‘Many, if not most of these men,’ he says, ‘are very indifferent characters. They are mostly swaggering bullies, robbing, plundering, and ill-treating the people with impunity. Probably for every pound that reaches the Treasury they rob an equal amount from the people. They are a constant menace to public tranquillity, and before any amelioration can be expected they must be got rid of. As soldiers they are valueless, having no discipline, nor, except in talk, do they exhibit any extraordinary courage. Compared with that of negroes and Egyptians their pay is high.’
A last paper reorganization took place in 1882. Schools were to be set up, a proper system of justice established, the slave-trade was to be again suppressed. A capable Governor-General, Abd-el-Kader, who might have made a great mark in happier times, was appointed to supersede Raouf. But it was too late. The promised reforms could be no more than acknowledgments of past deficiencies. Egypt had wasted the golden opportunities created for her by Baker and Gordon. The day of retribution was at hand. From every quarter of the horizon the clouds had long been gathering, and the tempest was now to burst. In August, 1881, the Mahdi had proclaimed himself publicly during the Feast of Ramadan as the prophet foretold by Mahomet.
Sheikh Mohammed Ahmed, strangely enough the son of a carpenter, and a little over thirty years of age, was a native of Dongola, but had been living for some time in the neighbourhood of Khartoum, where he had acquired a great reputation for sanctity. The Soudan was then, and still is, a soil peculiarly suitable for the growth of prophets. The creed of Islam, as is well known, has a peculiar fascination for the natives of Africa, owing, perhaps, to the simplicity and directness of its essential formula. But it has generally only overlaid, and not displaced, the old superstitions of pagan days. The people are naturally credulous and excitable, and in the entire absence of any education or learning there has been nothing to restrain them. Almost any holy man can gain some kind of a following—at any rate for a time. But the Mahdi was more than an ordinary prophet, and the times were ripe for rebellion.
The venality and corruption of the Egyptian officials had produced widespread discontent among the agricultural and trading classes. The oppressive exactions of the tax-collectors had reduced many to ruin and beggary. It seemed that any change of rulers must be a relief. The spasmodic efforts to suppress the slave-trade had seriously alarmed the nomad tribes, whose chief source of wealth it was. The one thing wanted was some strong influence to bind together the discordant elements of revolt. It was found in the idea preached by the Mahdi of the regeneration of Islam by force of arms. After the long years of wrong and oppression the promise of universal equality, with one law and one religion for all, was sweet to hear. To the people that sat in darkness it seemed that a great light had indeed arisen. The four great sects of the Mohammedan Soudan sank their differences in favour of the Prophet of the new dispensation. The stern character of his teaching, his earnest denunciation of earthly vanities and pleasures, his prohibition of the use of intoxicants and smoking, did much at the outset to rouse the fanatical fervour of his adherents. It was a social as well as a religious revolution. The simple jibbeh, or cotton shirt, became the badge of his followers and the emblem of his doctrine.
The course adopted by the Egyptian authorities was well calculated to increase his prestige. First they ignored, then they underrated, his power. Feeble attempts were made to seize him, which failed utterly. At first Sennar was the centre of disturbance; a little later the Mahdi appeared in Southern Kordofan. A small force of regulars was sent against him in December, 1881; they fell into an ambush and were utterly destroyed. In June, 1882, Yusuf Pasha, Governor of Fashoda, with several thousand men, set out to crush him finally. Yusuf had distinguished himself in Gessi’s famous campaign. That an experienced leader of disciplined troops could have anything to fear from a crowd of half-naked Arabs seemed to him utterly impossible; so he neglected every precaution, with the inevitable result of annihilation. Throughout the Soudan it was regarded as little less than a miracle. The warlike tribes of the west began to flock to the Mahdi’s standard. His fame spread to the farthest extremities of Darfur. By the end of 1882 he had three armies in the field. Everywhere the Egyptian garrisons were beleaguered. The hated tax-collectors and outlying bodies of troops were the first to feel the vengeance of the rebels. Early in 1883 came the fall of El Obeid, after a most gallant resistance under Mohamed Pasha Said. The Egyptian Government made a desperate attempt to regain their position. Hicks Pasha arrived at Khartoum with 10,000 men, mostly raw recruits, and advanced into Kordofan. Betrayed by their guides, suffering terribly from heat and thirst, deficient alike in courage and discipline, the expedition was beaten before it set out. On November 5 the massacre, for it was nothing else, took place, and only 300 survivors were left. The effect was tremendous. On the one side it was decided to abandon the Soudan and withdraw all the garrisons, and Gordon was sent to carry out this task; on the other, a gigantic impulse was given to the cause of Mahdism.
