THE CONQUEST OF ETHIOPIA. 299 streams of the Rahad and the Dender ; and the White Nile, though flowing for the greater part of his known course through an immense plain, boasts two important affluents — the Sobat and the Bahr el-Ghazal. The soil, climate, productions and character of the scenery of this region are therefore very different from Egypt.

Before the conquest of Soudan by Mohammed Ali, little was known of the country between the Ethiopian Nile and the Red Sea, or of Central Africa south of the latitude of Kordofan and Sennaar. The White Nile, it is true, was known to exist, but was considered as a tributary stream. It was extremely difficult and dangerous to proceed beyond Nubia, and then only in company with the yearly caravans which passed between Assouan and Sennaar. Ibrahim Pasha, Ismail Pasha, and Mohammed Bey Defterdar, between the years 1820 and 1825, gradually subjugated and attached to the rule of Egypt the countries of Berber, Shendy and Sennaar, as far as the mountains of Fazogl, in lat. 11°, on the south-western frontier of Abyssinia, the wild domains of the Shukorees, the Bisharees, the Hallengas and Hadendoas, extending to the Bed Sea, and embracing the seaport of Sowakin, and the kingdom of Kordofan, west of the Nile, and bounded by the large and powerful negro kingdom of Bar-Fur. The Egyptian possessions in Soudan are nearly as extensive as all Egypt, Nubia not included, and might become even richer and more flourishing under a just and liberal policy of government. The plains on both sides of the Nile might be irrigated to a much greater extent than in Egypt, and many vast tracts of territory given up to the nomadic tribes, could readily be reclaimed from the wilderness. The native inhabitants are infinitely more stupid