CHAPTER XXI
EMPIRE BUILDING IN THE SUDAN
I am just back from the palace at Khartum where I have had a long talk with Sir Francis Reginald Wingate, the Sirdar of the Egyptian army and the Governor-General of the Sudan. He is the ruler of a land one fourth as large as all Europe and four times the size of any country in it excepting Russia. He has great power and can do almost anything he likes with this country and people. One of the chief officers in the wars with the Mahdi and the Khalifa, he won decoration after decoration for his bravery and military services, and was in command of the operations which finally resulted in the death of the Khalifa. It was in that year that he became Sirdar, and since then he has been bringing order out of the chaos of this part of Africa. He has pacified the warring tribes, has turned their lances and guns into ploughshares and shepherds’ crooks, and is now creating civilized conditions where before have been barbarism, injustice, slavery, and war. An explorer of note before he became Governor-General, he has his prospectors travelling through every part of this vast region, and is laying out and starting the railroad, canal, irrigation, and other projects which will open it up to trade and progressive development.
The Sirdar is now in his prime. He has seen perhaps fifty years of hard-working life, but he does not look over forty-five, and were it not that his hair and moustache are mixed with silver, one would think him much younger. His face is free from wrinkles and his complexion rosy, his eyes are full of light, and his whole appearance indicates health and strength. A great part of his career has been spent in the saddle. He has not only travelled over most of Egypt and the Sudan, but has gone on diplomatic missions to Abyssinia. He spends a portion of every year travelling by boat or on camels through his far-away provinces, and has just recently returned from a long trip to Kordofan. He talks freely about his country, which he knows so well that what he says is of special interest.
During my conversations with His Excellency I asked him about the possibilities of the Sudan, reminding him that most people looked upon it as nothing more than a vast desert. He replied:[1]
“That idea comes largely from the desolate sands through which the railroad takes travellers on their way to Khartum. They have also read of the immense swamps of the Upper Nile, and, putting the two together, they look upon the country as only swamp and desert. The truth is the Sudan is an undeveloped empire so far as its natural resources are concerned. It is a land of many climates and of all sorts of soils. The desert stops not far from Khartum, beyond which is a region where the rainfall is sufficient for regular crops. Still farther south the country has more rain than is needed. In the west are great areas fitted for stock raising.
“Take, for instance, the country along the Abyssinian border and that which lies between the White and Blue Niles. Those regions have been built up in the same manner as Egypt, and they contain all the rich fertilizing materials which have made the Lower Nile valley one of the great grain lands of the world. The only difference is that the Egyptian soil, by the cultivation and the watering of thousands of years, has been leached of its best fertilizing elements; while the soil of the Gezirah, as the region I have referred to is called, has hardly been touched. Indeed, the plain between the White and Blue Niles is so rich that, if water is put upon it, it will produce four or five crops every year, and that for many years in succession. We have millions of acres of such soil awaiting only the hand of man to bring them into the world’s markets as live commercial factors.”
“What kind of crops can be raised in that country, your Excellency?” I asked.
“Almost anything that is now produced in Egypt,” was the reply. “The Gezirah is already growing a great deal of dura, or millet. It produces an excellent wheat and also maize. In fact, that plain is now the chief granary of this part of the world. It raises so much that, when the season is good, the crops are more than the people consume, so the grain is stored away in great pits. I have seen dura pits forty feet deep and about fifty feet in diameter. They are to be found about almost every village. At ordinary times they are kept full of grain for fear of a famine, but while the Mahdi reigned, his soldiers used to rob them. The result was that whole communities were wiped out by starvation.”
“But if the bad years eat up the good ones, where is the Sudan to get its grain for export?” I inquired.