Great as Gordon’s influence had once been, it was impossible for it to outweigh the religious fervour of the Mahdists. His position was immensely weakened when it became known that his final object was the evacuation of the Soudan. Many waverers felt that they must in the end be left at the mercy of the Mahdi, and wavered no more. Gordon’s view was that the only way to evacuate the Soudan with honour and safety was to hold on to Khartoum, crush the enemy if possible, and then to retire, leaving behind some form of government capable of maintaining order. The only man, in his opinion, capable of such a position was Zubehr. But his views were not shared, perhaps hardly understood, by the authorities at home. The British Government, committed sorely against their will to a military occupation of Egypt, and earnestly desiring to make it as short as possible, were most unwilling to undertake further responsibilities in the Soudan. The conflict of opinion produced paralysis. Neither policy was completely adopted. British troops moved up to Assouan. In the Eastern Soudan the disaster of El Teb, where once more the Egyptian troops under Valentine Baker allowed themselves to be slaughtered like sheep, and the fall of Sinkat, forced the Government to take military action. General Graham, starting from Suakin, won brilliant victories at El Teb and Tamai, and relieved the garrison at Tokar. But the proposal to make a dash on Berber, now in the hands of the Mahdists, was vetoed, and Graham’s troops retired. Meanwhile in the Nile Valley the golden hours were flying fast. Gordon stood firmly by his policy of holding Khartoum, partly in the hope, growing daily fainter, of being able to turn the scale by his own personal exertions and influence, partly with the intention of forcing the British Government to change what seemed to him their disastrous and dishonourable policy of abandoning the Soudan to the rebels. On their side, the Government drifted, hesitating and temporizing, reluctant to reverse their settled policy of peace. And so the tragic game was played. Month by month the investment of Khartoum grew closer. Slatin Bey in Darfur, after fighting twenty-seven battles in the course of 1883, was deserted by his troops and forced to surrender. El Fasher was reduced in the following January. In the Bahr el Ghazal, Lupton Bey, the successor of Gessi, after holding out for eighteen months, shared the same fate, and was brought in a prisoner to Omdurman. In the east the garrison of Gedaref made terms with the enemy. The Mahdi was able to concentrate his forces at the important point.
Only in August, 1884, a relief expedition was decided on, and at the end of December two columns started from Korti, one along the Nile towards Abu Hamed, the other across the desert by Gakdul Wells to Metemmeh and Khartoum. But the effort that might have succeeded six months earlier was too late. Two days before the relieving steamers arrived the weak defences of Khartoum had been stormed, and Gordon had fallen.
For the moment it seemed that Gordon’s death would do what he himself could not do when alive. Great preparations were made for a new campaign in the autumn. The columns, which had drawn back to Merowe after much severe fighting, were quartered for the summer along the river. General Graham was again despatched to Suakin with orders to crush Osman Digna, and a railway from that place to Berber was begun. For two months there was hard fighting at Hashin, at McNeill’s Zeriba, and at Tamai. But the hot fit passed. The railway, which had been begun without any survey, quite in the familiar Egyptian fashion, was given up. The whole Nile Valley was left unoccupied as far as Kosheh. The dervishes pushed on, and occupied Dongola, and, though decisively beaten at Ginnis at the end of the year, they continued to maintain a harassing border warfare.
