THE  ANGLO-

EGYPTIAN SUDAN The region which before the revolt of the Arabized tribes under the Mandi Mahommed Ahmed in 1881–84 was known as the Egyptian Sudan has, since its reconquest by an 1 a s the Anglo-Egyptian expeditions of 1896-98, been under the joint sovereignty of Great Britain and Egypt . The limits of this condominium differ slightly from those of the Egyptian Sudan of the pre-Mandi period . It is bounded N. by Egypt (the 22nd parallel of N. lat. being the dividing- line), E. by the Red Sea, Eritrea and Abyssinia, S. by the Uganda Protectorate and Belgian Congo, W. by French Congo . North of Darfur is the Libyan Desert, in which the western and northern frontiers meet . Here the boundary is undefined.' As thus constituted the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan forms a compact territory which, being joined southwards by the Uganda Protectorate, brings the whole of the Nile valley from the equatorial lakes to the Mediterranean under the control of Great Britain . The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan extends north to south about 1200 M. in a direct line, and west to east about moo m. also in a direct line . It covers 950,000 sq. m., being about one-fourth the area of Europe . In what follows the term Sudan is used to indicate the Anglo-Egyptian condominium only . Physical Features.—The Sudan presents many diversified features . It may be divided broadly into two zones . The northern portion, from about 16° N., is practically the south-eastern continuation of the Saharan desert; the southern region is fertile, abundantly watered, and in places densely forested . West of the Nile there is a distinctly marked intermediate zone of steppes .

In the southern

district, between 5° and to° N., huge swamps extend on either side of the Nile and along the Bahr-el-Ghazal . From south to north the Sudan is traversed by the Nile (q.v.), and all the great tributaries of that river are either partly or entirely within its borders . The most elevated district is a range of mountains running parallel to the Red Sea . These mountains, which to the south join the Abyssinian highlands, present their steepest face eastward, attaining heights within the Sudan of 4000 to over 7000 ft . Jebel Erba, 7480 ft., and Jebel Soturba, 6889 ft . (both between 21° and 22° N.), the highest peaks, face the Red Sea about 20 m. inland . Westward the mountains slope gradually to the Nile valley, which occupies the greater part of the country and has a general level of from 600 to 1600 ft . In places, as between Suakin and Berber and above Roseires on the Blue Nile, the mountains approach close to the river . Beyond the Nile westward extend vast plains, which in Kordofan and Dar Nuba (between to° and 15° N.) are broken by hills reaching 2000 ft . Farther west, in Darfur, the country is more elevated, the Jebel Marra range being from 5000 to 6000 ft. high . In the south-west, beyond the valley of the Bahr-el-Ghazal, the country gradually rises to a ridge of hills, perhaps 2000 ft. high, which running south-eastandnorth-west form the water-parting between the Nile and the Congo . Apart from the Nile system, fully described elsewhere, the Sudan has two other rivers, the Gash and the Baraka .

These are intermittent streams rising in the eastern

chain of mountains in Eritrea and flowing in a general northerly direction . The Gash enters the Sudan near Kassala and north of that town turns west towards the Atbara, but its waters are dissipated before that river is reached . The Gash nevertheless fertilizes a considerable tract of country . The Khor Baraka lies east of the Gash . It flows towards the Red Sea in the neighbourhood of Trinkitat (some 5o m. south of Suakin), but about 30 m. from the coast forms an inland delta . Except in seasons of great rain its waters do not reach the sea . The Coast Region.—The coast extends along the Red Sea north to south from 22° N. to 18° N., a distance following the indentations of the shore of over 400 M . These indentations are numerous but not deep, the general trend of the coast being S.S.E . The most prominent headland is Ras Rawaya (21° N.) which forms the northern shore of Dokhana Bay . There are few good harbours, Port 1 It was supposed to be indicated by the line which, according to the Turkish firman of 1841, describes a semicircle from the Siwa Oasis to Wadai, approaching the Nile between the Second and Third Cataracts . This line is disregarded by the Sudan government . Sudan and Suakin being the chief ports .

