CAIRO TO KISUMU Until the Upper Nile irrigation projects can be put through the people must rely, as they do now, upon the rainfall, which is uncertain. When those plans have been carried out the country can be irrigated by the two Niles without diminishing the supply of water required for Egypt. Then the land will have water all the year round. Im¬ proved methods of cultivation will enormously increase the crops. At present the native merely walks over the ground after a rain and stirs it up with a stick while his wife or children follow behind dropping the seeds and cover¬ ing them with their feet. Nothing more is done until two months later, when the crop is ready for reaping/' “How about cotton?" “ I see no reason why the Sudan should not eventually be one of the big cotton countries of the globe. We are experimenting with it in all the provinces and are meeting with success. The land between the White and Blue Niles might be made one great cotton plantation, and the quality of the crop would be excellent. We are now rais¬ ing fine cotton on the Red Sea near Suakim, and the crop is a profitable one. Plantations are also being set out by foreigners near Khartum. The cotton raised is fully equal to the best Egyptian."

“But how about your labour, your Excellency; have you the workmen necessary to cultivate such crops?"

“That is a problem which only the future can solve," replied the Sirdar. “We have all kinds of natives here, representing the different stages of savagery and semi¬ civilization. While there are a great many tribes whose people can be taught to work, others will need many years of training before they can be made into such farmers as we have in Egypt and India. We have some who will 178