The Mahdi died in June, 1885, carried off by a malignant fever, or, as some say, poisoned by a woman, whilst in the middle of his preparations for the invasion of Egypt. His successor, the Khalifa Abdullahi, a Baggara of the Taaisha tribe from Darfur, took up his plans. To the children of the desert Egypt might well seem an easy and attractive field for plunder. They had had a rough experience of the quality of British troops in action, but these new antagonists had always followed up their victories by retreat and evacuation. They had no reason to doubt the continuation of the same nerveless policy. The British Government talked loudly of abandoning Egypt itself. Any resistance by Egyptian troops unsupported seemed an absurdity. But unexpected obstacles arose. A revolt in Darfur, war with Abyssinia, and the opposition of the great Kabbabish tribe, combined to delay the Khalifa’s advance. Not until 1889 did he send his best general, Wad el Nejumi, forward. Nejumi pressed on without misgivings. Only Egyptian troops were guarding the frontier. But the Egyptian battalions, trained and led by British officers, were no longer mere droves of frightened sheep. Under Wodehouse at Argin, and under Grenfell at Toski, they first checked, and then annihilated, Nejumi’s army. Thenceforward the dervish power steadily declined. The recapture in 1891 of Tokar, Osman Digna’s chief base of supplies, put an end to his influence in the Suakin district. Raiding and frontier warfare continued till 1896, but there was no serious fighting, until the Dongola Expedition in 1896 marked the opening of the well-prepared campaign which ended in the complete overthrow of the Khalifa’s power.
Once more the day of punishment for the guilty had dawned. In the disasters and defeats inflicted by the Mahdi, in the horrors of the sack of Khartoum and many another town, Egypt had paid the penalty for her sins against the Soudan. In blood and shame she had reaped a full harvest. But the unhappy Soudanese had only thrown off the yoke of one master to find themselves under that of one much more terrible. Even before the Mahdi’s death plunder and success had corrupted the new faith, and dimmed the first glow of religious fervour. The Khalifa, under the guise of religion, had developed into a cruel and bloodthirsty tyrant. He and his principal supporters, Arabs from Western Darfur, regarded themselves as conquerors in a foreign land. Especially since he had brought his own tribe, the Taaisha, to settle in Omdurman, he had made it his policy to depress the power of the Nile Valley tribes like the Jaalin and the Danagla. On them fell the brunt of his military expeditions. Executions, massacre, and confiscations, were the order of the day. The inhabitants of whole districts, especially in the once-populous country along the Blue Nile, were forced to come and live at Omdurman, which grew into a city of 400,000 inhabitants. This concentration, by at once creating a great demand and withdrawing the agricultural population from their proper occupation, produced the most terrible famines. Everything was sacrificed to the supremacy of the western Arabs. In ten years more damage was inflicted upon the country by this pack of human wolves than in all the sixty years of Egyptian dominion, bad as it was. Slatin Pasha estimates that 75 per cent. of the population perished. Great as the abominations of the slave-trade had been before, they were never greater than under the Khalifa’s rule. The export of slaves was forbidden, but from all parts of the country they were brought in droves to the market at Omdurman.
The slave-dealing tribes had been the principal instrument of vengeance upon Egypt. It was now their turn for chastisement. The Egyptian Sirdar, Sir H. Kitchener, who fought with the railway as well as with troops, advanced to Dongola in September, 1896, and the banks of the river were again occupied up to Merowe. Next year Abu Hamed and Berber were taken, and the new railway laid from Wadi Halfa across the Korosko desert. Early in 1898 the battle of the Atbara was won by the Anglo-Egyptian troops. In September the great battle of the campaign was fought at Kerreri, Omdurman was taken, and the Egyptian flag was once more flying at Khartoum, this time with the British flag beside it. By the end of the year the authority of the new rulers was established, after some difficult and troublesome campaigning, throughout the Eastern Soudan as far south as Fazokhl and Famaka; gunboats, though blocked in the Bahr el Gebel, had proceeded up the Bahr el Ghazal and hoisted the flags near Meshra el Rek. Before the end of 1899 the Khalifa and the remnant of his supporters still in the field had fought their last fight. In the hour of their downfall the dervish chieftains displayed a splendid courage worthy of their race. Proudly disdaining to be fugitives in the lands they had ruled, they perished to a man with their faces to the foe.