South of Suakin is the shallow bay of Trinkitat . A large number of small islands

lie off the coast . A belt of sandy land covered with low scrub stretches inland ten to twenty miles, and is traversed by khors (generally dry) with ill-defined shifting channels . Beyond this plain rise the mountain ranges already mentioned . Their seaward slopes often bear a considerable amount of vegetation . The Desert Zone.—The greater part of the region between the coast and the Nile is known as the Nubian Desert . It is a rugged, rocky, barren waste, scored with khors or wadis, along whose beds there is scanty vegetation . The desert character of the country increases as the river is neared, but along either bank of the Nile is a narrow strip of cultivable land . West of the Nile there are a few oases--those of Selima, Zaghawa and El Kab—but this district, part of the Libyan Desert, is even more desolate than the Nubian Desert . The Intermediate Zone and the Fertile Districts.—East of the . Nile the region of absolute desert ceases about the point of the Atbara confluence . The country enclosed by the Nile, the Atbara and the Blue Nile, the so-called Island of Meroe, consists of very fertile soil, and along the eastern frontier, by the upper courses of the rivers named, is a district of rich land alternating with prairies and open forests .

The

fork between the White and Blue Niles, the Gezira, is also fertile land . South of the Gezira is Sennar, a well watered country of arable and grazing land . West of the Nile the desert zone extends farther south than on the east, and Kordofan, which comes between the desert and the plains of the Bahr-el-Ghazal, is largely barren and steppe land . South of to° N. there is everywhere abundance of water . Darfur is mainly open, steppe-like country with extensive tracts of cultivable land and a central mountain massif, the Jebel Marra (see SENNAR KORDOFAN, DARFUR) . Climate.—The country lies wholly within the tropics, and as the greater part of it is far removed from the ocean and less than 1500 ft. above the sea it is extremely hot . The heat is greatest in the central regions, least in the desert zone, where the difference between summer and winter is marked . Even in winter, however, the day temperatures are high . Of this region the Arabs say " the soil is like fire and the wind like a flame." Nevertheless, the dryness of the air renders the climate healthy . The steppe countries, Kordofan and Darfur, are also healthy except after the autumn rains . At Khartum, centrally situated, the minimum temperature is about 4o° F., the maximum 113°, the mean annual temperature being 80° . January is the coldest and June the hottest month .

Violent

sand-storms are frequent from June to August . Four rain zones may be distinguished . The northern (desert) region is one of little or no rain . There are perhaps a few rainy days in winter and an occasional storm in the summer . In the central belt, where " the' rainy season " is from mid-June to September, there are some to in. of rain during the year . The number of days on which rain falls rarely exceeds, however, fifteen . The rainfall increases to about 20 in. per annum in the eastern and south-eastern regions . In the swamp district and throughout the Bahr-el-Ghazal heavy rains (40 in. or more a year) are experienced . The season of heaviest rain is from April to September . In the maritime district there are occasional heavy rains between August and January . In the sudd region thunderstorms are frequent . Here the temperature averages about 85° F., the air is always damp and fever is endemic .

Flora.—In the deserts north of Khartum vegetation is almost confined to stunted mimosa and, in the less arid districts, scanty herbage . Between the desert and the cultivated Nile lands is an open growth of samr, hashab (Acacia verek) and other acacia trees . Between Khartum and 12° N. forest belts line the banks of the rivers and khors, in which the most noteworthy tree is the sant or sunt (Acacia arabica) . Farther from the rivers are open woods of heglig (Balanites aegyptiaca), hashab, &c., and dense thickets of laot (Acacia nubica) and kittr (Acacia mellifera) . These open woods cover a considerable part of Kordofan, the hashab and talh trees being the chief producers of gum arabic . South of 12° N. the forest lands of the White Nile as far southas the sudd region are of similar character to that described . On the Blue Nile the forest trees alter, the most abundant being the babanus (Sudan ebony) and the silag (Anogeissus leiocarpus), while gigantic baobabs, called tebeldi in the Sudan, and tarfa (Sterculia cinerea) are numerous . In southern Kordofan and in the higher parts of the Bahr-el-Ghazal the silag and ebony are also common, as well as African mahogany (homraya, Khaya senegalensis) and other timber trees . In the Ghazal province also are many rubber-producing lianas, among them the Landolphia owariensis . There are also forest regions in the Bahr-el-Jebel, in the Mongalla mudiria and along the Abyssinian-Eritrean frontier . East of the Bahr-el-Jebel and north of the Bahr-el-Ghazal are vast prairies covered with tall coarse grass . Cotton is indigenous in the valley of the Blue Nile, and in some districts bamboos are plentiful .

