Sudan

“ In the middle of Africa, between the lands just mentioned and the powers advancing from east, south, and west, lies the former Egyptian Sudan, now under the rule of the Khalifa Abdullahi, the despotic head of the Mahdists. No European can venture to cross the limits of this land, cut off from civilisation, extending in the south along the Nile to Reggaf, and east to west from Kassala to near Wadai; death, or lifelong captivity, would be his lot. ”

“ Nile region is generally taken as the eastern frontier of Sudan, although it properly reaches to the foot of the Abyssinian highlands. Hence modern maps have introduced the appropriate expression 'Egyptian Sudan' for those eastern districts comprising Senaar, Kordofan, Darfur, and some others. Sudan is therefore, strictly speaking, a broad tract of country reaching right across the whole continent from the Atlantic seaboard almost to the shores of the Red Sea, and is the true home of the Negro races. ”

“ When Egypt governed the Sudan, it was from the Bahr el Ghazal Provinces that they recruited the men for the Sudanese battalions, who had come either of their own free-will or had been forcibly impressed. Owing to the climate and plenteous rainfall, the country is more highly cultivated than any portion of the Nile valley lying between Kowa and Reggaf. Besides, the majority of the tribes who inhabit these districts are, owing to internal dissensions, incapable of uniting, and would thus rather facilitate than retard the advance of any foreign power wishing to make itself master of the province. ”

“ In the sixteenth century a marvellous civilisation appeared in the very heart of the Black Continent. The prosperity of the Sudan, and its wealth and commerce,141 were known far and wide. Caravans returning to the coast proclaimed its splendours in their camel-loads of gold, ivory, hides, musk, and the spoils of the ostrich. So many attractions did not fail to rouse the cupidity of neighbouring territories, chief among them being Morocco. El Mansour, sultan of Morocco, invaded the Sudan in 1590, and in a few years the fall of the Songhois Empire was complete. ”

“ Its ruler, he knows, virtually holds the Sudan in his hands. These various Black tribes have no love for the Arab slave-hunters, and would aid any power which would guarantee their protection. The recruitment of four or five thousand local levies, possessing fighting qualities of a high order, would, for such a power, be a matter of no difficulty; and in the space of four or five years an army of from fifteen to twenty thousand men [510] might be raised, by which not only Darfur and Kordofan, but indeed the whole Sudan, could be conquered. ”

“ The once comparatively civilised Sudan is now occupied by a barbaric power hostile to both European and Ottoman influence. It blocks [625] the way from the central plateaus along the Nile valley to the Mediterranean; it seals up districts which were at one time fairly tranquil, and open to the influences of commerce and civilisation, while the various countries by which it is bordered are now being gradually opened up. Intercourse between them and the outside world is becoming easier; trade is pushing obstacles out of the way ”

“ In the Sudan, we have before us a terrible example of a nascent and somewhat crude civilisation suddenly shattered by wild, ignorant, and almost savage tribes who have built over the scattered remnants a form of government based, to some extent, on the lines they found existing, but from which they have eradicated almost every symbol of right, justice, and morality, and for which they have substituted a rule of injustice, ruthless barbarity, and immorality. ”

“ The tropical Sudan can never be a white man's country. Eventually it must depend very largely upon our being able to fill the lower ranks at least of the administration with trained natives. At present they are manned by Egyptians and Syrians. ”

“ The occasion that brought you here today is a triumph to the government of the Sudan, the people of Southern Sudan and to Ethiopia. It has been said that no one can put asunder what God has joined together. ”

“ The entrance of England into Egypt, after the building of the Suez Canal, stirred up eventually revolt in the Sudan, for political, economic, and religious reasons. Led by a Sudanese Negro, Mohammed Ahmad, who claimed to be the Messiah (Mahdi) , the Sudan arose in revolt in 1881, determined to resist a hated religion, foreign rule, and interference with their chief commerce, the trade in slaves. The Sudan was soon aflame, and the able mulatto general, Osman Digna, aided by revolt among the heathen Dinka, drove Egypt and England out of the Sudan for sixteen years. ”

