(Egypt and Sudan) (And Negotiations) Sudan contains the sources of the Nile and the greater part of its course. Egypt lived without Sudan in days when its rulers were a savage people, possessing neither European knowledge nor its aims, nor the ability to deprive Egypt or diminish its share of this river, which flowed naturally, sustaining this fertile and bountiful valley. For Egypt, as Herodotus said, is the gift of the Nile; without it, it would be the same as the Libyan desert in its aridity and barrenness.

Contact between Egypt and Sudan has persisted since the earliest periods of history until the time of Muhammad Ali. When he, may God have mercy on him, sensed the ambitions of the Europeans and their desires to colonize the Black Continent, he feared that