The

castor-oil plant grows in almost every province . (See also § Agriculture, and, for the vegetation of the swamp region, NILE.) Fauna.—Wild animals and birds are numerous . Elephants are abundant in the Bahr-el-Ghazal and Bahr-el-Jebel forests, and are found in fewer numbers in the upper valley of the Blue Nile . The hippopotamus and crocodile abound in the swamp regions, which also shelter many kinds of water-fowl . The lion, leopard, giraffe and various kinds of antelope are found in the prairies and in the open woods . In the forests are numerous bright-plumaged birds and many species of monkeys, mostly ground monkeys—the trees being too prickly for climbing . Snakes are also plentiful, many poisonous kinds being found . In the steppe regions of Kordofan, Darfur, &c., and in the Nubian Desert ostriches are fairly plentiful . Insect life is very abundant, especially south of i2° N., the northern limit of the tsetse fly . The chief pests are mosquitoes, termites and the serut, a brown fly about the size of a wasp, with a sharp stab, which chiefly attacks cattle . Locusts are less common, but, especially in the eastern districts, occasionally cause great destruction . For domestic animals see § Agriculture .

Inhabitants.—The

population, always sparse in the desert and steppe regions, was never dense even in the more fertile southern districts . During the Mandia the country suffered severely from war and disease . Excluding Darfur the population before the Mandist rule was estimated at 8,500,000 . In 1905 an estimate made by the Sudan government put the population at 1,853,000 only, including 1i,000 foreigners, of whom 2800 were Europeans . Since that year there has been a considerable natural increase and in 1910 the population was officially estimated at 2,400,000 . There has also been a slight immigration of Abyssinians, Egyptians, Syrians and Europeans —the last named chiefly Greeks . The term " Bilad-es-Sudan " (" country of the blacks ") is not altogether applicable to the Anglo-Egyptian condominium, the northern portion being occupied by Hamitic and Semitic tribes, chiefly nomads, and classed as Arabs . In the Nile valley north of Khartum the inhabitants are of very mixed origin . This applies particularly to the so-called Nubians who inhabit the Dongola mudiria (see NuBIA) . Elsewhere the inhabitants north of 12° N. are of mixed Arab descent . In the Nubian Desert the chief tribes are the Ababda and Bisharin, the last named grazing their camels in the mountainous districts towards the Red Sea . In the region south of Berber and Suakin are the Hadendoa .

The Jaalin,

Hassania and Shukria inhabit the country between the Atbara and Blue Nile; the Hassania and Hassanat are found chiefly in the Gezira . The Kabbabish occupy the desert country north of Kordofan, which is the home of the Baggara tribes . In Darfur the inhabitants are of mixed Arab and negro blood . Of negro Nilotic tribes there are three or four main divisions . The Shilluks occupy the country along the west side of the Nile northward from about Lake No . The country east of the Nile is divided between the Bari, Nuer and Dinka tribes . The Dinkas are also widely spread over the Bahr-el-Ghazal province . South of Kordofan and west of the Shilluk territory are the Nubas, apparently the original stock of the Nubians . In the south-west of the Bahr-el-Ghazal are the Bongos and other tribes, and along the Nile-Congo water-parting are the A-Zande or Niam-Niam, a comparatively light-coloured race . (All the tribes mentioned are separately noticed.) Social Conditions.—In contrast with the Egyptians, a most industrious race, the Sudanese tribes, both Arab and negro, are as a general rule indolent . Where wants are few and simple, where houses need not be built nor clothes worn to keep out the cold, there is little stimulus to exertion . Many Arabs " clothed in rags, with only a mat for a house, prefer to lead the life of the free-born sons of the desert, no matter how large their herds or how numerous their followings" (Egypt, No .

1 [1904], p . 147) . Following the

establishment of British control slave-raiding and the slave trade were stopped, but domestic slavery continues . A genuine desire for education is manifest among the Arabic-speaking peoples and slow but distinct moral improvement is visible among them . Among the riverain " Arabs" some were found to supply labour for public works, and with the money thus obtained cattle were bought and farms started . The Dongolese are the keenest traders in the country . The Arab tribes are all Mahommedans, credulous and singularly liable to fits of religious excitement . Most of the negro tribes are pagan, but some of them who live in the northern regions have embraced Islam . Divisions and Chief Towns.—Darfur is under native rule . The rest of the Sudan is divided into mudirias (provinces) and these are subdivided into mamuria . The mudirias are Haifa, Red Sea, Dongola and Berber in the north (these include practically all the region known as Nubia); Khartum, Blue Nile and White Nile in the centre; Kassala and Sennar in the east; Kordofan in the west; and Bahrel-Ghazal, Upper Nile (formerly Fashoda) and Mongalla in the south . The mudirias vary considerably in size .

