22 THE WAR IN THE SOUDAN.

CHAPTER V.

THE SOUDAN.

We now come to the true field of war, that terrible region in which has

been spilt some of England’s noblest and bravest blood—the Soudan. A few remarks are necessary to explain its position and its relations and connections

with Egypt proper.

The population of the Soudan Provinces is estimated at 12,000,000, three- fourths of them of pure or mixed negro descent, mostly pagans, but including many thousands of Mohammedan natives, some of whom were, at last accounts, making war under the direction of the Mahdi’s agents upon the Egyptian garrisons in the Bahr el Ghazal Province. The remaining millions are Arabs,

whose ancestors entered the country centuries ago by way of Egypt and the

Nile, and the indigenous peoples north-west of Abyssinia and in the Nubian Desert, from whom Osman Digna’s army is recruited. They are not Arabs, though commonly called so, but they equal the Arab tribes of Kordofan and Darfur in ferocity and fanatical zeal. Lieut.-Colonel Stewart, in his report

two years ago on the Egyptian Soudan, gives an interesting account of the nomad Arabs of Kordofan and Darfur, who are the mainstay of the Mahdi. He says they are born robbers, hunters, and warriors, who leave manual work to their women, and, after caring for their cattle, devote all their time and energies to slave hunting and war. They are all large owners of cattle,

camels, horses, and slaves. The Nile for 500 miles from Khartoum to the Sobat River is held by cattle-raising Arab tribes, and it was estimated ten years ago that there were 6,000,000 beeves, besides an immense number of sheep, in the Egyptian Soudan.

Two years ago Egypt was about to divide its Soudanese possessions into four administrative districts, when the Madhi ruined the Khedive’s project.

The proposed districts, Western Soudan, Central Soudan, Eastern Soudan, and Harrar, all have their distinctive geographical features. Western Soudan, including Dongola, Kordofan and Darfur, is strikingly uniform in the steppes¬ like character and partial aridity of the country. Many Arab tribes live in these regions, each wandering with its herds within certain well-known limits.

Southern Darfur, however, is very fertile, and supports a population estimated at 600,000 people. The Bahr of Ghazal region on the south is also rich in resources, and Lupton Bey, its Governor, sent word late in 1883 that, though

he was fighting with four tribes that had espoused the Madhi’s causes, his