The binding of the Nile and the new Soudan

by Sidney Cornwallis Peel

The Bahr el Ghazal is a real land of waters, the Punjab of the Soudan, for it has five principal rivers, all affluents of the Bahr el Ghazal. Part of the country consists of little but the most dismal swamps; but nearer to the watershed there is much rolling country between the rivers. The soil is fertile, and there is an abundance of forests and parklands. To the east, along the course of the Atbara, and between the Blue and White Niles, there are vast level plains of alluvial soil, very fertile when flooded or after the rains. The country gradually rises towards the Abyssinian frontier. At wide intervals great masses of rock protrude, some consisting of excellent granite, better than that in the Assouan quarries. As the country rises it becomes more and more wooded, until there is dense jungle, especially near the Blue Nile. The scenery all along the Abyssinian frontier is described as very beautiful and mountainous; but most of it is very unhealthy, especially during and after the rains, when the climate is fearfully hot and oppressive, and malarial fevers of several kinds are common even among the natives themselves. The country south of the Sobat near the Nile belongs to the swamp districts. Further inland is the least explored and most uninhabited part of the Soudan; it is not likely to attract much attention at present.

The natives of the Soudan fall roughly into two divisions—Arab and negro. Generally speaking, the Arabs are all north of a line drawn east and west some distance below Fashoda, the negroes south of it. But any precise classification of races is impossible. The Arabs, as a conquering race, imposed their religion and their language upon the original inhabitants. Many so-called Arab tribes are really almost negro. The confusion of blood is very great. Slavery has introduced a very strong negro element into many tribes whose Arabic descent is unquestioned. Sometimes, when the original race was not negro, they have preserved their own language. Thus, the people of Dongola speak a tongue of their own besides Arabic, and several of the nomad tribes in the Halfa-Suakin district are apparently not Arabic in descent.

The inhabitants of Kordofan afford an example of the mixture of blood. The sedentary village population consists of the aboriginal inhabitants, with an admixture from Darfur. Under the Egyptian conquest a good deal of Turkish and Levantine blood was introduced, as well as negro blood from the South by means of slavery. The nomad tribes are a much superior race mentally and physically, and talk a much purer Arabic. Their great occupations are cattle-breeding, carried on by the Baggara tribes, and camel-breeding, carried on by the Kabbabish and the Beni Gerrar. Besides these there are also the hill tribes, negroes, very black in colour and small in stature, peaceful by nature, but warlike when roused by the attacks of the nomad Arabs. Of all the negro races in the Soudan, these are the most intelligent and hard-working.

The whole of the Soudan is now directly governed, with the exception of Darfur, by the Governor-General and his subordinates. Darfur, though a tributary State, once more enjoys internal independence under its own Sultan. After the fall of Omdurman Ali Dinar, a member of the former ruling house, then resident in Egypt, was sent back to Darfur. The people had been for some time uneasy under the Khalifa’s hand, and he found little difficulty in establishing his position. His prestige and power were considerably increased in 1902 by the surrender to him of the last remnant of the dervishes, who had fled westwards from Bor, on the Nile, their last station. The remainder of the country is divided into provinces, or mudiriehs, for the purposes of administration. The capital, Khartoum, with its sister towns and a district within a radius of ten miles, forms one province by itself. Immediately south of it is the Ghezireh (the Island), comprising all the rich and fertile district between the two Niles, formerly known as the island of Sennar. It is the kernel of the Soudan. South and south-east of the Ghezireh, stretching along the Abyssinian frontier, and extending from the White Nile on one side across the Blue Nile to Gallabat and Gedaref, is the province of Sennar. North of Sennar, along the upper waters of the Atbara and the boundary of Eritrea is Kassala. Suakin is the maritime province. Halfa is the northern frontier district. Dongola and Berber extend along the Nile. Kordofan, largest of all in extent, occupies all the country west of the White Nile as far as Darfur. All these make up the Arab and Mohammedan Soudan. The pagan negro portion is divided into Fashoda Province, including all the Sobat country, and the Bahr el Ghazal Province, to the east of the Nile and south of Kordofan.