The

capital, Khartum (.v.), pop. with suburbs about 70,000, is built in the fork formed by the junction of the White and Blue Niles . Opposite Khartum, on the west bank of the white Nile, is Omdurman (q.v.), pop. about 43,000, the capital of the Sudan during the Mandia . On the Nile north of Khartum at the towns of Berber, Abu Hamed, Merawi (Merowe), Dongola and Wadi Haifa . On the Red Sea are Port Sudan and Suakin . Kassala is on the river Gash east of the Atbara and near the Eritrean frontier . (These towns are separately noticed.) On the Blue Nile are Kamlin, Sennar, Wad Medani (q.v.), pop. about 20,000, a thriving business centre and capital of the Blue Nile mudiria, and Roseires, which marks the limit of navigability by steamers of the river . Gallabat is a town in the Kassala mudiria close to the Abyssinian frontier, and Gedaref lies between the Blue Nile and Atbara a little north of i4° N . El Obeid, the chief town of Kordofan, is 230 M. south-west by south of Khartum . Duiem, capital of the White Nile mudiria, is the river port for Kordofan . El Fasher, the capital of Darfur, is 500 M . W.S.W. of Khartum . All the towns named, except Roseires, are situated north of 13° N .

In the south of the Sudan there are no towns properly so called . The native villages are composed of

straw or palm huts; the places occupied by Europeans or Egyptians are merely " posts " where the administrative business of the district is carried on . Fashoda (q.v.), renamed Kodok, is the headquarters of the Upper Nile mudiria . Communications.—North of Khartum the chief means of communication is by railway; south of that city by steamer . There are two trunk railways, one connecting the Sudan with Egypt, the other affording access to the Red Sea . The first line runs from the Nile at Wadi Haifa across the desert in a direct line to Abu Hamed, and from that point follows more or less closely the right (east) bank of the Nile to Khartum . At Khartum the Blue Nile is bridged and the railway is continued south through the Gezira to Sennar . Thence it turns west, crosses the White Nile near Abba Island, and is continued to El Obeid . The length of the line from Haifa to Khartum is 575 m.; from Khartum to Obeid 350 M . The railway from the Nile to the Red Sea starts from the Halfa-Khartum line at Atbara Junction, a mile north of the Atbara confluence . It runs somewhat south of the Berber-Suakin caravan route . At Sallom, 278 in. from Atbara Junction, the line divides, one branch going north to Port Sudan, the other south to Suakin .

The

total distance to Port Sudan from Khartum is 493 m., the line to Suakin being 4 m. longer . Besides these main lines a railway, 138 in. long, runs from Abu Hamed on the right bank of the Nile to Kareima (opposite Merawi) in the Dongola mudiria below the Fourth Cataract . (The railway which started from Haifa and followed the right bank of the Nile to Kerma, 201 M. from Haifa, was abandoned in 1903.) The railways are owned and worked by the state . In connexion with the Khartum-Halfa railway steamers ply on the Nile between Haifa and Shellal (Assuan) where the railway from Alexandria ends . The distance by rail and steamer between Khartum and Alexandria is about 1490 in . Steamers run on the Nile between Kerma and Kareima, and above Khartum the government maintains a regular service of steamers as far south as Condokoro in the Uganda Protectorate . During flood season there is also a steamship service on the Blue Nile . Powerful dredgers and sudd-cutting machines are used to keep open communications in the upper Nile and Bahr-el-Ghazal . The ancient caravan routes Korosko-Abu Hamed and Berber-Suakin have been superseded by the railways, but elsewhere wells and rest-houses are maintained along the main routes between the towns and the Nile . On some of these roads a motor car service is maintained . From Port Sudan and Suakin there is a regular steamship service to Europe via the Suez Canal . There are also services to Alexandria, the Red Sea ports of Arabia, Aden and India .

There is an extensive telegraphic system . Khartum is connected by land lines with Egypt and Uganda, thus affording direct telegraphic connexion between Alexandria and

Mombasa (2500 m.) . From Khartum other lines go to Kassala and the Red Sea ports . In some places the telegraph wires are placed 16 ft . 6 in. above the ground to protect them from damage by giraffes . Agriculture and other Industries.—North of Khartum agricuI-tural land is confined to a narrow strip on either side of the Nile and to the few oases in the Libyan Desert . In the Gezira and in the plains of Gedaref between the Blue Nile and the Atbara there are wide areas of arable land, as also in the neighbourhood of Kassala along the banks of the Gash . In Kordofan and Darfur cultivation is confined to the khors or valleys . The chief grain crop is durra, the staple food of the Sudanese . Two crops are obtained yearly in several districts . On lands near the rivers the durra is sown after the flood has gone down and also at the beginning of the rainy season . Considerable quantities of wheat and barley are also grown .

