Cairo to Kisumu

by Frank G. Carpenter

The great trouble now is that a large part of the waters of the Nile go to waste, particularly in the swamps of the Sudd region. These mighty swamps lie on the northern slope of the Congo watershed and are fed by the branches of the White Nile known as the Bahr el Jebel, the Bahr el Ghazal, and the Bahr el Zaraf. They begin where the River Sobat flows into the Nile and form an irregular triangle, the base running from that point two hundred miles westward, with the southern apex at Bor, which is two or three hundred miles farther south. They lie on the bed of what in prehistoric times was a great lake, and are composed of masses of reeds, papyrus, and other swamp grasses, so interlaced that they soak up the water like a huge sponge. Imagine a sponge as big as the State of Indiana, from two to six feet in thickness, and so situated that it is always filled by the waters of the Nile and you will have some idea of this region. This sponge is near the Equator where the tropical sun beats down upon it, so that steam is always rising. It sucks up the waters of the Nile and gives them out into the air. The evaporation in the Sudd and along the courses of the Nile is so great that an amount equal to half the capacity of the Aswan reservoir is lost every day. In the summer fully fifty per cent. of the water supplied by the Great Lakes never gets into the main stream of the Nile. The water of this swamp is nowhere much above a man’s head, and in most places, except where the main stream flows through, it is only waist-deep. The evaporation increases at the time of the flood, when more land is covered, so that no matter how much water flows into the swamp, only about the same amount flows out.

The vast masses of floating weeds break up and burst into the channels, and when an obstruction is encountered they pile up on one another just as ice does. In the hot, dry season, when the stems of the papyrus are ten or fifteen feet high, the natives start fires which sweep the region from end to end, destroying all other vegetation. The ashes and burnt stems add to the floating mass, which after a time becomes five or six feet in thickness and almost like peat.

In clearing this Sudd and reopening the channels, the first step is to cut down the vegetation. The sponge-like mass is then cut with long saws into blocks, much as ice is harvested on our ponds. The blocks are pulled out into the current by steel cables attached to the engines on the steamers and float down the stream. An immense deal of this kind of work is going on all along the Upper Nile, for it is only in this way that navigation is kept open.

I have met some of the surveyors who are breaking a way through the Sudd. They describe it as a vast sheet of brilliant green made up of papyrus, feathery reeds, and sword grass. These rise from five to fifteen feet above the water and are broken here and there by patches of ambatch trees and by channels, pools, and lagoons. The greater part of the region has no human inhabitants, especially that along the Bahr el Ghazal.

Big game is to be seen only to the south of the swamp area. There the land is a little higher, and elephants, giraffes, and buffaloes inhabit the edges of the swamps. In the heart of it, in fact, in all parts of it, there are vast numbers of hippopotami, and there are all sorts of swamp birds everywhere. From the reeds and the mud banks clouds of wild cranes, geese, storks, herons, pelicans, and ducks of every description rise up as the boats approach, and there are insects by millions—mosquitoes, moths, spiders, and flies. There are other insects that carry fevers, and the tsetse fly, which causes the sleeping sickness.

When all the Upper Nile plans and projects have been put through, the whole river will indeed be a magically powerful, yet tamed and harnessed, domestic animal at the command of the farmers of a greater Egypt and a greater Sudan.

CHAPTER XVII
STEAMING THROUGH THE LAND OF CUSH

For the last two days I have been steaming through one of the oldest lands of the globe. I have been travelling up the Nile through the country which belonged to Noah’s grandson, Cush, who was Ham’s eldest son, and which was known to the Greeks and Romans in later days as Ethiopia. The Egyptians called it Nubia, from their word noub, which means gold, and it is known that a large part of the gold of ancient time came from it.

Ancient Nubia had a considerable population, and was noted for its riches and power. It was already a flourishing country about the time of the Pyramid builders, while in the most prosperous days of Old Egypt it had large towns and magnificent temples dedicated to the worship of the Egyptian gods. On my way here I passed Abu Simbel, a great temple on the bank of the Nile, which was cut out of the rocks by Rameses II, the Pharaoh of the Bible. Farther down the river lies the Temple of the Lions, where that same old king was himself worshipped as a god.