70 (No. 98 ECONOMIC CONDITIONS ( 6) Waterways Of primary importance in the life of the Sudan, as a means alike of communication and of irrigation, is the Nile, which, with a total length of about 3,470 miles, is the longest river in Africa and the second longest in the world. Issuing by way of the Ripon Falls from Victoria Nyanza (Lake Victoria) in Uganda, at an altitude of more than 3,700 ft ., it follows in the main a northerly course until it reaches the Mediterranean at Damietta in Egypt. For more than three -fifths of its course it flows through the Sudan .

For purposes of easy reference the Nile is usually divided into three sections: the Upper Nile, from the source to Lake No ; the White Nile, from Lake No to Khartum ; and the Main Nile , formed by the union of the Blue Nile and the White Nile , from Khartum to the sea .

( i) The Upper Nile, known to the natives as Bahr el-Jebel ( river of the mountains ) , enters the Sudan at a point just south of Nimule, the first Anglo Egyptian Sudan post . Below Nimule the river narrows and becomes a series of foaming torrents among rocks and boulders in the Fola Rapids and the Bedden Rapids for a distance of nearly 100 miles to Rejaf, whence it is navigable by large steamers to Khartum , a distance of about 1,100 miles . The river passes the old stations of Gondokoro on the right bank , Lado (28 miles from Rejaf) on the left, and Mongalla, 21 miles farther down, on the right bank . It then flows on to Bor ( 116 miles below Rejaf); and thence by many channels througha swampy regionto Shambe, 128 miles 1 There are considerable discrepancies in the estimates of the distances on the Nile as given by various authorities. The figures here given are for the most part taken from the tables in The Anglo -Egyptian Sudan , edited by Lord Edward Gleichen , except those relating to the cataracts , which are from The Physiography of the River Nile and its Basin , by Captain H. G. Lyons .