service, so that considerable additions were made at this period to the 
geographical knowledge of the Sudan. 
But soon afterwards there was a serious setback to the Khedive Ismail’s 
projects of conquest. Having acquired Massowah, Tajurra, and Zeila, on the Red 
Sea, he sent an expedition into Abyssinia in 1875, which was cut to pieces at 
Gundet, on the road to Adua, and another larger force sent in the following year 
was utterly defeated by the Abyssinians and had to retreat, with great loss, to 
Massowah. Some surveys were made by the American officers on the staff of 
the Egyptian Army, but these expeditions did but little for geography, and their 
fate was the precursor of the destruction of Egyptian power in the Sudan. 
Colonel Gordon returned to Egypt in December 1876, and early in the follow- 
ing year was appointed Governor-General of the whole Sudan, a post he held for 
nearly three years, years of incessant labour, during which, much to his regret, 
he was able to do little for geography; as, though he travelled many thousands 
of miles through his vast territories, his whole time was occupied with questions 
of administration. He was wonderfully successful in his dealings with the 
inhabitants, and had he been left alone for a few years, the history of the Sudan 
would have been different; but he was constantly urged to send money to Cairo, 
money which he could not obtain without following the example of his pre- 
decessors and oppressing the inhabitants. This he would not do, and resigned 
in August 1879, when he was succeeded by an Egyptian Pasha, who revived the 
old bad customs of the country. His appointment led to the result that might 
have been anticipated, and in 1881 the revolt led by Mahomed Achmed, the 
Mahdi, broke out, and the Egyptians were driven out of the Sudan. Then the 
country was completely closed to Europeans, and nothing further could be done 
in the way of geographical discovery until the defeat of the rebels at Omdurman 
in 1898. Now, fortunately, peace is restored, a peace which, it may be hoped, 
will be a lasting one. ; Bazte 
To geographers, of course, the existing state of affairs is very satisfactory, 
as it will undoubtedly lead to an increase in our knowledge of the Sudan 
and its resources. That knowledge is still very limited, much more so than 
many people are aware, and there are vast regions which still stand in need of 
careful examination. Maps, especially small-scale maps, are misleading, and 
convey the impression that more is known than is really known. Take, for 
example, the case of the Blue Nile, one of the most important tributaries of the 
great river. Of this, the head-waters, Lake Tsana, first carefully examined by 
James Bruce, are fairly well known, and a good reconnaissance of this lake was 
made by Mr. C. Dupuis, of the Egyptian Irrigation Department, in 1903, a copy 
of whose interesting report is attached to the valuable Report on the Basin. of 
the Nile, made by Sir W. Garstin in 1904. 
The course of the Blue Nile from Famaka on the Abyssinian frontier to Khar- 
tum is also fairly well known, although not yet accurately surveyed. But of the 
river between Lake Tsana and Famaka, and of its course through the mountains 
of Abyssinia, our knowledge is most elementary, and it is doubtful whether the 
line as marked upon mags is correct. Here is a chance for a resolute explorer 
to distinguish himself by making a really good reconnaissance of this part of the 
river, and following it carefully from Lake Tsana to Famaka. But it would 
probably be rather an arduous task, and there would be many difficulties, 
natural and human, to overcome. s 
The question of the Blue Nile is only one of the many geographical problems 
to be solved in the Sudan. The upper waters of other tributaries, such as the 
Atbara, the Rahad, the Dinder, and the Sobat, and the mountains from which 
they flow, are also little known, and will require years of exploration, while 
great areas of the level country of the Nile basin remain unvisited and unsur- 