Each province is ruled by a Governor, or Mudir, a British officer of the Egyptian Army; under him are one or two inspectors, also British officers, and one or two subinspectors, who are English civilians, members of the newly-formed Soudan Civil Service. The mudiriehs are subdivided into mamuriehs, or police districts, presided over by a mamur, or inferior magistrate; all the mamurs are Egyptian officers. Each province is, in many respects, a little empire by itself. Where the distances are so great, there must necessarily be a great deal of decentralization, and every Governor has a great deal of independence. But he is, of course, subject to the authority of the Governor-General, and his expenditure is carefully controlled by the central Finance Department.

The first duty of the provincial Governors is to maintain peace within their borders, and to make the inhabitants acknowledge the authority of the Government. In the elder provinces, Halfa, Suakin, Dongola, and Berber, there was no difficulty. The nomad tribes, the only possible source of trouble, are regularly paying the tribute, which has been imposed on them more as a badge of authority than for revenue purposes. As long as this is paid and they behave well, they are left to the rule of their own sheikhs, according to their custom. At Khartoum the presence of a British battalion insures order among a people who have not forgotten the sound of bullets. The stories of mutiny among the black troops were greatly exaggerated. It lasted only for a day, and was nothing more than a skirmish between two battalions which had a difference over some women. On the borders of Darfur there was a slight disturbance, but Ali Dinar is a strong and capable ruler, who understands very well that it is his interest to be on good terms with the Government, and the matter has been satisfactorily settled. In South-Western Kordofan the Nubas in the hills have been accustomed for centuries to raid each other, and be raided in their turn by the Arabs of the plains. In such remote regions it is difficult to summarily suppress customs of this sort, but it is hoped that permanent peace will soon be established by means of camel-corps patrols. The same applies to the frontier raids on the Abyssinian side. There was some reluctance at first to deal drastically with these raiders, for fear of trouble with Menelik, but now that the boundary has been definitely settled by the recent agreement, the raiders can be punished without any question of violating the frontier. In Fashoda Province the tribes, even the wild and shy Nuers, are settling down quietly, and though they hate the ‘Turk,’ they are glad to welcome the British.

The Mek or King of the Shilluks, who live on the banks of the Nile from Lake No to a point above Fashoda, gave some little trouble at one time. He was very much struck with the institution of tax-collectors, which he determined to imitate. Accordingly, he put some of his people into a kind of uniform, and sent them round the villages to collect women and corn, nominally for the authorities of Khartoum. But he was informed that, while the Government admired his zeal for civilization, they felt, at the same time, that his knowledge of it was so elementary that it was necessary for him to devote some time to further study before he put his theory into practice. He is now undergoing a course of tuition at Wadi Halfa.

The Bahr el Ghazal is the most recently occupied province. Posts are now occupied at Wau, Rumbek, Dem Zubehr, Shambe, Chak Chak, Tonj, Meshra-el-Rek, and Channamin on the Jur River. The country was occupied without difficulty. Here the two principal tribes were the Dinkas in the north and east and the Niam-Niams or Azande in the south. All the smaller tribes, Jur, Bongo, Golo, etc., had been broken up by repeated raids, and had fled to one or other of these powerful neighbours for protection, the protection practically taking the form of slavery. A tract of 150 miles square had thus relapsed into absolute wilderness, though once thickly peopled. Now the tribes from the Dinka side are returning and rebuilding their villages under British protection, an immense advantage to the country, for they are hard-working and industrious, while the Dinkas are lazy and troublesome in civil life, although good soldiers. Early in 1902 one of the Dinka tribes fell upon a convoy and murdered a British officer near Rumbek by treachery. But the murder was speedily avenged, and this was the only instance of active hostility. The Niam-Niams, although cannibals, are much more intelligent and progressive. They are very well disposed and anxious to trade. The worst enemy in the Bahr el Ghazal is not any human foe, but disease, especially the blackwater fever, which has been of a severe type, and more than one valuable life has been sacrificed to it. Fortunately, as experience of the country grows, the danger diminishes, and it is hoped that as the country is developed, with better housing and communication, and less moving about in the rains, still greater improvement may be looked for.

