The binding of the Nile and the new Soudan

by Sidney Cornwallis Peel

As with modern Egypt, so with the modern Soudan: the name of the Albanian tobacco-seller is writ large upon the pages of her history. In spite of the ancient connection between Egypt and Ethiopia, in spite of the dependence of Egypt upon the Soudan for her water, the warlike tribes of the south remained for more than 1,000 years free from any attempt at domination by their neighbours. It was Mehemet Ali who, in the year 1819, laid the foundations of the empire which reached its furthest limits under the Khedive Ismail, an empire of which the brief but disastrous history brought nothing but misery and ruin to the Soudanese, and made the Soudan a name of fear and trembling to every Egyptian peasant.

About A.D. 700 Arabs of the tribe of Beni Omr, driven out of Arabia, crossed the Red Sea, and began to settle about Sennar, on the Blue Nile. By degrees these fugitives, reinforced by other tribes, some from Arabia direct, some, it is said, by way of Egypt and the countries further west, swelled to an invading host and permeated the whole of the Northern Soudan, and the original inhabitants were largely converted to Islam. In the Sennar region the two principal negro tribes were the Fung and the Hameg. The conquerors, while they imposed their language and religion on the conquered, seemed to have been absorbed into their ranks; for the distinction between Arab and negro diminished, and the old tribal names reappeared. In 1493 Amara Dunkas, a sheikh of one of the Fung tribes, was recognised as king of all the Fungs, and conquered all the country on both sides of the Blue Nile from Khartoum to Fazokhl. The negroes who remained in the country were merged in the Fungs. The remainder emigrated to the mountains of Southern Kordofan, where, under the name of Nubas, they have ever since maintained themselves in a somewhat precarious independence against the raids of the Arabs of the plains. About the same time was founded the Sultanate of Darfur, which in time extended its dominion to the banks of the Nile. South of these two powers the Shilluks and other negro tribes continued, as before, generally engaged in some petty warfare, and regarded as a convenient reservoir of slaves by their Arab neighbours.

The Fung dynasty lasted 300 years, and attained a very considerable position. About A.D. 1600 in the reign of Adlan, Sennar even became famous for learning, and was the resort of many scientists and philosophers from Cairo and Bagdad. In the reign of King Baadi, 1719-1758, the fame of the kingdom of Sennar reached its height. A quarrel arose with Abyssinia on account of some presents from the King of France which had been intercepted by Baadi. The Abyssinian King invaded Sennar with a great host, but met with the most signal defeat. So great an event was heralded throughout the Mohammedan East. The bazaars of Constantinople and Delhi were alike filled with the renown of Sennar. Once more crowds of learned and celebrated men flocked into the country from every quarter. But it was the last flicker of sunlight before the night fell. Baadi himself was deposed and exiled on account of his bad administration. The Hameg tribe, long subject to the Fungs, began to lift their heads. By 1790 the kingdom of the Fungs had disappeared, and for thirty years the Hameg continued supreme. Fire and sword was their sole notion of supremacy; it was no mere theory with them. The country was utterly given over to anarchy when Mehemet Ali determined to interfere.

The motives that prompted him were many; possibly, ardent irrigationist that he was, the desire to secure the upper waters of the Nile may have been among them; but beyond a doubt, like Cambyses of old, his principal object was gold. Extraordinary rumours were current as to an El Dorado in the south. Every officer and man who took part in the expedition entertained the most extravagant notions of gold-strewn districts. By means of this, and also by securing the profitable traffic in slaves, Mehemet hoped to be able to win sufficient resources to carry out his ambitious schemes in Asia and Europe. It was also very convenient at the moment to find employment for his irregular troops. It would be a mistake, however, to explain his action wholly by such reasons as these. All through his life ran the dream of posing as a second Napoleon. It is curious to find that along with the army he sent a number of learned men and skilled artisans, while it was announced that the object of the invasion was to introduce the benefits of a regular government of civilization. Mehemet Ali had closely studied the methods of his great model.

But of all these designs only one, and that the worst, was destined to be fulfilled. The slave-trade had always flourished in the Soudan. The Arab States were founded upon slavery. Along the great Arbain road, the desert ‘track of the forty days’ from Darfur to Assiout, yearly caravans containing slaves as well as other merchandise passed into Egypt; the Nile route served the same purpose, and from the Red Sea ports there was a constant export trade to Arabia and Turkey. All this was nothing compared to the dimensions which the trade assumed under Egyptian rule. It became practically the sole trade of the country; it reached like a pestilential blight even as far as the Equator. Bitterly did the Soudan suffer for the Napoleonic ideas of Mehemet, and bitter, but deserved, was the penalty which Egypt had to pay for her misgovernment in the end. Even to-day among the remotest tribes the name of ‘Turk’ stands for loathing and terror.

The army, commanded by Ismail, son of the Viceroy, reached Sennar without opposition. Thence, accompanied by his brother Ibrahim, he advanced to Fazokhl in search of the famous gold-mines in the Beni Shangul. But the gold proved disappointing. Ibrahim returned to Egypt, destined to win fame as the butcher of the Peloponnese in the Greek War of Independence. The Arabs rose against Ismail, and he had to return to defeat them. Unsuccessful in his quest for gold, he had devoted all his energy to the slave-trade, but his cruelties and barbarities were too much even for a people familiar with the Hameg. The local chief at Shendi, appropriately named El Nemr (the Tiger), invited him to a banquet. While he and his followers, contrary to the precepts of their own Koran, drank freely of the forbidden wine, straw was silently piled high about the house and fired. To a man they perished in the flames.

