80 (No. 98 ECONOMIC CONDITIONS Development Company sprang into existence . This enterprise fulfilled its obligations and entirely justi tied its existence during the period of its activities. The construction of thenew railway in 1911 , through the Blue Nile province to El Obeid, however, robbed it of one of its most important assets, the gum trade of Kordofan, which naturally passed to the railway. The company was therefore wound up , and the Government took over its fleet of steamers and its workshops.

( c) Railways The railways of the Anglo -Egyptian Sudan amounting in the aggregate to little over 1,500 miles of track-cannot be considered extensive in com parison with the immense superficial area of the country (over 1,000,000 square miles ). It must, how ever, be remembered that this construction has been achieved in less than twenty years , over territories which two decades ago were peopled by wild tribes and their Arab conquerors. The introduction of a novel and costly means of transport into a land which even Gordon — who knew the country and its people as well as anyone of his day - condemned as a " hopeless and useless possession ," has nevertheless proved eminently successful.

Whilst Egypt had enjoyed the benefits of railway transport for many years, the Sudan up to 1880 possessed only one so -calledrailway line, of3 ft . 6 in . gauge , badly built and still worse equipped , running between Wadi Halfa and Sarras , and constructed at immense cost by the Khedive Ismail. The history of the State -owned Sudan railways opens practically with the campaign of 1884-5 ; and construction went on with remarkable energy and success during the period covered by that of 1897-8 . From such beginnings grew up the present admirable, if some what limited, system .

Railway construction up to the end of 1913 repre sented an outlay amounting to £E . 6,806,000 and an