EMPIRE BUILDING IN THE SUDAN Niles. Those regions have been built up in the same man¬ ner as Egypt, and they contain all the rich fertilizing materials which have made the Lower Nile valley one of the great grain lands of the world. The only difference is that the Egyptian soil, by the cultivation and the watering of thousands of years, has been leached of its best fertiliz¬ ing elements; while the soil of the Gezirah, as the region I have referred to is called, has hardly been touched. In¬ deed, the plain between the White and Blue Niles is so rich that, if water is put upon it, it will produce four or five crops every year, and that for many years in succession. We have millions of acres of such soil awaiting only the hand of man to bring them into the world’s markets as live commercial factors.”

“What kind of crops can be raised in that country, your Excellency?” I asked.

“Almost anything that is now produced in Egypt,” was the reply. “The Gezirah is already growing a great deal of dura, or millet. It produces an excellent wheat and also maize. In fact, that plain is now the chief granary of this part of the world. It raises so much that, when the season is good, the crops are more than the people con¬ sume, so the grain is stored away in great pits. I have seen dura pits forty feet deep and about fifty feet in dia¬ meter. They are to be found about almost every village. At ordinary times they are kept full of grain for fear of a famine, but while the Mahdi reigned, his soldiers used to rob them. The result was that whole communities were wiped out by starvation.”

“But if the bad years eat up the good ones, where is the Sudan to get its grain for export?” I inquired.

“That will come by irrigation and better transportation.

177