ENGLAND IN THE SUDAN.*

YACOUB PASHA AnTriv, who will be remembered as formerly Under-Secretary in the Egyptian Education Department, made journeys up the Blue Nile and the White Nile in company with Professor Sayce in the winter of 1908-9, and has here repro- duced the letters which he wrote to his wife describing his experiences. They are written with little art, and the author has not troubled to cut out even the most fugitive passages. Nevertheless, aided by a host of illustrations, they do give a real impression of the strange mingled populations, Negro and Arab, which inhabit the banks of the Nile. The author is

*Englund in the Sudan. By Yaconb Pasha Artin. Translated from the French of the Author by George Robb. With Illustrations and Map. London: Macmillan and Co. [10s. net.]

a minute recorder of everything be sees and of everything said to him, yet we continually find ourselves wondering what his opinions really are. He naturally knows Egypt well; he knows Englishmen well ; he knows Europe well. He therefore has standards. It would really be very interesting if sometimes

he would draw the curtain from his own mind and let us look into it. But no; he tells us what others say freely enough, ana then, if he adds his own comments, they are always an extremely correct expression of a very common truth. He describes a conversation with a Coptic store-keeper whom he had asked if the cotton-worm had done much damage :—

" He proved to be both an orator and a philosopher, for he instantly replied : 'Ali, Sir, don't believe that ; the worms are innocent ! Know that in this matter it is the punishment of God ! Last high Nile all the big landowners planted the largest possible amount of cotton, nothing but cotton ! Nobody thought of the poor people, of the masses that need corn for their sustenance, or of the unfortunate animals that require barley and beans for their food. What is the result P We are new eating corn at famine prices, for it costs P.T. 200 per ardeb, whilst the landowners sold their cotton at P.T. 420 per cantar! And they seemed happy to have done some harm to the poor. God, in His unfathomable wisdom, allowed the cotton to be of good quality so that it sold dear! Doubtless He was punishing the people for their sins by compelling them to buy their corn very dear ! Why is this ? How can we tell ? Seek for the reason ! As for me, I know, but I'm not at liberty to speak !' "

This plaint implies a condemnation of the land system. Is it right or wrong ? Why does the Copt speak thus? Of course the author may have set down the Copt's words, and

was quite entitled to do so, for what they were worth, thinking that they required no comment. But when this kind of thing occurs again and again, we ask ourselves why one so familiar with Egypt has so few analogies and applications to draw out

of his experience when he visits the Sudan. Such criticism as the following goes so wide of the proper mark that its very harmlessness is provoking. Having discovered how the Belgian Governor of Lado was killed and eaten by natives, the author says :—

"When will such a people become civilised? If thousands of years have as yet failed to civilise them, are we justified in expecting that thousands more will be effective? And, besides, is the material and moral progress of civilisation a constant quantity ? When these people reach a period of civilisation, may not other peoples, who at present call them (the blacks) barbarians, themselves fall back into barbarism and savagery in their turn ? Adam and Eve were indeed very wrong to disobey their Creator !"

One cannot come to profitably close quarters with the problem of Europe in Africa when the last thirty years are not distinguished from the " thousands of years " which went before for the purpose of theorising on the destiny of the

subject races. We have mentioned at once this unwillingness of the author to declare his opinions because it is very striking, and prevents the book from being of serious value. But we may now turn to some of the scenes described which do, as we have said, bring before us real visions of Sudanese life.

There are some particularly interesting statements about the short rising of Abd el Kader, the murderer of the courageous Mr. Scott-Moncrieff. The author asked an Arab how it was that a man like Abd el Kader, who was in no sense a soldier and must have been a very uninspiring man to follow in the field, could command the allegiance of so many persons.

The answer was :-

" God gives power and victory to whom He wills ! Abd el Kader was a saint : he could recite the Koran by heart and did penance for his sins. The result was that disciples crowded around him, and they all lived on the charity of the public that sympathised with his doctrines. When a man, inspired as he was, finds him- self sufficiently supported, he invites us ignorant Arabs to join with him and to provide him with the means of living at the same time as we increase the number of his adherents. If we refuse, we are sure to be killed the moment he gets hold of us, and our property will be pillaged and seized for the profit of his followers. If, on the other hand, we join him, the Government pursues us, and if we are caught we are imprisoned for months or even years. On leaving prison we once again become friends of the Government. The last argument of the dervishes is death, whereas the Nassara* do not like to kill. It is thus clearly to our interest to follow the dervishes—by so doing we save our life !"

