GORDON AND THE MAHDI.
11
in the deseet.
CHAPTER II. Abyssinia and the Soudan, would have been a desolate sandy waste like the vast deserts still existing eastand
west of the river. The drainage of the Nile basinis from the south-east to the north-west,and the richly-watered tracts on the river's eastern bank are much more fertile than the dryprovinces of Kordofan and Darfour on its
western. Between the Atbara, which flows into theNile a short distance above Berber,and theRahat,a tributary of theBlue Nile, there extends a magnificent stretchof fertile country, theancientlandof Meroe. This,withthe entireprovince of Taka, the tracts wateredby the Rahat and the Dender, and the district betweenthe Blue and White Niles,possesses a soil and climate favourable to the cultivationofall kinds of tropicalproduce, andmore especiallyof cotton. Kordofan, on the western bank of the White Nile,remains for the most part uncultivated and barren,on account of the scarcity of water in its northernhalf. Its north and west form a monotonous desert, the highest point of which is El Obeid,thecapital. In the south, where the rains last longer, the soil is richer, and extensive forests are to be found.
The principal towns of the Soudan are situate on the j Nile. Khartoum, at the confluence of the Blue and Jr White Niles,is about equidistant from thenorthernboun- Js daryof Egypt,the Mediterranean,andthe southernlimit^r of the Khedive's equatorial dominions, the Victorur Nyanza. It is thecapitalof the Soudan, and was founded by Mehemet Ali, who,when he had completed tha/con- quest of Kordofan,and the submission of the Jfedouin
tribes in 1820, at once recognized the commercial and strategic importanceof the site whereon E^hartoum now stands. A palace for its governor, barracks for a garrison,anarsenal, and a shipyard were constructed in
Geographical position of the Soudan.— Natural features,— Its various
provinces andextent.— Its principal towns.— Its semifertile ami barren deserts. —The various races inhabiting the Soudan.— Its settled and nomadic tribes.—
Their more striking characteristics and warlike propensities. "TheSoudan,"saysSir Samuel Baker, "is a namethat conveysnoidea of definedfrontier,or ofcivilized territory; it is a vague term, signifying 'a country of blacks,'
whichmight include anyportion of Africa fromthe Red Sea to the Atlantic." It is commonlyappliedto thatvast
tract comprising,fromEgypt on thenorth to theNyanza lakes on the south, upwards of twenty degrees of latitude,and extending on the east from theBed Sea to
the boundaries of Darfour on the west. Its shape is irregular,andthe districtsintowhich it isdividedpresent somemarkeddifferencesin their natural features, whilst their boundaries are, as Said Pasha observedof those of Egypt, "very elastic." Independent of the 530,000 square miles of Nubian desert Lying south of the first
cataract of the Nile, the Soudan, includingthe provinces of Kordofan and Darfour in the west, Senaar, Taka, Sanheit, and the coast districts of Suakim and Mas- sowah in the east, and the Mudiratcs of Fashoda, Bahr Ghazal, and theEquatorial Provincesin the south, has an extent of some 516,000 square miles, of which
67,000 belong to Kordofan and 280,000 to Darfour. The Nile,issuing from the lakes near the Equator,is the onlysource of life to the entire region. It is not surprising that the ancient Egyptians worshipped this river as a god, for without it their country, which had beencreated by the deposit of mudbrought downby the river Atbara (one of the tributaries of the Nile) from