“ The Sudanese kingdoms of the Sudan resisted the power of the Mameluke beys in Egypt, and later the power of the Turks until the nineteenth century, when the Sudan was made nominally a part of Egypt. Continuous upheaval, war, and conquest had by this time done their work, and little of ancient Ethiopian culture survived except the slave trade. ”

“ In what follows the term Sudan is used to indicate the Anglo-Egyptian condominium only.
Physical Features.—The Sudan presents many diversified features. It may be divided broadly into two zones. The northern portion, from about 16° N., is practically the south-eastern continuation of the Saharan desert; the southern region is fertile, abundantly watered, and in places densely forested. West of the Nile there is a distinctly marked intermediate zone of steppes. In the southern district, between 5° and 10° N., huge swamps extend on either side of the Nile and along the Bahr-el-Ghazal. ”

“ Those who wish to study the present situation in the Sudan must not think of that country as it was in the days of Ismail Pasha, when the civilising influence was represented by the Egyptian Government, and when the various countries lying immediately beyond the Egyptian sphere were barbarous or Pagan states, in which Europeans were almost unknown, and the Arab slave-hunter had barely penetrated ”

“ The Arab-speaking and Mahommedan population found their religion and language respected, and from the first showed a marked desire to profit by the new order. To the negroes of the southern Sudan, who were exceedingly suspicious of all strangers—whom hitherto they had known almost exclusively as slave-raiders—the very elements of civilization had, in most cases, to be taught. In these pagan regions the Sudan government encouraged the work of missionary societies, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, while discouraging propaganda work among the Moslems. ”

“ Is not our French Sudan just such a fertile colony as is well suited for playing a part in what I may call the future social policy of France? I can answer that question in a very few words.
MEDAL OF THE ‘SOCIETÉ D’ALLIANCE FRANÇAISE.’
I have visited the lower course of the river, with the districts under the control of the Royal Niger Company, and I can confidently assert that except for palm-oil, which is only to be obtained on the seaboard, none of the exports, gum, india-rubber, ivory, and above all, karité, are wanting in the French Sudan. ”

“ But as the area of cultivated land increased, and the demands for water began to exceed the supply to be distributed, the need of insuring the present and increasing the future prosperity of the country forced the rulers of Egypt to turn their eyes once more to the upper waters of the Nile, and the reconquest of the Sudan became a political necessity. ”

“ If this reading of history be accepted, the people of the Central Sudan will be described as a mixed race recently forced into an Arab mould and in varying degrees modified by Arab blood. And we may prophesy that future researches will prove the other elements in this race to be akin to the other races on its borders, to the Nubians and Begas on the north, to the Negroes, Gallas, Abyssinians, etc., on the south and south-east. ”

“ The former started from a reformed Moslem "community," settled on an island at the mouth of the Senegal—in other words, it shows Islam already finding centres for recovery and expansion in Negroland, exploring the Sudan from the north and west, creeping along the Atlantic Ocean, and spreading from the neighbourhood of Cape Verde into the interior of the populous land to the south of the Great Desert. ”

“ The name “Sudan” is used throughout to indicate the country referred to by the Arab and early European geographers under this name, that is to say, the country inhabited by negroid people north of the purely negro zone and south of the Saharan deserts. The “Anglo-Egyptian Sudan” is more correctly described as the “Nilotic Sudan.”
[2] The geography of the Sahara as a whole is briefly treated in Le Sahara, by E. F. Gautier, Collection Payot, Paris, 1923, and with greater detail in Le Sahara, by H. Schirmer, Paris, 1893, but much recent work is not included in the latter. ”

