56 
SAVAGE SUDAN 
solid way is building up throughout the length and 
breadth of the Dark Continent, for the development of 
the Empire, which connotes that of world-wide civilisa¬ 
tion. This particular section, starting from our brand- 
new British harbour of Port Sudan (700 miles away), 
and linking up at Atbara with the Egyptian lines, already 
connects London directly with Khartoum, and even 
with remote Kordofan. There lack to-day but a few 
leagues to join up with our Uganda railway and the 
Indian Ocean at Mombasa—to say nothing of a final 
If blood be the price of 
Admiralty, assuredly labour 
and high emprise are the re¬ 
sponsibility of Empire, and 
we are paying both in full 
measure. Yet, gazing on 
these works, one wonders 
what percentage of the folks 
at home know even the bald 
names of the places just 
mentioned ; or of the services 
being rendered by hundreds of gallant Britishers, exiled 
beyond the fringe of the known world ? 
For, equally important with this binding-up of the 
African Continent in terms of iron and steel, comes the 
simultaneous binding of its savage peoples in bonds of 
sympathy and goodwill. That process is simultaneously 
being effectuated by fair-dealing and friendship, by firm¬ 
ness and example. Even the humblest hunter or pioneer 
can do his bit. Each is an advance-guard of civilisation, 
and each can help to establish confidence and to set 
agoing the long latent faculties of his dark fellow-subjects. 
As above indicated, the river here completely changes 
its character. Low foreshores and level littorals give 
place to deeper and narrower channels, winding (in places) 
extension to the Cape. 
Sacred Ibis. 
