Vol. XVII, No. 5 



WASHINGTON 



May, 1906 



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THE NEW BRITISH EMPIRE OF THE SUDAN 



By Herbert L. Bridgman 



GREAT BRITAIN today domi- 

 nates the whole of Africa and 

 has its future within her con- 

 trol as surely and as firmly as that of, 

 India. Germany in the northwest and 

 southeast ; France, Belgium, and Portu- 

 gal around the margin of the Atlantic 

 and the Indian oceans, may have their 

 "holdings" and their territorial jurisdic- 

 tion ; but the spinal column, the Cape-to- 

 Cairo trunk line through the continent 

 from north to south, is wholly and irrev- 

 ocably English, and whenever it be- 

 comes necessary to make this fact em- 

 phatic and forcible, then the mastery of 

 the situation, the advantage of the posi- 

 tion, will be demonstrated. In the mean- 

 time Great Britain, applying the same 

 principles which have made her the great 

 colonial power of the world, goes on de- 

 veloping the industrial and commercial 

 resources of the countries which have fal- 

 len under her influence, establishing law 

 and order, schools, even higher institu- 

 tions of learning, and pouring in upon 

 the places which have for centuries been 

 shrouded in darkness the light of modern 

 civilization. The fact is that modern 

 methods have accelerated civilization at 

 large almost as rapidly as in detail ; with 



steam and electricity in the service, the 

 spread of the institutions of the civilized 

 world is immeasurably more rapid than a 

 century ago, and what then would have 

 taken a generation to accomplish is now 

 effected in a few years. 



Since the recapture of Khartum and 

 the conquest of Egyptian Sudan barely 

 seven years have passed, but peace, 

 plenty, and prosperity reign everywhere. 

 Happiness and content are written on 

 every countenance ; life is as safe as in 

 England or in New York, and the future, 

 material and moral, seems normal, 

 wholesome, and auspicious. "Sudan needs 

 only population and capital," said 

 a prosperous Greek merchant with whom 

 I became well acquainted at Khartum, 

 "and both are coming to it in ample 

 measure." On one plantation near Ber- 

 ber, the other day one hundred and 

 twenty children, the eldest less than six 

 years of age, all children of the men and 

 women employed on the place, were pho- 

 tographed, and the streets and bazaars of 

 Omdurman, the commercial capital, as 

 well as those of every working station 

 along the White Nile, give cumulative 

 proof of the dawn of the new era of good 

 times. 



*An address to the National Geographic Society, February 16, 1906. This is the second of a 

 series of articles on Africa arranged for the National Geographic Magazine during 1906. 

 The first in the series, "Morocco," by Mr Ion Perdicaris, appeared in the March number. 