“ The Khalifa, appeased and flattered, now said, "Well, try and find out the truth."
"My name is Olivier Pain," said the stranger, whom I had now told to talk in French, "and I am a Frenchman. Since I was quite a boy I was interested in the Sudan, and sympathised with its people; it is not only I, but all my compatriots, who feel the same. In Europe there are nations with whom we are at feud; one of these is the English nation which has now settled in Egypt, and one of whose generals, Gordon, is now commanding in Khartum. ”

“ Ethnically Eastern Sudan comprises all the lands east of the Chad basin, where the Negro or Negroid populations are predominant, that is to say, Wadai, Darfur, and Kordofan in the West, the Nile Valley from the frontier of Egypt proper south to Albert Nyanza, both slopes of the Nile-Congo divide (the western tributaries of the White Nile and the Welle-Makua affluent of the Congo) , lastly the Sobat Valley with some Negro enclaves east of the White Nile, and even south of the equator (Kavirondo, Semliki Valley) . ”

“ But although much [Pg 129] money has already been spent upon the Sudan, much more will have to be spent before it can have more than a speaking acquaintance with prosperity, for none of its three great needs—population, irrigation, and transportation—can be provided for nothing or in a hurry.
Fighting-men of the Emir of Wadai. (“They are wearing helmets and chain mail captured by their Saracenic ancestors from the Crusaders. The quilted armour on the horses will turn anything short of a bullet.”) ”

“ That idea comes largely from the desolate sands through which the railroad takes travellers on their way to Khartum. They have also read of the immense swamps of the Upper Nile, and, putting the two together, they look upon the country as only swamp and desert. The truth is the Sudan is an undeveloped empire so far as its natural resources are concerned. It is a land of many climates and of all sorts of soils. ”

“ Politically, the governments of the Sudan present much the picture of the old feudal days of our own ancestors. The king is supreme, and in him all legislative power is vested, influenced by the local chiefs of the towns into which the inhabitants are gathered for purposes of protection. Under the king, a council and chief officers execute his commands. Each town is administered by its local chief, who is supreme in his district. All alike furnish soldiers for the king’s army, and pay tribute to the royal treasury. Below the aristocratic class are the freemen ”

“ Cut off from North Africa by the Sahara desert, the inhabitants, who belong in the main to the negro family proper, are thought to have received their earliest civilization from the East. Arab influence and the Moslem religion began to be felt in the western Sudan as early as the 9th century and had taken deep root by the end of the 11th. The existence of native Christian states in Nubia hindered for some centuries the spread of Islam in the eastern Sudan, and throughout the country some tribes have remained pagan. ”

“ Years must elapse before the Sudan can recover from the results of its abandonment to Dervish tyranny; but it is to be hoped and may be confidently expected, that in course of time, under just and upright government, the Sudan may be restored to prosperity; and the great battle of September will be remembered as having established peace, without which prosperity would have been impossible; and from which thousands of misguided and wretched people will reap the benefits of civilization." E. S. Wortley, With the Sirdar (Scribner's Magazine, January, 1899) . EGYPT: A. D. 1898. ”

“ Hence the union of these two elements, imperious pastor superimposed upon peaceful tiller, has made the only stable governments among savage and semi-civilized races.1097 The politically invertebrate peoples of dark Africa have secured the back-bone to erect states only from nomad conquerors. The history of the Sudan cannot be understood apart from a knowledge of the Sahara and its peoples. All the Sudanese states were formed by invaders from the northern desert, Hamitic or Semitic. ”

“ I remember a quarter of a century ago when you were engaged in the occupation of the Sudan that many of your people at home and some of ours in America said that what was demanded in the Sudan was the application of the principles of independence and self-government to the Sudanese, coupled with insistence upon complete religious toleration and the abolition of the slave trade. ”

“ With the Hausas on her side England need assuredly fear no rivals to her beneficent sway over the teeming populations of the fertile plains and plateaux of Central Sudan, which is on the whole perhaps the most favoured land in Africa north of the equator. ”