Other foodstuffs raised are lentils, beans, onions and melons . The date-palm is cultivated along the Nile valley below Khartum, especially on the west bank in the Dongola mudiria and in the neighbouring oases .

Dates are also a staple product in Darfur and Kordofan . Ground-nuts and sesame are grown in large quantities for the oil they yield, and cotton of quality equal to that grown in the Delta is produced . The Sudan was indeed the original home of Egyptian cotton . For watering the land by the river banks sakias (water-wheels) are used, oxen being employed to turn them . There are also a few irrigation canals . In 1910, apart from the date plantations, about 1,500,000 acres were under cultivation . In 1910 a system of basin irrigation was begun in Dongola mudiria . Gum and rubber are the chief forest products . The gum is obtained from eastern Kordofan and in the forests in the upper valley of the Blue Nile, the best gum coming from Kordofan . It is of two kinds, hashab (white) and talh (red), the white being the most valuable .

Rubber is obtained from the Bahr-el-Ghazalwhere there are

Para and Ceara rubber plantations—and in the Sobat district . The wood of the sunt tree is used largely for boat-building and for fuel, and the mahogany tree yields excellent timber . Fibre is made from several trees and plants . Elephants are hunted for the sake of their ivory . The wealth of the Arab tribes consists largely in their herds of camels, horses and cattle . They also keep ostrich farms, the feathers being of good quality . The Dongola breed of horses is noted for its strength and hardness . The camels are bred in the desert north of Berber, between the Nile and Red Sea, in southern Dongola, in the Hadendoa country and in northern Kordofan . The Sudanese camel is lighter, faster and better bred than the camel of Egypt . The camel, horse and ostrich are not found south of Kordofan and Sennar . The negro tribes living south of those countries possess large herds of cattle, sheep and goats . The cattle are generally small and the sheep yield little wool .

The Arabs use the cattle as

draught-animals as well as for their milk and flesh; the negro tribes as a rule do not eat their oxen . Fowls are plentiful, but of poor quality . Donkeys are much used in the central regions; they make excellent transport animals . Mineral Wealth.—In ancient times Nubia, i.e. the region between the Red Sea and the Nile south of Egypt and north of the Suakin-Berber line, was worked for gold . Ruins of an extensive gold-mine exist near Jebel Erba at a short distance from the sea . In 1905 gold mining recommenced in Nubia, in the district of Um Nabardi, which is in the desert, about midway between Wadi Haifa and Abu Hamed . A light railway, 30 M. long, opened in June 1905, connects Urn Nabardi with the government railway system . The producing stage was reached in 1908, and between September 1908 and August 1909 the mines yielded 4500 oz. of gold . Small quantities of gold-dust are obtained from Kordofan, and gold is found in the Beni-Shangul country south-west of Sennar, but this region is within the Abyssinian frontier (agreement of the 15th of May 1902) . There is lignite in the Dongola mudiria and iron ore is found in Darfur, southern Kordofan and in the Bahr-el-Ghazal . In the last-named mudiria iron is worked by the natives . The district of Hofrat-el-Nahas (the copper mine) is rich in copper, the mines having been worked intermittently from remote times .

Trade.—The chief products of the Sudan for export are gum, ivory, ostrich feathers, dates and rubber . Cotton, cotton-

seed and grain (durra, wheat, barley) sesame, livestock, hides and skins, beeswax, mother-of-pearl, senna and gold are also exported . Before the opening (1906) of the railway to the Red Sea the trade was chiefly with Egypt via the Nile, and the great cost of carriage hindered its development . Since the completion of the railway named goods can be put on the world's markets at a much cheaper rate . Besides the Egyptian and Red Sea routes there is considerable trade between the eastern mudirias and Abyssinia and Eritrea, and also some trade south and west with Uganda and the Congo countries . The Red Sea ports trade largely with Arabia and engage in pearl fishery . The principal imports are cotton goods, food-stuffs (flour, rice, sugar, provisions), timber, tobacco, spirits (in large quantities), iron and machinery, candles, cement and perfumery . The value of the trade, which during the Mandist rule (1884-1898) was a few thousands only, had increased in 1905 to over £1,500,000 . In 1908 the exports of Sudan produce were valued at £E515,0001; the total imports at £E1,892,000 . Government.—The administration is based on the provisions of a convention signed on the 19th of January 189g between the British and Egyptian governments . The authority of the sovereign powers is represented by a governor-general appointed by Egypt on the recommendation of Great Britain . In 1910 a council consisting of four ex officio members and from two to four non-official nominated members was created to advise the governor-general in the exercise of his executive and legislative functions .