Meantime, Achmet Bey, the Defterdar, had conquered the province of Kordofan from the Sultan of Darfur. Hearing of Ismail’s fate, he marched towards Shendi to avenge him. The story of what happened, as told by the Egyptians, wears an ugly look. The details are wanting, but, at any rate, few were left to tell the other side of the story. At Metemmeh, on the bank of the Nile opposite Shendi, the people sent messengers to sue for pardon. It was granted. But when the Defterdar marched into the town a lance was thrown at him. The pardon was at once rescinded, and a general massacre ensued. El Nemr himself, however, had fled to Abyssinia. He, at any rate, had no faith in Egyptian promises. The Defterdar then marched towards Khartoum, and at Tuti Island another great slaughter took place. It was a bad beginning. To the native Soudanese the distinction between the benefits of a regular government of civilization and the fire and sword of the Hameg must have seemed slight indeed.

To build aright on such foundations would have been difficult for a nation of born administrators. For the Egyptians it was impossible. There were among the Egyptian Governors of the Soudan honest and righteous men, but, amid a crowd of officials bred and trained in an atmosphere of corruption and slavery, their spasmodic efforts after good only gave fresh opportunities for evil. Military stations were established in various parts of the country for the sake of security, and they became fountains of slave recruits to swell the ranks of the army. The navigation of the White Nile was declared free, and it became the favourite route of the slave-traders. Khartoum, from a village of skins and reeds, rose to be a city of bricks and the capital of the Soudan, but also a convenient and central market for a huge slave-trade. The Abyssinians, who espoused the cause of the Sennar rebels, were beaten back into their mountains, but the savage methods of warfare only brutalized and demoralized the victors. It speaks volumes for the barbarous character of the times that when Adlan, the leader of the Abyssinians, was captured by Kurshid, reputed the best of the Governors of the Soudan, he was immediately impaled. The annals of these years are filled with stories of famine and rebellion, and, to add to the general desolation, cholera and other diseases constantly ravaged the country.

But worse was to come. Down to 1853 the southernmost Egyptian station was only 120 miles south of Khartoum. The annexed provinces of Kordofan, Sennar, and Kassala (or Taka) groaned under oppression and tyranny, but the negro inhabitants of the Upper White Nile and the Bahr el Ghazal were still comparatively unmolested. In that year the English Consul in the Soudan started a trading expedition up the river. Other traders followed, who established stations far up the country. Peaceful trading soon succumbed to the temptations of the slave-trade. For the sake of protection, it began to be found necessary to employ bands of armed Arabs or Nubians. Gradually the European traders disappeared; by 1860 the last of them had sold their stations to their Arab agents. No greater curse was ever let loose upon a country than these human locusts, and the Egyptian Government was directly responsible. Under the shallow pretence of legitimate commerce, trading monopolies were leased to these traders in various districts. The fact that the Government had not a shadow of claim even by right of conquest to the territories leased was no obstacle. All the country south of Kordofan and Darfur along the White Nile or the Bahr el Ghazal was regarded as peculiarly suitable for these nefarious bargains. The Khartoumers, as they were called, because they had their headquarters in the capital, established themselves everywhere, and became practically independent potentates. With their armed bands of brigands they raided the native tribes, and even used them to fight against each other. Only the Dinkas, protected by the impenetrable marshes of the sudd region, and the powerful and warlike Azande, or Niam-Niam, in the south, were able to maintain themselves. But the Bongo, a numerous and peaceful agricultural people, were easily reduced. The fact that they had attained a higher civilization than their neighbours (for they smelted the iron found in their swamps with furnaces of clay and rude bellows, and worked it with stone hammers on anvils of granite, made pottery, and even had some acquaintance with surgery) only made them the more valuable in the slave-market. The Jur, Dembo, and Golo tribes were likewise among the principal sufferers. Anarchy is but a mild term for the condition of affairs.

Some of these unhappy victims may have heard the news on their way to the northern slave-market that slavery was abolished in the Soudan. If so, it cannot have done much to sweeten their bondage or to heal the strokes of the lash, yet a viceregal decree to that effect had been solemnly promulgated at Berber in 1857. It was characteristic of many of the descendants of Mehemet Ali that they inherited great part of his intellectual vigour and wide sweep of imagination without any of his executive capacity. Said Pasha, who became Viceroy in 1854, visited the Soudan and clearly recognised the failure of his foreign empire. A large force had to be maintained to screw exorbitant demands out of a discontented population. Agriculture was depressed, and every other industry was perishing under a system of taxation vicious in itself, and collected by methods which might have made a Verres blush. He determined to evacuate the country. But the burden of the Soudan, so lightly taken up in greed of gain, was not to be so lightly laid aside. Egypt was now holding a wolf by the ears. The officials who battened on the ruin of the country opposed a strenuous resistance. Things had come to such a pass that the sheikhs and notables of the provinces themselves feared that the withdrawal of one devil would be followed by the entry of many. Said contented himself with reorganizing the government and announcing a number of reforms of a drastic and far-reaching nature, and then returned to Egypt. It was the first of many reorganizations and many reforms, all of which were as effective as the decree for the abolition of slavery. The plan of much talking and little doing became a fixed principle of Soudan policy.