— 40 — 
In February 1870 Sir Samuel Baker found the sudd in the Albert 
Nile impossible for his expedition of heavily laden boats and steamers. 
He found the Zeraf sudded in its southern 100 kilometres, and tried to 
cut his way through but failed. And yet the slave traders had means 
of getting slave boats down the Bahr Zeraf (“Ismailia” pages 61, 62 
and 29). Baker returned in January 1871 to the Zeriba Kutchuk Ali 
on the Bahr Zeraf and had before him the 100 kilometres of sudded 
channel. With the aid of 1200 men he completed the work by March 
13. The final operation was a canal through stiff clay 600 metres 
long (known to-day as Baker’s cut). The fall from the Albert Nile 
into the Bahr Zeraf was so great that, in order to get the boats and 
steamers across the final distance, Baker made a dam 120 metres long 
across the Zeraf by means of a double row of piles, sand bags and 
fascines of the tall grasses. He thus secured the necessary depth of 
water, and the flotilla sailed into the Albert Nile. On his way back in 
June 1873, he thus describes the appearance of the head of the Ziraf 
river where he had made the cut in March 1871 : — 
“ On arrival at the Bahr Zeraf cut, we found that the canals which we 
had formerly cut were much improved by the force of the stream. 
Although these passages were narrow, they had become deep and we 
progressed with comparatively little trouble.” The rest of the journey 
down the Bahr Zeraf was easily performed. 
In January 1874, when the river was low, the sudd in the Albert Nile 
was removed by Ismail Pacha Ayoub, Governor General of the Soudan. 
From 1874 to 1878, while Gordon was Governor General, the Albert 
Nile was clear of sudd, but the wide stream of 1840 had dwindled 
down to a clear waterway free of weeds on a width of 6 metres over 
long reaches. The escape of water down numerous spills had deprived 
the Albert Nile of the power of keeping its channel clear and when 
the heavy flood of 1878 came down, the river was sudded. 
In 1880 Gessi was blocked in the Bahr Gazelle. The sudd in this 
Bahr was cut by Marno, who also cut the sudd in the Albert Nile in 
April 1880. 
Emin Pasha mentions the fact that the Albert Nile was free of sudd 
and navigated from 1880 to 1883. In 1884 he states that no steamers 
reached Lado, but he attributed that to the Mahdi’s rebellion. 
During the early years of the Mahdi’s and Khalifa’s rule there was no 
sudd. In the Khalifa’s time a boat laden w r ith ivory sank in the stream 
where sudd block No. 15 is, south of Hillet-el-Nuer, and caused the block 
to form. 