But of far greater importance than the final destruction of the Khalifa were the events that followed on the fall of Omdurman, which are inseparably connected with the name of Fashoda. Since the time when the Khedive Ismail was pursuing his wild career of annexation without attracting any particular attention except from the natives of the countries annexed, the whole position of affairs had entirely altered. In every direction European Powers had appeared upon the scene. In the east Massowah had been handed over to the Italians in 1885, and they had inflicted several severe defeats upon the dervishes. In 1893 a British Protectorate had been declared over Uganda and Unyoro, and in 1895 the British flag was hoisted at Duffile. The Belgians from the Congo Free State had pressed on to the Nile, and in 1897 an expedition under Chaltin was successful in taking Rejaf, which had long been the southernmost dervish post on the river.
Most serious of all was the French movement from the Upper Ubanghi district of French Congoland into the Bahr el Ghazal province. The Belgians had already made considerable expeditions in this quarter, and had penetrated as far north as Hofrat-en-Nahas in Southern Darfur. In 1894 they made over their claims to the French. The French Governor of the Upper Ubanghi, M. Liotard, immediately began to lay his plans with great energy and forethought for the solid establishment of French power in the Valley of the Nile. At the end of 1895 he crossed the Congo-Nile watershed, and seized Tembura on the river Sueh, an affluent of the Bahr el Ghazal. He also occupied Dem Zubehr, on the Bahr el Homr. Captain Marchand arrived with reinforcements from France in 1897, and after spending some time in consolidating his position by occupying posts throughout the country, he set out on the final stage of his journey. After great difficulties and some fighting with the dervishes, he reached Fashoda just eight weeks before the fall of Omdurman.
The French preparations had not escaped the attention of those responsible for Egypt. As far as the Khalifa was concerned, the advance of the Anglo-British troops might have been delayed for some time; but in view of the French advance it was absolutely necessary for Egypt to reassert her rights in the Soudan emphatically and at once. Immediately after the occupation of Omdurman Lord Kitchener hastened on to Fashoda, and found Marchand already there. The situation was grave. For France it was galling in the extreme to be foiled just in the moment of success, but for Egypt the question was vital. The stake at issue was not the possession of a few acres of swamp, but the control of the summer water-supply. Marchand’s mission was by no means the mere freak of an adventurous traveller, anxious to hoist his country’s flag. It was undertaken as part of a policy skilfully planned and deliberately pursued.
It was no mere coincidence that in the previous year the Bonchamps Expedition had set out from Abyssinia, and endeavoured, though vainly, to join hands with Marchand from the east. Firmly based in the Bahr el Ghazal, masters of the Upper Nile Valley, and joining hands with Abyssinia, the French would have been in the end complete masters of the fate of Egypt. If the French had insisted, there must have been war. Happily, they gave way, and by the agreement of 1899 withdrew all their posts in the Bahr el Ghazal. The boundary of the Soudan was fixed along the Nile-Congo watershed.
Thus the Soudan emerged at last, and finally, it may be hoped, from her ordeal of blood and fire. Her history will be no longer a record of tyranny, rebellion, war, and famine, but of steady progress under a just and civilized government. The work of Baker and Gordon is bearing fruit at last. Great as were the joy and relief with which the downfall of the dervish tyranny was hailed throughout the Soudan, it was largely due to faith in the word and just dealing of Englishmen—a faith that was first established by them and those who worked with them—that the whole country settled down so quickly.
Among all the pioneers of good government in the Soudan one name stands out conspicuously. Most of the ease and success with which the present government works is due to the realization of the reforms recommended in Colonel D. H. Stewart’s Report on the Soudan. The rulers of the Soudan are the first to acknowledge their obligation to that masterly document, an epitome of keen observation and practical wisdom. Fortunate is the country that is served by such men as he. A few months after he had completed his report he returned with Gordon to Khartoum. He, at least, had no delusions as to their prospects of success. And yet he went as cheerfully and lightly as though
To die treacherously murdered on the Nile bank was a sorry fate for such a man. The road to the Soudan is strewn with the bones of many victims. But of them all it may be said, and especially of him: Their work lives after them, and their memory is nobly avenged.
