Halfaya stands on the northern bank of the Blue Nile, near its junction with the White. It is destined to be the workshop and commercial quarter of the capital. At present the Government steamboat factories and workshops are still at Omdurman, a legacy from dervish days. But already the necessary buildings are springing up, and as trade increases the railway terminus will attract more and more to its immediate vicinity. The Blue Nile, just before its junction, divides into two channels, which embrace the fertile island of Tuti. Opposite Halfaya, and along the southern bank of the island, the river runs in a glorious sweep due east and west for two or three miles. Here, facing northwards, stands Khartoum, with as imposing a situation as any capital could wish for.
A well-made road runs all along the river-front, which is being gradually embanked and walled. Right in the centre rises the white Palace, the official residence of the Governor-General, a handsome building, on the site of Gordon’s old palace, set in a lovely garden. On either side of it stretch a succession of Government offices and the neat residences of Government officials, to the new, spacious, and comfortable hotel on the one side and the Gordon College and British barracks on the other, pleasantly variegated with gardens and groves of palm-trees, acacias, limes, and bananas. Behind this Government belt, the town is carefully laid out into wide streets and squares in two other belts. The second of these contains, or will contain, houses and shops built by private persons, but of a good class and on approved plans; the third is open for the erection of any buildings that the owners choose to construct. Finally, close to Gordon’s rampart are the Soudanese barracks, and, right outside, the native villages, laid out in squares allotted to different tribes, where you may see huts of every shape, characteristic of many different parts of Africa.
Considering that three years ago Khartoum was nothing more than a dirty dust-heap, the work that has been accomplished by the Royal Engineers is truly wonderful. Of course, the city is still in the hands of the builders; everywhere are gangs of workmen levelling roads, preparing foundations, making bricks of Nile mud, carrying, hammering, digging, building. Women, too, are employed. Their principal duty is bearing water for the lines of young trees that will one day make each street a shady avenue. Already the town is lighted with lamps far better than many an Egyptian city, and it is hoped that in a short time a tramway will be in working order.
From November to March the climate is very delightful: it is hot, of course, at times, but the north wind blows steadily and coolly practically every day, and sometimes the nights are even cold. Even if it is hot, there is always the Blue Nile to refresh the eyes. It is a comfort to find that the Blue Nile is really blue—as blue as any Italian lake. One is so often told that it is called blue because of the mud it brings down during the flood—the mud which causes the ‘red’ water so dear to the Egyptian cultivator. But anyone who looks at it cannot fail to realize that its name is derived from its clear and limpid waters, and not from its muddy flood-time. One of the most charming scenes in Khartoum is the view of these blue waters seen from the windows of the Soudan Club through a green maze of palms and lime-trees.
Khartoum, with its bungalows, offices, shops, and banks, is a civilized town, summoned up out of nothing, as it were, by an enchanter’s wand. Far different is Omdurman. Here, too, the engineers have been at work, clearing, demolishing, and cleaning. Only those who marched in after the battle four years ago and saw those foul labyrinths of streets can realize how much has been accomplished. But though purified and greatly shrunk, of course, within its limits in the Khalifa’s time, Omdurman remains a real Central African city, with nothing European about it. It was originally intended to move all the inhabitants over to Khartoum; but the natural convenience of its position on the left bank of the river, just at the junction of the two Niles, makes it impossible to carry out this intention. Its population is actually increasing at present, and it seems far better to let natural forces work their way, and retain it as the native quarter of the capital, distinct from the seat of government. It possesses, too, a wide sloping foreshore, or beach, exactly suited to the feluccas which ply upon the river.
This beach is one of the great sights of Omdurman, and a fascinating spectacle it is. On a busy day it is absolutely crowded with traders and porters from all parts of the Soudan. It is the great market-place for gum from Kordofan, feathers from Darfur, ivory from the Bahr el Ghazal, dhurra from the Blue Nile country, and everything else that comes in by boat or camel. All day long the porters go to and fro, carrying their loads and chanting their monotonous songs, chiefly tall, broad-chested, but spindle-shanked negroes from the Nile Valley, Dinkas, Shilluks, Bongos, or Bari, with here and there a short, thick-set, sturdy hillman from Southern Kordofan or Dar Nuba. Women equally diverse in type sit sorting the different qualities of gum. Naked children, brown and black, tumble and chatter in every direction. It is difficult to drag one’s self away, so strange and novel and varied are the sights.
But Omdurman has much more to show. First and foremost the Khalifa’s house, the only two-storied building in the town, and built of brick. It is occupied now by the British inspectors. Hard by are the ruins of the Mahdi’s tomb, too solidly built to be entirely destroyed, but even its partial demolition has been sufficient to put a complete stop to pilgrimages. In front is the great square in which the Khalifa used to preach to his assembled dervishes. It is surrounded by a high wall excellently built, said to be the work of the German Neufeld. It is witness now of scenes very different from those of the old fanatical days, so far removed in everything but time—perhaps the parade of a Soudanese battalion, a football match, or the arrival of a string of camels laden with gum from El Obeid.
In the Beit el Amana are some interesting relics of the past. Here are the brass cannon taken originally by the Mahdi from the Egyptians, and piles of captured dervish muskets of every shape and form, swords and caps; and here, too, is the Khalifa’s carriage, a ramshackle, broken-down old four-wheeled chariot. It is a puzzle how it ever got to Omdurman. It looks as if it were built for some quiet old maiden lady in a French provincial town, but it fell on a strange master in its old age; and Slatin Pasha, now Inspector-General of the Soudan, had to run as a footman before it. Close by is the great broad street leading northwards, by which the British troops marched in on the battle. Every step is reminiscent of the last evening of days of the dervish tyranny.
But the most fascinating sight of all is the sook, or market. The mixture of races is amazing. It would take a trained scientist to catalogue them all. From a camel to a silver bracelet, there is nothing dear to a native that cannot be bought. Here are made and sold the angarebs, or native bedsteads, woven with string across a low four-legged wooden framework. As yet these people have not much mechanical ingenuity, and their appliances for working in wood and iron or other metals are rude in the extreme. The past in the Soudan has not been conducive to the development of the arts, but there is promise for the future.
One feature of the place is the curiosity shops, full of many strange spears and shields, knives and sabres, and occasionally an iron gauntlet or coat of mail such as the dervishes wore; but these are rare now. These Arab shopmen know how to drive a hard bargain, and love nothing better than chaffering over a price. All curiosities are called ‘antiquos.’ There is an annual flower-show in Khartoum, at which a prize is given for the best ‘antiquos.’ A Soudanese turned up who was very anxious to compete for this prize with a live porcupine, which he insisted was an ‘antiquo.’ He was allowed to exhibit at last, but not for competition, on condition that he himself led it about by a string, as the authorities could not undertake its charge. With more justice a live tortoise is also commonly offered for sale as a very choice ‘antiquo.’ In another quarter are the rope-makers, twisting their long coils of fibre in exactly the same way as they have been twisted for centuries; further on, the basket and net makers are weaving dried reeds in curious patterns. Yet another part is entirely devoted to the needs of women. Here are combs and strings of all kinds of beads, unguents, and the strange preparations they use for fixing the small plaits in which they tie their hair; cinnamon bark and other scents, without which no wedding is complete; cooking-pots and other articles of their scanty domestic furniture; even dolls of most weird and fantastic shapes and material, and many other quaint trifles. The whole place is crowded with women, black and brown, many of them tall in stature, easy and graceful in their movements, and, however ugly they may be in other respects, nearly all with the most beautifully shaped arms.