CHAPTER IX. 



KORDOFAN. 



HIS country, whicli was till recently an Egyptian province, and 

 which, at the commencement of 1883, became the centre of a new 

 state destined probably to have but a short existence, is a perfectly 

 distinct natural region, although without any clearly defined frontiers. 

 On the whole its form is quadrilateral, inclined from the north to 

 the south, parallel with the main stream between the Sobat and Blue Nile confluence. 

 On the south and east Kordofân, or Kordofal, has for its natural frontiers low- 

 lying tracts flooded by the Nile ; to the north and west it merges in the steppes 

 roamed over by nomad tribes. The total area of the region, thus roughly defined, 

 may be estimated at 100,000 square miles, or nearly half the size of France. This 

 space is very sparsely populated ; in 1875, Prout, an American officer in the 

 Egyptian service, made an official return, according to which the inhabitants of 

 the eight hundred and fifty-three towns and villages of Kordofân numbered 

 164,740 persons. At the same period the nomad tribes amounted to a total of 

 114,000 persons, but the governor of the province had made no attempt to number 

 the turbulent mountaineers of the south. The total population of Kordofân can be 

 provisionally estimated at 300,000, giving a density of about three persons to the 

 square mile. "Wars have frequently devastated the country, and it is supposed 

 that the number of people has considerably decreased since the massacres ordered 

 bj^ Mohammed Bey, the terrible " Treasurer," who conquered this region for his 

 father-in-law, Mohammed Ali. Fresh butcheries have again taken place since the 

 Mahdi, or " Guide," has made Kordofân the centre of his empire, and proclaimed 

 the holy war throughout his camps. 



Physical Features. 



By the general slope of the land Kordofân belongs to the Nilotic basins. If 

 the rains were sufficiently abundant the wadies, which dry up at the mouth of the 

 mountain valleys, would reach as far as the White Nile ; even the waters rising on 

 the western slope flow to the Nile intermittently, on the one side through the 

 Keilak and the Bahr-el-Ghazal, on the other through the Wady-Melek. In other 



17— AF. 