No one whose lot it has been to travel through the night on the plains of a tropical country can forget the amazing effect produced when the sun, with one great leap, as it seems, springs clear above the horizon. All in a moment the world’s face is altered. Its features are the same, yet utterly changed. The traveller, however hardened, can scarcely fail to wonder at the transformation. A journey to the Soudan to-day produces a very similar impression on one whose mind is full of the memories of the dark past. The din of battle has hardly ceased to echo, but the transformation is complete.
Even after Egypt, with all its fascinations, rich with the remains of ages of civilization, full to the brim of questions and problems deeply interesting to the student of history, archæology, politics, or economics, the Soudan, with its triple capital, Khartoum, Omdurman, Halfaya, comes upon you with a freshness and charm that are indescribable. Travelling by the ordinary methods, you may go from Alexandria to Khartoum in about six days. It is well worth while, even for anyone who has been up and down the whole length of Egypt, to take the whole journey in one piece. There is all the excitement of starting for a new country, and at the same time an opportunity to gather into a focus all the old impressions. Easily and smoothly you swing through the fertile cotton-fields of the Delta, and its populous cities and villages, prosperous but dirty, and at Cairo you settle down into a most comfortable sleeping-car for the night journey to Luxor.
Early next morning you are in the cane-fields of Upper Egypt, with the river close on one side and the desert on the other. At Luxor you must change on to the narrow gauge for Assouan, and there is time to refresh yourself with bath and breakfast, and to look across at the Plain of Thebes and the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings, or to ride a donkey out to Karnak. From Luxor to Assouan it is hot and dusty enough, and you are glad to rest there for the night. Next day you embark at Shellal, above the Dam, for Wadi Halfa, a voyage of some 200 miles. Coming down, the steamers do it in about twenty-four hours, but upstream it is a leisurely voyage of three days. There is plenty of time to see the interesting antiquities of Nubia, and, above all, the famous rock-hewn temple of Abu Simbel, the colossal statues of which are, perhaps, the most impressive of all the monuments of Egypt. It is, besides, a most beautiful reach of the river; the hills come down to the water in bold and rugged outlines, showing to perfection in the pure, dry, desert air.
The effect of the Dam is clearly seen as far as Korosko. First of all, at Shellal the boat is moored amid a grove of palm-trees, the temples of Philæ are knee-deep in water, and the Nubian villages look quaint enough as they stand on the edge of the desert, forlornly mourning their strip of cultivated land, most of which the greedy Reservoir has swallowed up. Probably a great part of these people will now migrate to Dongola, but the loss of the land—for which, indeed, compensation has been paid—is really a small matter to them. Hardly anywhere is an able-bodied male to be seen; all are away making their living as sailors or servants elsewhere, leaving the women and old men to keep their homes. These Nubian boatmen are a most happy and thrifty people, ready to work all day and dance all night, always to the accompaniment of a song.
The boundary between Egypt and the Soudan, settled by the Convention of 1899, runs along the twenty-second parallel; not far beyond this is the frontier town of Halfa. There is no mistaking the signs of British rule. The whole place is rigidly clean, an extraordinary contrast to the filth of the Egyptian villages. The streets are well laid out and scrupulously swept, and shady avenues of trees are springing up. But at present Halfa is not particularly interesting, except as the railway terminus of the Soudan. It is twenty-eight hours to Khartoum. Nothing can be more comfortable than the well-appointed sleeping-car train, which runs twice a week. Starting at eight in the evening, you strike right across the Nubian Desert, most desolate and forlorn of countries. The very stations have no names, but are known merely by their numbers.