It seems, however, that Abd el Kader—" an honest bigot " the author calls him—alienated as much sympathy as he gained among Arabs, because in the murder of Mr. Scott- Moncrieff he violated the Arab laws of hospitality. The author's informant thought that if Abd el Kader had had the

• Christians, meaning the English in this ease.

strenuous character of the Mandi and the knack of raising Arab passion to fever-heat he would have preached that the Government was ruining Arabs by the policy of liberating their slaves. Then " the whole Sudan, from one end to the other, would have risen in revolt."

On the difficult question of fuel for steamers the author writes :-

"The banks of the Blue and White Niles are for the most part covered with forests of various species of trees, and the Govern- ment has established at fixed distances firewood stations, to which it sends gangs of unemployed or vagabond Negroes and others. These men, under the superintendence of a chief and a clerk, cut down trees and prepare logs, which are supplied to passing steam- boats that are in need of them. In spite of the fact that large numbers of such men are employed at these stations, and that their daily cost—including pay, rations, tools, &c.—amounts to five piastres, the wood supplies the same amount of heat as the coal at a quarter of the cost, or, in other words, a half-sovereign's worth of wood furnishes the same amount of heat as a ton of coal, which costs over £2 on the Blue Nile. But can this system of pro- viding fuel be carried on indefinitely ? Such a thing is incredible, for the forests become rapidly dismantled of their trees in propor- tion as commercial activity along the river increases, and as the wooded parts get farther and farther away from the banks the cost of the wood becomes dearer and dearer. The difficulty is one that calls for immediate attention, inasmuch as within a relatively short period trade will have so much increased that the problem of provision of fuel will be beyond possibility of solution."

Since these words were written an ingenious person has invented a method of turning the sad, or river weed, into fuel by compressing it into blocks. We do not know whether this invention has satisfied expectations, but if it is, or can be, per- fected, it is obvious that fuel will never be wanting in the Sudan.

The author has no reserve in his admiration for the coolness, confidence, and resource of the young British officials who control vast districts and are building up a system of administration which will one day, perhaps, be comparable with the Indian Civil Service. "I have known," says the author, " Turks, Circassian, Kurds, Russians, Frenchmen, &c., who also are all admirable in their way, but the majority of the Englishmen whom [ have met in the Sudan, the vast majority, I may say, have that confidence in themselves and their chiefs which gives them a self-assurance and disciplined character exceeding by far anything else I have seen and known as self-reliance." Again in comparing the Sudan of to-day with the Sudan before the re-conquest, he says :-

"In place of thefts, pillage, murder, and a theocratic and auto- cratic anarchy—if I may so speak—I find a regular, humane and just Government, whose whole care is directed to securing equal justice for all under its rule, and whose only aim is to enrich the people, to enlighten them by education, and to instruct them in their duties and rights."

Here is the author's sketch of the official who directs the work of suppressing the slave trade :— " Mr. Gorringe has his spies and the slave merchants theirs, and sometimes the same spy acts for both parties. For a young, strong man, who is energetic and sport-loving, I cannot conceive a more fascinating occupation than that of chief of the Slave Repression Department : his is a life of adventure, danger, and successes. In the case of the slave merchants these same incite- ments exist, but, in addition, there is their hope of gain, whilst the uncertainty of their future leads them to exercising greater cir- cumspection and to the exhibition of more skill and endurance of fatigue than can be shown by their pursuers.

" The most of the slave merchants know Gorringe, and just as in the heroic ages, whenever a raid is on foot, these daring men give notice of their intentions to Gorringe, either out of sheer bravado or chivalry, or to deceive him as to the part of the frontier they will cross.'

The racial characteristics of the Sudan are likely to be changed considerably in the next few generations by the increase of Arab blood. According to the author, the ratio of births in Arab and Negro families is as five to two. Of course the Arabs are polygamists and the Negroes are not; but, though that fact explains to some extent the dis- proportion in the birth-rate, it does not dispose of it. The author was aided in many ways by the Sirdar, Sir Reginald Wingate, and the book only increases one's respect for the latter's untiring and well-directed administration.