On the whole, the Soudan is far more peaceful internally than it has ever been before. Nothing has had a more pacifying effect than the spectacle constantly witnessed of British officials roaming the country unarmed and unescorted. This visible confidence has done much more than years of campaigning could ever do. There have been, it is true, one or two occasions when troops have had to be employed. The Soudan is still full of combustible materials. Fanaticism and ignorant superstition combined are dangerous elements. But the Government has taken to heart the lesson taught by the rise of the Mahdi. When troops are sent, care is taken that they shall strike swiftly and effectively. A new Mahdi appears in the Soudan once or twice a year. Once a woman proclaimed herself, and gained a considerable following. Sometimes they die away of themselves, but all require to be carefully watched. Such an one a few months ago had to be put down by an expedition in Kordofan. His capture and defeat at once put an end to his divine pretensions. These petty outbursts are legacies from the unhappy past; under good government they will become less frequent and less dangerous. Every day the Pax Britannica grows stronger and more deeply rooted in every direction. Peace once established, the British officer finds his real work only begun. The restoration of order was comparatively simple, the kind of business for which he had been trained. His regimental duties may have given him some slight acquaintance with accounts and book-keeping, or the elements of military law and procedure. Every scrap of such knowledge must be beaten out and made to reach as far as possible, and so guide him in his financial and judicial duties. But where will he have learnt to make bricks, to measure land, to make roads, to pronounce on methods of gathering rubber or gum, or the diseases of cattle or dhurra? Yet all these things he will have to do, and many others in the course of his busy days. One of the great attractions of the Soudan is the splendid keenness of all these men, soldiers and civilians alike. From Wadi Halfa onwards the same spirit is observable in everyone you meet. Grumbling you will hear, but it is the grumbling of keen men. The Governor of one province is convinced that too much is being spent on the capital. If only some of that money were given to him, he would soon show startling developments. Another thinks his trade suffers because the railways or the steamers are not so good as they ought to be. Another is dissatisfied because he cannot get a schoolmaster sent him, and so on. All are not, of course, equally competent (that could not be), but there are no idlers. All are working heartily for the good of the Soudan and its people, and the honour of their own country. Many of the Governors and Inspectors of Provinces have fought in command of the black battalions against the Arabs. They learned to like the one and to respect the other. The liking and the respect are repaid tenfold. There could be no better foundation for sound government, and from Suakin to El Obeid, and from Halfa to Gondokoro the Englishman is obeyed and trusted as no ruler of the Soudan has ever been before. It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to add that all these men are young. The Sirdar himself, old in experience, is young in years, and from him downwards, whether on the civil or the military side, there is hardly a man over forty. The administration of these vast regions in a tropical climate is no sinecure. A young country needs youth and activity in its rulers.

It must not be forgotten that we have been immensely assisted in our task by the Egyptians. All the minor administrative posts are held by them. Most of the clerks in the various Government offices are Syrians or Copts from Egypt. Without this small fry of officialdom, it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to carry on at all. Many of these Egyptians have done and are doing their work faithfully and well, but it has been a hard struggle to fight against the old Soudan traditions. In former days, when a man went from Egypt to serve in the Soudan, he expected either to die or to get rich in a very short time. Death was always before his eyes, so he made haste to be rich while he could. To the fellah the Soudan meant nothing less than death; his family mourned him as lost, and lost he generally was; but the official, if he came back at all, was set up for life. Of course, any case of taking a bribe or extortion is severely punished whenever detected; but, in spite of this, corruption undoubtedly does go on to a certain extent, so much is it in harmony with the traditions of the official and the expectations of his victim. Moreover, the Egyptian is not very capable of enduring a bad climate. He seems to give up heart immediately. A class of natives educated enough to take his place in the Government service is badly required, but does not at present exist.