This Is A Great
Drawback To White Nile Exploration, As, When Near The North Side Of The
Equator, The Dry Season Commences In November And Closes In February;
Thus The Departure From Khartoum Should Take Place By A Steamer In The
Latter Part Of September.
That would enable the traveller to leave
Gondokoro, lat.
N. 4 "degrees" 54', shortly before November. He would
then secure three months of favorable weather for an advance inland.
Khartoum is a wretchedly unhealthy town, containing about thirty
thousand inhabitants, exclusive of troops. In spite of its unhealthiness
and low situation, on a level with the river at the junction of the Blue
and White Niles, it is the general emporium for the trade of the Soudan,
from which the productions of the country are transported to Lower
Egypt, i.e. ivory, hides, senna, gum arabic, and beeswax. During my
experience of Khartoum it was the hotbed of the slave-trade. It will be
remarked that the exports from the Soudan are all natural productions.
There is nothing to exhibit the industry or capacity of the natives. The
ivory is the produce of violence and robbery; the hides are the simple
sun-dried skins of oxen; the senna grows wild upon the desert; the gum
arabic exudes spontaneously from the bushes of the jungle; and the
bees-wax is the produce of the only industrious creatures in that
detestable country.
When we regard the general aspect of the Soudan, it is extreme
wretchedness. The rainfall is uncertain and scanty; thus the country is
a desert, dependent entirely upon irrigation. Although cultivation is
simply impossible without a supply of water, one of the most onerous
taxes is that upon the sageer or water-wheel, with which the fields are
irrigated on the borders of the Nile. It would appear natural that,
instead of a tax, a premium should be offered for the erection of such
means of irrigation, which would increase the revenue by extending
cultivation, the produce of which might bear an impost. With all the
talent and industry of the native Egyptians, who must naturally depend
upon the waters of the Nile for their existence, it is extraordinary
that for thousands of years they have adhered to their original simple
form of mechanical irrigation, without improvement.
The general aspect of the Soudan is that of misery; nor is there a
single feature of attraction to recompense a European for the drawbacks
of pestilential climate and brutal associations. To a stranger it
appears a superlative folly that the Egyptian Government should have
retained a possession the occupation of which is wholly unprofitable,
the receipts being far below the expenditure malgre the increased
taxation. At so great a distance from the sea-coast and hemmed in by
immense deserts, there is a difficulty of transport that must nullify
all commercial transactions on an extended scale.
The great and most important article of commerce as an export from the
Soudan is gum arabic. This is produced by several species of mimosa, the
finest quality being a product of Kordofan; the other natural
productions exported are senna, hides, and ivory.
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