Subject to the

power of veto retained by the governor-general all questions are decided by a majority of the council . 1 A£E(pound Egyptian) is equal to £1, os . 6d . British currency.Each of the mudirias into which the country is divided is presided over by a mudir (governor) responsible to the central government at Khartum . The governor-general, the chiefs of the various departments of state and the mudirs are all Europeans, the majority being British military officers The minor officials are nearly all Egyptians or Sudanese . Revenue is derived as to about 6o% from the customs and revenue-earning departments (i.e. steamers, railways, posts and telegraphs), and as to the rest from taxes on land, date-trees and animals, from royalties on gum, ivory and ostrich feathers, from licences to sell spirits, carry arms, &c., and from fees paid for the shooting of game . Expenditure is largely on public works, education, justice and the army . Financial affairs are managed from Khartum, but control over expenditure is exercised by the Egyptian financial department . The revenue, which in 1898 was £E35,000, for the first time exceeded a million in 1909, when the amount realized was £EI,o4o,2oo . The expenditure in 1909 was £Er,153000 . Financially the government had been, up to 1910, largely dependent upon Egypt . In the years 1901-1909 £E4,378,000 was advanced from Cairo for public works in the Sudan; in the same period a further sum of about £E2,75o,000 had been found by Egypt to meet annual deficits in the Sudan budgets (see Egypt, No .

I [1910], pp . 5-6) . Justice.—The Sudan judicial codes, based in part on those of India and in part on the principles of

English law and of Egyptian commercial law, provide for the recognition of " customary law " so far as applicable and " not repugnant to good conscience." In each mudiria criminal justice is administered by a court, consisting of the mudir (or a judge) and two magistrates, which has general competence . The magistrates are members of the administrative staff, who try minor cases without the help of the mudir (or judge) . The governor-general possesses revising powers in all cases . Civil cases of importance are heard by a judge (or where no judge is available by the mudir or his representative); minor civil cases are tried by magistrates . From the decision of the judges an appeal lies to the legal secretary of the government, in his capacity of judicial commissioner . Jurisdiction in all legal matters as regards personal status of Mahommedans is administered by a grand cadi and a staff of subordinate cadis . The police force of each mudiria is independently organized under the control of the mudirs . Education.—Education is in charge of the department of public instruction . Elementary education, the medium of instruction being Arabic, is given in kuttabs or village schools . There are primary schools in the chief towns where English, Arabic, mathematics, and in some cases land-measuring is taught .

There are also government

industrial workshops, and a few schools for girls . The Gordon College at Khartum trains teachers and judges in the Mahommedan courts and has annexed to it a secondary school . The college also contains the Wellcome laboratories for scientific research . Among the pagan negro tribes Protestant and Roman Catholic missions are established . These missions carry on educational work, special attention being given to industrial training . Defence.—The defence of the country is entrusted to the Egyptian army, of which several regiments are stationed in the Sudan . The governor-general is sirdar (commander-in-chief) of the army . A small force of British troops is also stationed in the Sudan—chiefly at Khartum . They are. under the command of the governor-general in virtue of an arrangement made in 1905, having previously been part of the Egyptian command . For topography, &c . ,see The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, a compendium prepared by officers of the Sudan government and edited by Count Gleichen (2 vols., London, 1905); for administration, finance and trade the annual Reports [by the British agent at Cairo] on Egypt and the Sudan, since 1898 ; and the special report (Blue Book Egypt, No. ii., 1883) by Colonel D . H .

Stewart . Consult also J . Petherick, Travels in Central Africa (2 vols., London, 1862) ; W . Junker, Travels in Africa, 1875-1886 (3 vols., London, 1890-1892) ; Schweinfurth The Heart of Africa (2 vols., London, 1873) ; J . Baumgarten, Ostafrika, der Sudan and das Seengebiet (Gotha, 189o) l; E . D . Schoenfeld, Erythrda and der egyptische Sudan (Berlin, 1904); C . E . Muriel, Report on the Forests of the Sudan (Cairo, 1901); H . F . Witherby, Bird Hunting on the White Nile (London, 1902) . For ethnology .

