THE COURSE OF THE NHE 13 utilitarian importance, consists of the territory drained by the Bahr-el-Ghazal and its tributaries to the east of the Great Divide, from the western side of which many rivers flow into the Congo, and eventually into the Atlantic Ocean.

The general trend of the Nile to the northward is broken in one important and one minor instance.

Entering the Sudan at a point 4 degrees above the Equator it follows a rapid but tortuous course into the regions of swamp which characterize its most southerly section above the junction with the Bahrel-Ghazal (this river being its first and only tributary on the west bank); it then takes a severe turn to the east, until once more deflected to its original direction by the flood with which the Sobat opposes it. North of Khartoum, in the Dongola province, it presents a remarkable divergence from its general course, assuming the form of the figure S on its side, the middle stretch actually flowing south-west for nearly 200 miles. During the whole of its course, the Nile only receives four tributaries of any importance—those on the east bank three in number, being the Atbara, north of Khartoum ; the Blue Nile, on which Khartoum is situated ; and the Sobat, far south, all taking their rise in Abyssinia.

Broadly speaking, the country might be divided into four sections : the desert of the north, the dry but inhabitable country of the west, the cultivatable areas of the centre and east, and the marshy, tropical regions of the south. But this classification, on