CHAPTER XI
SCHEMES FOR THE FUTURE
The completion of one programme by the construction of the Reservoir and the works dependent upon it does not mean stagnation. Irrigation is an ever-growing and ever-living science. There can be no standing still. Even in the ordinary routine there are thousands of details always pressing forward for fresh consideration. It takes but a few years for a daring innovation to become old-fashioned. The system of perennial irrigation in Egypt is so young that there is still much to be learnt. It means a totally new style of agriculture. Nothing but constant experiment and constant watchfulness will enable the engineers to distribute the water to the best advantage. The best methods of reclaiming new land, and of preventing the deterioration of the old, the maintenance and improvement of existing locks, weirs, regulators, barrages, and other masonry, the care of canals and drains—these and an infinity of other matters fill the life of the irrigation engineer, so that, always interesting, it is also at times even exciting. Decisions of great and immediate importance have to be constantly and promptly taken. Their duty touches very nearly the lives of all who dwell and labour within their districts. There can be no question of any folding of the hands to slumber. But beyond all this, it is the peculiar good fortune of those whose care is the water-supply of Egypt that they have to travel in thought or in fact over half a great continent, and discuss schemes of a magnitude and extent enough to stagger the imagination of the boldest dreamer. The Anglo-Egyptian army at Omdurman opened an entirely new chapter in the history of the control of the Nile.
No one can hold Egypt securely unless he holds also the whole valley of the Nile. The sources of the river in hostile, or even in indifferent, lands must always be a grave cause of danger, or, at the best, anxiety. If tradition be correct, the Abyssinians on more than one occasion made use of their position on the Nile as a powerful lever in negotiations with Egypt. Vansleb, the Dutch seventeenth-century traveller already quoted,[6] is not perhaps perfectly trustworthy as to his facts, but at least he is evidence as to the tradition. He had in his possession, he says, a copy in Arabic of a letter written by David, King of Ethiopia (i.e., Abyssinia), surnamed Constantine, to ‘Abu Seid Barcuk, King of Egypt, in the year of martyrs 1193, in which he threatens in two distinct places to turn aside the river Nilus and hinder it from entering into Egypt,’ so as to cause all the inhabitants to perish with hunger, if he ‘continues to vex the Copties.’ Vansleb also says that ‘the King of Ethiopia hindered the current of Nilus and turned it out of Egypt in the days of Mostanser, one of the califfes of Egypt, which obliged him to send the Patriarch of the Copties with rich presents to the King of Ethiopia, to entreat him to take away the bank, which he had raised to turn aside the river. The King of Ethiopia having granted this request for the sake of the Patriarch, the river increased in one night 3 cubits, which was sufficient to water the fields.’ Doubtless the tradition is founded on fact; if the country in question had been occupied by a Power with any engineering skill, there is little doubt that this method of pressure would have been oftener adopted.
The danger is by no means an imaginary one, and this is recognised in the latest treaty between the Government of the Soudan and Abyssinia, concluded May 15, 1902, in which it is laid down that no work shall be constructed across the Blue Nile, Lake Tsana, or the river Sobat, which shall arrest the flow of their waters into the Nile, except by mutual agreement.
If even now it is thought necessary to make formal treaty arrangements on the subject with Abyssinia, much more real would be the apprehension if the Soudan Government were hostile to Egypt. But quite apart from any hostility, an important question might arise. We have seen what great efforts have been made in Egypt under the system of perennial irrigation to secure a good supply of water in the summer months; it is then that the river is at its lowest; the best of reservoirs can only supplement the natural flow of the river. At the very time that it would be easiest to do it, an interference with that natural flow would be most disastrous. The mere employment of a considerable amount of water on irrigation in the Soudan during the summer months might have a very serious effect. The possession of the Soudan practically guarantees to Egypt the safety of her water-supply. The fact that the sources of the White Nile are in purely British territory, and that in the Soudan itself the British flag flies side by side with the Egyptian, gives thus a more and more permanent aspect to the British position in Egypt.
It is calculated that at the present moment another 3,500,000,000 cubic metres of water over and above the present summer supply, including the Assouan Reservoir, would amply suffice for all possible requirements in Egypt. When the Dam is raised to its full height, about 1,000,000,000 cubic metres more will be provided. If only Egypt were to be considered, the remainder of the water required could be stored in a similar reservoir built somewhere above Wadi Halfa. Egypt could then be developed to its very fullest extent, but ‘such a work,’ as Sir W. Garstin remarks, ‘would leave untouched the countries bordering the river to the south. Their interests must be safeguarded by such a scheme as will insure them a proportional share in the prospective benefits.’
From every point of view the interests of the Soudan are vital to Egypt. Bitterly has she suffered from the neglect of those interests in the past. Misrule and oppression caused the Mahdi’s rebellion, with all its burden of shame and suffering. With a more intelligent enemy the loss of the control of the Nile might have meant irretrievable disaster. She knows now that a prosperous and contented Soudan is the best safeguard against rebellion. Upon England, too, rests the responsibility for the welfare of those vast provinces, once so shamefully abandoned to barbarism and ruin. English arms have retrieved that disgrace. It would be impossible to allow the Soudan to get nothing and Egypt everything, even if such a course were not certain to be fatal to both.
At present far-reaching schemes are being carefully inquired into, under the guidance of Sir W. Garstin. Fortunately for Egypt, she possesses in him an adviser of unsurpassed experience, cool, careful, and level-headed, upon whose final judgment she may confidently rely. He has already made a report, after personal observation, upon the White Nile and its main affluents, and he has recently returned from a journey to Lake Victoria Nyanza and Lakes Albert and Albert Edward, the results of which have not yet been published. Another expedition was also sent in 1902-1903 to explore Lake Tsana and the upper course of the Blue Nile. A mass of information is being collected and quietly digested, and in due time the policy to be pursued will be settled on. For the moment there is no occasion for hurrying. It will take time for Egypt to make full use of the advantages of the Assouan Reservoir. The Soudan, though rapidly progressing, is hardly yet in a position to reap the advantage of such changes on a great scale. When the engineers have completed their observations, there will still be the financial aspect of the question to take in hand. Schemes involving the regulation of 2,000 miles of river cannot be subjected to too great scrutiny before arriving at a decision. It would be rash to speculate on what course will be finally adopted, before all the data are known, but it will not be out of place to give some indication of the rival projects in view, and to glance at some of the arguments for and against.
All the schemes aim at establishing a control over the head-waters of the Blue or the White Nile, and so increasing the supply in the river when it is most scanty. Anyone can see that the Blue Nile depends upon Lake Tsana, which is across the Abyssinian frontier, and the White Nile upon the Lakes Victoria and Albert Nyanza. Proposals have been made for regulating the outflow from each of these lakes, or from them all, and also for preventing the waste of water which now takes place in the swamp country south of Fashoda. Up till now the plan of building a dam at the point where the Blue Nile emerges from Lake Tsana has been most in favour.