&c., see A . H .

Keane, Ethnology of the Egyptian Sudan (London, 1884) ; H . Frobenius, Die Heiden-Neger des agyptischen Sudan (Berlin, 1893) . Scientific and medical subjects are dealt with in the Reports of the Wellcome Research Laboratories, Gordon College, Khartum . The Sudan Almanac is a valuable official publication . (F . R . C.) Archaeology.—Archaeological study in the Sudan was retarded for many years by political conditions . The work which had been begun by Cailliaud, Champollion, Lepsius and others was interrupted by the rise of the Mandist power; and with the frontiers of Egypt itself menaced by dervishes, the country south of Aswan (Assuan) was necessarily closed to the student of antiquity . Even after the dervishes had been overthrown at the battle of Omdurman (1898) it was some time before archaeologists awoke to a sense of the historical importance of the regions thus made accessible to them . Dr Wallis Budge visited several of the far southern sites and made some tentative excavations, but no extensive explorations were undertaken until an unexpected event produced a sudden outburst of activity .

This was the

resolution adopted by the Egyptian government to extend the great reservoir at the First Cataract by raising the height of the Aswan dam . As a result of this measure all sites bordering the river banks from Aswan to Abu Simbel were threatened with inundation and the scientific world took alarm . A large sum of money was assigned by the government, partly for the preservation of the visible temples in the area to be submerged, partly for an official expedition under the charge of Dr G . A . Reisner which was to search for all remains of antiquity hidden beneath the ground . At the same time the university of Pennsylvania despatched the Eckley B . Coxe, jun., expedition, which devoted its attention to the southern half of Lower Nubia from Haifa to Korosko, while the government excavators explored from Korosko to Aswan . Thus in the five years 1907–1911 inclusive an immense mass of new material was acquired which throws a flood of light on the archaeology at once of Egypt and the Sudan . For it must be clearly appreciated that though all except the southern twenty miles of Lower Nubia has been attached for purposes of administration of Egypt proper, yet this political boundary is purely artificial . The natural geographical and ethnical southern frontier of Egypt is the First Cataract; Egyptian scribes of the Olcl Empire recognized this truth no less clearly than Diocletian, and Juvenal anticipates the verdict of every modern observer when he describes the " porta Syenes " as the gate of Africa . It is the more necessary to emphasize this fact as the present article must unavoidably be concerned principally with the most northern regions of the country of the Blacks—for since the days of Lepsius there has been little new investigation south of Haifa . The hasty reconnaissances of Dr Wallis Budge, Professor A .

H .

Sayce, Mr Somers Clarke and Professor J . Garstang must be followed by more thorough and intensive study before it can be possible to write in more than very general terms of anything but the well-known monuments left by Egyptian kings whose history is already tolerably familiar from other sources . The inscriptions of these kings and their officials have been collected by Professor J . H . Breasted and some account of the temples and fortresses from Haifa to Khartum will be found in the following section, Ancient Monuments south of Haifa, while the history of the early and medieval Christian kingdoms is outlined in the articles ETHIOPIA and DONGOLA . The central and southern Sudan is therefore almost a virgin field for the archaeologist, but the exploration of Lower Nubia has made it possible to write a tentative preface to the new chapters still unrevealed . The Sudan was well named by the medieval Arab historians, for it is primarily and above all the country of the black races, of those Nilotic negroes whose birthplace may be supposed to have been near the Great Lakes . But upon this aboriginal stock were grafted in very early times fresh shoots of more vigorous and intellectual races coming probably from the East (cf . AFRICA: Ethnology) . Lower Nubia was one of the crucibles in which several times was formed a mixed nation which defied or actually dominated Egypt . There is some scientific groundfor dating the earliest example of such a fusion to the exact period of the Egyptian Old Empire .

