To-day gum-arabic is still easily first among the exports. The best kind of gum is the white gum produced from the gray-barked acacia, called hashab; there are also inferior kinds called talh, or latch, produced from the red-barked acacia. The gum is used for giving a glaze to linens and other woven fabrics, for stiffening cotton-stuffs and calicoes, and for making sweets and chewing mixtures. Kordofan is the home of the gum trade; a good deal, but chiefly the inferior kinds, comes from the forests of Sennar and Kassala, but nearly all the best white gum comes from Kordofan, especially the part round Taiara between Duem and El Obeid. Here there are limitless forests of hashab. The taking of the gum does not permanently injure the tree, and the only obstacles to its gathering are the distances to be travelled without water, and the lack of labour. Every new well means a fresh productive area, and people migrate temporarily from other parts of the Soudan for the gum harvest. Most of it is brought down by boat from Duem, some directly on camels from El Obeid to Khartoum, where it is sorted on the beach. Of this first-rate white gum the Soudan has practically a monopoly, and when the Soudan was closed to trade its price went up enormously. This naturally brought out substitutes: inferior gum from West Africa came into use, and glucose also took its place. Still, there was a good demand for it after the re-occupation of the Soudan, and in 1900 the price was still 65s. per cwt. Since then the production has gone up by leaps and bounds, but, unfortunately, this has been accompanied by a great fall in prices, at one time as low as 27s. 6d. per cwt. The figures of the export trade are:
| Kantars. | |
|---|---|
| 1899 | 41,963 |
| 1900 | 60,912 |
| 1901 | 170,781 |
| 1902 | 220,000 |
The trade has now far outstripped its former limits. To a young country, a profit of some £200,000 a year divided between the merchants and producers on the one side and the Government on the other by means of royalties and railway receipts is no mean advantage.
As for the other former exports, the trade in ostrich feathers from Kordofan and Darfur has begun again, and there seems no reason why it should not be developed. Ostriches are farmed successfully in Egypt near Cairo, and the conditions are even more favourable for their establishment in the Soudan. Nor is it unlikely that the Soudan will be able to supply a part of her own tobacco and sugar, which now bulks so largely in the imports. In former days the sugar-cane was cultivated largely in Dongola and along the Nile in Berber Province. The fertile plains around Kassala bore crops both of sugar-cane and tobacco. The district of Fazokhl, beyond Rosaires on the Blue Nile, used to produce 1,000 kantars of tobacco per year. It is also found in Fashoda; and in the south-western part of Kordofan, where the soil is the richest in the province, both tobacco and sugar-cane grow easily wherever there is water, to say nothing of the Bahr el Ghazal. The coffee came principally from that part of the country which has since been taken over by Italy or Abyssinia, and, though it is grown in Kassala, the trade in it is not likely to come to very much. This coffee, however, which is of the Abyssinian kind, and not a first-class coffee, is still quoted in the London market at about 50s. per cwt.
But the most promising feature in the old returns is the 20,000 kantars of cotton, even though as yet the trade has not revived. Though the figure is in itself insignificant, it is a proof that the thing can be done. Cotton is indigenous in the Soudan. It grows wild in Fashoda, although the native Shilluks seem never to have taken advantage of this circumstance, preferring to go completely naked. Most of the former cotton export came from Kassala. The Khor Gash, a tributary of the Atbara, comes down in flood during July and August, and partly inundates the plain, leaving behind a rich alluvial deposit—splendid cotton soil. There was formerly a cotton factory in Kassala town. In the districts of Gallabat and Gedaref cotton is now actually being grown, and it is proving the foundation of increasing trade with Abyssinia. Abyssinian merchants eagerly buy up all that can be grown. Further south, in Sennar Province, the valleys of the Dinder and the Rahad were once very famous for cotton, which was also largely imported into Abyssinia. Here, too, the cultivation is increasing as the people settle down. The district of Tokar, near Suakin, along the Khor Baraka, produces, perhaps, the best quality of all the cotton in the Soudan. It, too, in former days produced very much more than now. While along the Nile itself, in the neighbourhood of Khartoum and in Berber and Dongola Provinces, enough cotton is grown to supply small local industries, in which a rough white cloth is woven, one of the few local manufactures in the Soudan. Beyond a doubt, not only is there a great deal of land admirably suited to grow cotton in the Soudan, but also the climatic conditions, given only water, are peculiarly favourable.
