I was so much elated by this jolly morning's sport and the near approach of civilized conditions—for after all, contrast is an element in pleasure—that I permitted myself to rejoice at the safe and happy outcome of this long journey, and to exult in our complete immunity from serious accident or illness or even fever. How extravagant were the accounts of the dangers of African travel! How easy to avoid the evil chances of the road! Reasonable precautions, steady exercise, regular quinine—were these not in themselves the guarantees of safety? Thus I reckoned, and with specious reasons, but in a bad hour. We were not yet at our journey's end.
Twenty-four hours' steaming from Meshra-er-Zeraf brought us near Khartoum. The character of the country was unchanged. Yellow sand-slopes drank at the Nile brim; thorn-scrub fringed the river on either side; but date-palms mingled even more frequently and numerously with the vegetation, and brown mud-built villages with brown mud-coloured populations multiplied as the miles slipped swiftly by. At length a solitary majestic tree, beneath whose spacious branches and luxuriant foliage a hundred persons might have found shelter from the relentless sun—Gordon's tree—advertised us of the proximity of Khartoum. Soon on the one bank came into view the vast mud labyrinth of Omdurman, with forests of masts rising along the shore, and on the other, among palm-groves ever clustering thicker, sprang the blue and pink and crimson minarets of new Khartoum. Khartoum—the new Khartoum, risen from its ruins in wealth and beauty—a smiling city sitting like a queen throned at the confluence of the Niles, the heart and centre of a far-reaching and formidable authority, disclosed herself to the traveller's eye. Sharp to the right turns the steamer, leaving the dull placid waters of the sovereign river we have so long followed, and shouldering a more turbulent current of clearer water, swings up-stream along its noble feudatory, the Blue Nile. And passing by the side of high stone embankments crowned by palms, the steamer enters into a modern Oriental port and city, and is soon surrounded by its palaces, its mosques, its warehouses and its quays.
The Palace, Khartoum.
Nearly ten years have passed since the Dervish domination was irretrievably shattered on the field of Omdurman, and every year has been attended by steady and remarkable progress in every sphere of governmental activity in every province of the Soudan. Order has been established, and is successfully, though precariously, maintained even in the remotest parts of Kordofan. The railway has reached the Southern bank of the Blue Nile, connects Khartoum with Cairo and with the Red Sea, waits only for the construction of a bridge to cross the river and enter the fertile regions of the Ghezireh. A numerous fleet of steamers maintains swift and regular communication along the great waterways. The revenue has risen from a few thousands a year in 1899 to considerably over a million pounds in 1907. Improved methods of agriculture have increased the wealth of the country; the prevention of massacre and famine has begun to restore its population. Slavery has been abolished, and without affronting the religion or seriously disturbing the customs of the people, a measure of education and craftsmanship has been introduced.
These great changes which are apparent throughout the whole Soudan are nowhere presented in so striking and impressive form as in the capital. A spacious palace, standing in a beautiful garden, has risen from the ruins where Gordon perished. Broad thoroughfares lighted by electricity, and lined with excellent European shops, lead with geometrical precision through the city. A system of steam tramways in connection with ferry boats, patronized chiefly by the natives, renders communication easy throughout Khartoum, and between Khartoum, Omdurman, and Halfyah. A semi-circle of substantial barracks, arranged upon a defensive scheme, protects the landward approaches. The Gordon College hums with scholarly activity—Moslem and Christian, letters or crafts; and seven thousand soldiers of all dress march past the British and Egyptian flags on occasions of ceremony.
George Scrivings.