CAIRO TO KISUMU fast, so that at ten years of age it was made the seat of the government of the Sudan and became an impor¬ tant commercial centre. It was here that Gordon made his effort to break up the slave trade and here that he was killed. He was butchered on the steps of a building on the site of the present Governor-General's palace. Then the Mahdist leader declared that Khartum should be wiped out. He destroyed all the houses and made the inhabi¬ tants come to his new capital, Omdurman, which he had laid out on the other side of the White Nile about five miles to the south. When the people left they tore off the roofs and pulled out the doors of their houses and carried them along to use in their new houses at Omdurman.

" After that, for years, and until Kitchener came, Khartum was nothing but a brick pile and a dust heap. Omdurman had swallowed up not only its whole popu¬ lation, but that of a great part of the Sudan; for the Kha¬ lifa forced the tribes to come there to live, in order that he might have their men ready for his army in times of war. The result was that Omdurman had more than a half million inhabitants while Khartum had none.

‘‘Then we had the war with the Khalifa, whom we finally conquered," the Governor continued. “After we had reduced the greater part of Omdurman to ruins, we began planning the building of a great city. The idea at first was to force the people to move from Omdurman to Khartum, but it was finally decided that it would be far better to have a native city there, and to make this place the government and foreign centre, with a manufacturing and commercial town at Halfaya, or Khartum, North, on the northern bank of the Blue Nile.

168