Cotton and its culture are thus no novelties to the inhabitants of the Soudan. The point is the water; it all comes back to water and irrigation. If the Soudan is to be of any real interest to the cotton-spinners of Lancashire, its export must be counted not by a few paltry tens of thousands of kantars, but by hundreds of thousands, perhaps by millions. And for that there must be irrigation works on a large scale. The soil is there in the Ghezireh and elsewhere, the climate is there, the water is there, and the irrigation works will come. But once again, there is no need for hurry. The interests of the whole Valley of the Nile have to be considered. The undertaking is too large to be gone into without the utmost care and patient deliberation.
It is eminently satisfactory that the Government is fully alive to all the possibilities. They have started an experimental farm at Shendi, where trials are being made of different sorts of cotton, of different methods of culture, and of different periods of sowing, as well as calculations of the cost of production and of carriage to the ginning factories in Egypt. Already some most interesting and important results have been obtained. It has been definitely shown that the cotton which is sown in June and July promises better, both in quality and quantity, than that sown in the autumn or in March and April. At that time the heat is not so great, and the river is rising, so that the cultivator gets his water during the most necessary time at the least cost, because with the least effort. If this is confirmed, it is extremely important, for the water will be taken at a time when the Nile is high, and when, therefore, Egypt can afford to allow it to be used without suffering in the least degree, apart altogether from new Reservoir works.
As regards quality, it appears that the cotton grown, if not so good as the very best kinds of Delta cotton, is at least as good as, or better than, the best American, both in colour and staple. It is calculated that at the present time 1 acre producing 4 kantars will produce gross receipts of 1,060 piastres, against an expenditure of 1,000 piastres, showing a profit of 60 piastres, or 12s. 6d. per acre. But when the new railway has reduced the cost of fuel for the pumps, and also the cost of carriage, the expenses will be no more than 700 piastres, showing a profit of 360 piastres per acre, or 75s. It is estimated that the new railway will reduce the cost of freight by 50 piastres per kantar, and, wherever the Soudan has its own ginning factories, the profits will, of course, be all the greater, because only the prepared product will be carried. There is at present sufficient local demand for cotton to make it generally more profitable to sell it on the spot than to carry it to Egypt, but as the production increases it will soon outstrip the local demand. Any private capitalist investing money in cotton in the Soudan would be able to buy and clear land on the river in Berber or Dongola at from £5 to £6 per acre, so that he would get a very reasonable return on his investment. He would have the further advantage that in the Soudan two of the worst cotton diseases, ‘worm’ and ‘hog,’ are unknown.
Cotton and corn are the two great foundations on which the hopes of commercial prosperity in the Soudan are founded. The Negro Soudan is still comparatively unexplored, and its resources cannot be estimated. There is, however, a chance that the Bahr el Ghazal will do great things in rubber. Rubber-trees are known to be plentiful; rubber has already been produced in small quantities, and specimens of absolutely first-class quality have been obtained. But it has yet to be shown that the best kind of creepers are numerous, and also that they can be successfully tapped without killing the plants. So far, it does not seem likely that the Soudan has any great sources of wealth underground. Iron is found and worked in small quantities in the Bahr el Ghazal, and at least two ore beds are known in Kordofan, but there is no fuel to work them, and no means of transporting the ore. As for gold and the precious metals, several prospecting licenses have been issued and search is being eagerly made, but, except the copper mines of Hofrat-en-Nahas, nothing has been discovered at present. The only known gold-bearing district, the Beni-Shangul, is now included within the territories of Abyssinia. Gold was formerly worked in this district by the Egyptians, not at a profit, and perhaps, in any case, it is no great loss to the Soudan (even if it had not already been occupied by the Abyssinians), for that gold may not be discovered in the Soudan is the earnest prayer of every official in the country. The true wealth of the Soudan, such as it is, lies in its water and its soil. A find of coal would be a very different matter, and much more valuable than gold, but, though discoveries are constantly being rumoured, coal is not yet.
No account of the commerce of the Soudan would be complete without a mention of those wonderful people the Greek traders.