In the morning you come to Abu Hamed, back to the Nile once more. Abu Hamed is just at the elbow of the river, where it turns to the west for its great circuit by Merowe and Dongola. Here was the scene of one of the stiffest fights in the Soudan Campaign, when General Hunter made his dash from Korti, in 1897, further down the Nile, to seize the point for which the new railway was making from Wadi Halfa, and here are the graves of Fitzclarence and Sidney, officers of the 10th Soudanese, who fell in the battle. Around this spot a ghostly legend hangs. It happened that the other white officers of the battalion were wounded on the same day, and the black troops marched back to their bivouac without any of their white leaders. A black regiment is always accompanied by its women on the march, and these have high notions of military honour. They would have nothing to do with men who dared to return alive from the field on which their officers had fallen. The warriors quailed before their wives, and serious trouble was brewing, till a black sergeant, who lay dying of his wounds, solved the difficulty. ‘Tell the women,’ he said, ‘that enough of us are dead to guard the spirits of the white men in the other world. I myself will mount the guard.’ There are innumerable witnesses to testify that he has kept his word. The lesson was not lost. It was the same battalion which later, at the Atbara, raced the Camerons for the enemy’s zareba, and, catching their Colonel as he ran in front of them, bore him heels foremost right through the camp, securely hedged by a living wall of bodies, because a second loss like that of Abu Hamed was not to be thought of.
From here onward the journey is full of interest. Berber is springing up again from its ruins; it even boasts two stations, but it has not an attractive look as a place to live in; there is as yet nothing more than the mud huts of the country, and it is the hottest place in the world. Next comes the Atbara River, though not the scene of the battle, for that was thirty miles upstream; then Shendi, of fiery memory, but now the Crewe of the Soudan, and finally, late at night, you step out of the train at Halfaya, the railway terminus. One glance at the sky will show you that you are really in the tropics. Canopus is shining fiercely in the east. Right overhead the giant Orion strides across the vault. Northwards the Great Bear stands like a huge note of interrogation in the sky, and just over the opposite horizon the Southern Cross is looming up.
Halfaya stands on the northern bank of the Blue Nile, near its junction with the White. It is destined to be the workshop and commercial quarter of the capital. At present the Government steamboat factories and workshops are still at Omdurman, a legacy from dervish days. But already the necessary buildings are springing up, and as trade increases the railway terminus will attract more and more to its immediate vicinity. The Blue Nile, just before its junction, divides into two channels, which embrace the fertile island of Tuti. Opposite Halfaya, and along the southern bank of the island, the river runs in a glorious sweep due east and west for two or three miles. Here, facing northwards, stands Khartoum, with as imposing a situation as any capital could wish for.
A well-made road runs all along the river-front, which is being gradually embanked and walled. Right in the centre rises the white Palace, the official residence of the Governor-General, a handsome building, on the site of Gordon’s old palace, set in a lovely garden. On either side of it stretch a succession of Government offices and the neat residences of Government officials, to the new, spacious, and comfortable hotel on the one side and the Gordon College and British barracks on the other, pleasantly variegated with gardens and groves of palm-trees, acacias, limes, and bananas. Behind this Government belt, the town is carefully laid out into wide streets and squares in two other belts. The second of these contains, or will contain, houses and shops built by private persons, but of a good class and on approved plans; the third is open for the erection of any buildings that the owners choose to construct. Finally, close to Gordon’s rampart are the Soudanese barracks, and, right outside, the native villages, laid out in squares allotted to different tribes, where you may see huts of every shape, characteristic of many different parts of Africa.
Considering that three years ago Khartoum was nothing more than a dirty dust-heap, the work that has been accomplished by the Royal Engineers is truly wonderful. Of course, the city is still in the hands of the builders; everywhere are gangs of workmen levelling roads, preparing foundations, making bricks of Nile mud, carrying, hammering, digging, building. Women, too, are employed. Their principal duty is bearing water for the lines of young trees that will one day make each street a shady avenue. Already the town is lighted with lamps far better than many an Egyptian city, and it is hoped that in a short time a tramway will be in working order.
