CHAPTER XXI EMPIRE BUILDING IN THE SUDAN I AM just back from the palace at Khartum where I have had a long talk with Sir Francis Reginald Win¬ gate, the Sirdar of the Egyptian army and the Governor-General of the Sudan. He is the ruler of a land one fourth as large as all Europe and four times the size of any country in it excepting Russia. He has great power and can do almost anything he likes with this country and people. One of the chief officers in the wars with the Mahdi and the Khalifa, he won decoration after decoration for his bravery and military services, and was in command of the operations which finally resulted in the death of the Khalifa. It was in that year that he became Sirdar, and since then he has been bringing order out of the chaos of this part of Africa. He has pacified the warring tribes, has turned their lances and guns into ploughshares and shepherds' crooks, and is now creating civilized conditions where before have been barbarism, injustice, slavery, and war. An explorer of note before he became Governor-General, he has his prospectors travel¬ ling through every part of this vast region, and is laying out and starting the railroad, canal, irrigation, and other proj¬ ects which will open it up to trade and progressive devel¬ opment.

The Sirdar is now in his prime. He has seen perhaps fifty years of hard-working life, but he does not look over forty-five, and were it not that his hair and moustache are 175