Anglo-Feyptian ] POPULATION ; TOWNS, ETC. 21 Movement No country in the world has suffered in recent times such great fluctuations of population as the Sudan . Before the Dervish period (1881) the inhabitants were reckoned at 81 millions, but the immense wastagefrom warfare and disease under the rule of the Mahdi and Khalifa had so reduced them that in 1904 they num . bered less than 2 millions. The population of theBahı el-Ghazal province fell in this interval from 1į millions to 400,000 ; that of Sennar from a million to 150,000 ; of . Berber from 800,000 to 83,000 ; of Kassala from 500,000 to 74,000 ; of Khartum from 700,000 to 81,000 ; and of other districts in like proportion. Of the 800 villages which in 1883 existed on the banks of the Dinder and Rahad , in 1900 not one remained. Though the inhabi . tants are increasing steadily under British rule, and the rate will be greatly accelerated as the numerous children born since 1898 become of marriageable age, the country is still under-populated . The estimated numbers in 1917 had risen to 31 millions, the most substantial increase being in the provinces of Bahi el -Ghazal (now 1,000,000 ), Upper Nile ( from 150,000 to 300,000), Blue Nile ( from 132,000 to 192,800 ), and Khartum ( 135,000 ) .

The movement of the black races from south to north, which was formerly caused by the slave trade, is now modified , although continued to some extent by the demand for free labour .

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