Soudan,• taking for his text the slight• increase—less than £130,000
all told—in the Budget of the Egyptian Ministry for War for 1907. The relations" of the Government with Abyssinia are excellent, nor is any trouble feared from Dar Fur, but the extension of Government influence over the more remote districts of the Soudan, and the sup- pression of the tribal warfare in South-Eastern Kordofan, cannot be effected without an increase in the forces at the Sirdar's disposal. Something has been done to vindicate the Government's prestige, and to restrain the Meks," or mountain chiefs, hitherto raided by nomad Arabs, from raiding and kidnapping their neighbours ; but it will be some time before South-Eastern Kordofan is as orderly and settled as the Dengola or White Nile provinces. In view of this situation, it has been thought necessary to enlarge the garrison of the Soudan, to erect fresh military buildings, and to increase the number of officers for the unhealthy districts in the Bahr-el-Ghazal province and on the Upper Nile, in order to secure that they shall have adequate leave. Half the new Sondanese battalion is to be raised in the course of the year ; but the prejudice against military service amongst the blacks—a legacy of the Dervish methods of recruiting—and the demand for unskilled labour have led to a shortage in the supply of men. The correspondent notes the excellent quality of the Hadendowa and other non-Arab tribes of the Eastern Soudan, who form part of the Arab battalion raised by the Italians at Kassala, and banded over to the Egyptian War Office at the retrocession of that town. The Baggara and other Western Arabs, enrolled of late years in the Police and Camel Corps, form another new element, and have done excellently so far. In conclusion, the writer expresses the belief that the military situation in Kordofan will be greatly improved by the construction of a railway from Khartoum to El Obeid.
