The binding of the Nile and the new Soudan

Far back in the world’s history a fracture of the earth’s crust took place in the region which is now Egypt, and the sea filled the valley as far as a point not much north of As...

There are two kinds of irrigation in Egypt—basin and perennial irrigation. Basin irrigation is the ancient and historical method of the country. Tradition ascribes its invention...

It was the Viceroy Mehemet Ali who revolutionized the methods of Egyptian agriculture, and introduced what is known as perennial irrigation—that is to say, irrigation all the ye...

It has already been explained that on the Nile berms or high banks, which are covered by the flood only once in six or seven years, on islands in the river, and on selected trac...

At the date of the English occupation the Delta Barrage was generally thought to be like the whole fabric of Egyptian Government, rotten to the core. And so indeed it seemed. No...

From time immemorial the peasantry of Egypt have been liable to the corvée in some form or other. In a country depending for its existence upon the proper maintenance of its dyk...

In dealing with the history of the Barrage I have somewhat anticipated the order of events. It was the prospect of the coming Reservoir and an increased water-supply in summer t...

Once the financial difficulty was settled, no time was lost in setting to work. As soon as the flood of 1898 began to subside, Messrs. Aird and Co., the contractors, were busy w...

December 10, 1902, was the official date of the inauguration of the Reservoir, a memorable day in the history of Egypt, and worthy to be marked with red even in the unchanging M...

At the inauguration of the Nile Reservoir at Assouan, it was an Egyptian Minister of Public Works who read an Arabic speech congratulating the Khedive on the completion of the g...

The completion of one programme by the construction of the Reservoir and the works dependent upon it does not mean stagnation. Irrigation is an ever-growing and ever-living scie...

If the White Nile carried its waters in a channel in any way resembling that of the Blue Nile, there would be small cause for anxiety over the summer supply of Egypt. As far as...

It is no longer possible to think of our occupation of Egypt as merely a stepping-stone on the road to India—‘the Englishman reaching far over to his loved India.’ Still less ca...

As with modern Egypt, so with the modern Soudan: the name of the Albanian tobacco-seller is writ large upon the pages of her history. In spite of the ancient connection between...

Gordon’s successor at Khartoum was Raouf Pasha, the very man whom he had dismissed from his post as Governor of Harrar two years before for oppression and other malpractices. Th...

No one whose lot it has been to travel through the night on the plains of a tropical country can forget the amazing effect produced when the sun, with one great leap, as it seem...

Khartoum would be a sad place to visit if it were nothing more than a city of memories. Happily, it is no longer so. It has indeed a history behind it, full of lessons and warni...

There is no Magna Charta in the Soudan. It is expressly laid down in the Anglo-Egyptian Agreement of 1899 that the country is to be governed under Martial Law, and all legislati...

Probably the last thing that a military government might be expected to take an interest in is education, and yet few educational establishments are so widely famous as the Gord...

Sir Rudolf von Slatin, Inspector-General of the Soudan, who possesses an unrivalled experience of the country, reports that ‘the whole situation in the country is very satisfact...

At the beginning of every year the Soudan Budget, with the estimates of receipts and expenditure for the year, has to be submitted to the Egyptian Council of Ministers. The tota...

The Nile Valley presents some peculiar examples of political organization. At one end of it is Uganda, a British Protectorate under the administration of the Foreign Office. At...

Some time ago a small detachment of Egyptian troops was passing through a village in a remote and primitive part of Kordofan. A soldier of the party, going to draw water at the...