— 83 — 
as possible, let the excess flood water escape on both sides, but keep 
the summer supply in its channel.” This is, to my view, the soundest 
statement from an engineering point of view in the whole report. 
Hitherto we have always assumed a vast expenditure for keeping the 
flood supply in one channel ; but with our attention devoted to the 
summer channel, we should have before us all the advantages of summer 
training works without any fear of inundations. The very wildness 
of the regions would be in our favour. To be able to train a river in 
summer without any nervousness about floods, is given to few engineers. 
I had never thought that any good thing could come out of the sudd 
region, but looked at from this point of view, we can, even in this 
inhospitable waste of waters, confirm Shakespeare’s saying that “there 
is some soul of goodness in things evil.” 
The Lake Albert reservoir could easily insure 1200 cubic metres per 
second every year between the 15th January and the loth May. To 
pass through the Sudd regions as much as possible of the 1200 cubic 
metres per second received at Gondokoro, the following works would 
be necessary : — 
The first work to be done would be the removal of sudd block No. 15 
which for 37 kilometres south of Hillet-el-Nuer has turned the Albert 
Nile out of its course. The importance of this is strongly insisted on 
by Sir William Garstinon page 55 of Appendix YI of his Report, which 
is the very last thing he wrote. With this block removed, the Albert 
Nile would be given a good opportunity of working out its own salvation. 
The next point is one to which I attach the greatest importance. 
Indeed, I look upon it as the key of the whole region. The Albert 
Nile enters the south-east corner of Lake No and almost immediately 
afterwards leaves its east corner. Now Lake No is the final evaporating 
basin of the Bahr-el-Gazelle, probably the most unsatisfactory river in 
the whole world ; and it is open to doubt whether in a year of deficient 
rainfall on its own catchment basin and a year of good supply down the 
Albert Nile, it does not evaporate a considerable quantity of the water 
of the Albert Nile. If the discharge of the Albert Nile north of Hillet 
Nuer was brought to 450 cubic metres per second in April, this lake 
might waste much of it. Such being the case, a cut of a maximum 
length of some 5 kilometres should be dredged south of the south-east 
corner of the lake, and the waters of the Albert Nile separated from 
those of the Gazelle. A cheap wooden lock and regulator would allow 
boats to pass, and take in any water from the Gazelle river when it had 