It is certain in any

case that the process was constantly repeated at different dates and in different parts of the country from Aswan to Axum, and to the stimulation which resulted from it must be ascribed the principal political and intellectual movements of the Sudanese nations . Thus the Ethiopians who usurped the crown of the Pharaohs from 74o–66o B.C. were of a mixed stock akin to the modern Barabra; the northern Nubians who successfully defied the Roman emperors were under the lordship of the Blemyes (Blemmyes), an East African tribe, and the empire of the Candace dynasty, no less than the Christian kingdoms which succeeded it, included many heterogeneous racial elements (see also NUBIA) . The real history of the Sudan will therefore be concerned with the evolution of what may be called East African or East Central African civilizations . Up to the present, however, this aspect has been obscured, for until 1907 scholars had little opportunity of studying ancient Ethiopia except as a colonial extension of Egypt . From the purely Egyptological standpoint there is much of value to be learned from the Sudan . The Egyptian penetration of the country began, according to the evidence of inscriptions, as early as the 'Old Empire . Under the XIIth Dynasty colonies were planted and fortresses established down to the Batn-el-Hagar . During the XVIIIth Dynasty the political subjugation was completed and the newly won territories were studded with cities and temples as far south as the Fourth Cataract . Some two hundred years later the priests of Amen (Ammon), flying from Thebes, founded a quasi-Egyptian capital at Napata . But after this date Egypt played no part in the evolution of Ethiopia . Politically moribund, it succumbed to the attacks of its virile southern neighbours, who, having emerged from foreign tutelage, developed according to the natural laws of their own genius and environment . The history of Ethiopia therefore as an independent civilization may be said to date from the 8th century B.C., though future researches may be able to carry its infant origins to a remoter past .

Of the thousand years or more of effective Egyptian occupation many monuments exist, but on a broad general view it must be pronounced that they owe their fame more to the

accident of survival than to any special., intrinsic value . For excepting Philae, which belongs as much to Egypt as to Ethiopia, Abu Simbel is the only temple which can be ranked among first rate products of Egyptian genius . The other temples, attractive as they are, possess rather a local than a universal interest . Similarly while the exploration of the Egyptian colonies south of the First Cataract has added many details to our knowledge of political history, of local cults and provincial organization, yet with one exception it has not affected the known outlines of the history of civilization . This exception is the discovery made by Dr G . A . Reisner that the archaic culture first detected at Nagada and Abydos and then at many points as far north as Giza extended southwards into Nubia at least as far as Gerf Husein . This was wholly unexpected, and if, as seems probable, the evidence stands the test of criticism, it is a new historical fact of great importance . The government expedition found traces between Aswan and Korosko of all the principal periods from this early date down to the Christian era . The specimens 'obtained are kept in a separate room of the Cairo Museum, where they form a collection of great value . The work of the Pennsylvanian expedition, however, while adding only a few details to the archaeology of the Egyptian periods, has opened a new chapter in the history of the African races . No records indeed were discovered of the founders of the first great Ethiopian kingdom from Piankhi to Tirhakah, nor has any fresh light been thrown upon the relations which that remarkable king Ergamenes maintained with the Egyptian Ptolemies .

But the exploration of sites in the southern half of Lower Nubia has revealed the existence of a wholly unsuspected independent civilization which

grew up during the first six -centuries after Christ . The history of the succeeding periods, moreover, has been partially recovered and the study of architecture enriched by the excavation of numerous churches dating from the time of Justinian, when Nubia was first Christianized, down to the late medieval period when Christianity was extirpated by Mahommedanism . The civilization of the first six centuries A.D. may be called " Romano-Nubian," a term which indicates its date and suggests something of its character . It is the product of a people living on the borders of the Roman Empire who inherited much of the Hellenistic tradition in minor arts but combined it with a remarkable power of independent origination . The sites on which it has been observed range from Dakka to Halfa, that is to say within the precise limits which late Latin and Greek writers assign to the Blemyes, and there is good reason,.to identify the people that evolved it with this hitherto almost unknown barbarian nation . Apart from this, however, the greatest value of the new discoveries will consist in the fact that they may lay the foundations for a new documentary record of past ages . For the graves yielded not only new types of statues, bronzes, ivory carvings and painted pottery—all of the highest artistic value—but also a large number of stone stelae inscribed with funerary formulae in the Meroitic script . In the course of sixty years the small collection of Meroitic inscriptions made by Lepsius had not been enlarged and no progress had been made towards decipherment . But the cemeteries of Shablul and Karanog alone yielded 170 inscriptions on stone, besides some inscribed ostraka . This mass of material brought the task of decipherment within the range of possibility, and even without any bilingual record to assist him, Mr F . LL Griffith rapidly succeeded in the first stages of translation . As further explorations bring more inscriptions to light the records of Ethiopia will gradually be placed on a firm documentary basis and the names and achievements of its greatest monarchs will take their place on the roll of history .