From November to March the climate is very delightful: it is hot, of course, at times, but the north wind blows steadily and coolly practically every day, and sometimes the nights are even cold. Even if it is hot, there is always the Blue Nile to refresh the eyes. It is a comfort to find that the Blue Nile is really blue—as blue as any Italian lake. One is so often told that it is called blue because of the mud it brings down during the flood—the mud which causes the ‘red’ water so dear to the Egyptian cultivator. But anyone who looks at it cannot fail to realize that its name is derived from its clear and limpid waters, and not from its muddy flood-time. One of the most charming scenes in Khartoum is the view of these blue waters seen from the windows of the Soudan Club through a green maze of palms and lime-trees.
Khartoum, with its bungalows, offices, shops, and banks, is a civilized town, summoned up out of nothing, as it were, by an enchanter’s wand. Far different is Omdurman. Here, too, the engineers have been at work, clearing, demolishing, and cleaning. Only those who marched in after the battle four years ago and saw those foul labyrinths of streets can realize how much has been accomplished. But though purified and greatly shrunk, of course, within its limits in the Khalifa’s time, Omdurman remains a real Central African city, with nothing European about it. It was originally intended to move all the inhabitants over to Khartoum; but the natural convenience of its position on the left bank of the river, just at the junction of the two Niles, makes it impossible to carry out this intention. Its population is actually increasing at present, and it seems far better to let natural forces work their way, and retain it as the native quarter of the capital, distinct from the seat of government. It possesses, too, a wide sloping foreshore, or beach, exactly suited to the feluccas which ply upon the river.
This beach is one of the great sights of Omdurman, and a fascinating spectacle it is. On a busy day it is absolutely crowded with traders and porters from all parts of the Soudan. It is the great market-place for gum from Kordofan, feathers from Darfur, ivory from the Bahr el Ghazal, dhurra from the Blue Nile country, and everything else that comes in by boat or camel. All day long the porters go to and fro, carrying their loads and chanting their monotonous songs, chiefly tall, broad-chested, but spindle-shanked negroes from the Nile Valley, Dinkas, Shilluks, Bongos, or Bari, with here and there a short, thick-set, sturdy hillman from Southern Kordofan or Dar Nuba. Women equally diverse in type sit sorting the different qualities of gum. Naked children, brown and black, tumble and chatter in every direction. It is difficult to drag one’s self away, so strange and novel and varied are the sights.
But Omdurman has much more to show. First and foremost the Khalifa’s house, the only two-storied building in the town, and built of brick. It is occupied now by the British inspectors. Hard by are the ruins of the Mahdi’s tomb, too solidly built to be entirely destroyed, but even its partial demolition has been sufficient to put a complete stop to pilgrimages. In front is the great square in which the Khalifa used to preach to his assembled dervishes. It is surrounded by a high wall excellently built, said to be the work of the German Neufeld. It is witness now of scenes very different from those of the old fanatical days, so far removed in everything but time—perhaps the parade of a Soudanese battalion, a football match, or the arrival of a string of camels laden with gum from El Obeid.
In the Beit el Amana are some interesting relics of the past. Here are the brass cannon taken originally by the Mahdi from the Egyptians, and piles of captured dervish muskets of every shape and form, swords and caps; and here, too, is the Khalifa’s carriage, a ramshackle, broken-down old four-wheeled chariot. It is a puzzle how it ever got to Omdurman. It looks as if it were built for some quiet old maiden lady in a French provincial town, but it fell on a strange master in its old age; and Slatin Pasha, now Inspector-General of the Soudan, had to run as a footman before it. Close by is the great broad street leading northwards, by which the British troops marched in on the battle. Every step is reminiscent of the last evening of days of the dervish tyranny.
But the most fascinating sight of all is the sook, or market. The mixture of races is amazing. It would take a trained scientist to catalogue them all. From a camel to a silver bracelet, there is nothing dear to a native that cannot be bought. Here are made and sold the angarebs, or native bedsteads, woven with string across a low four-legged wooden framework. As yet these people have not much mechanical ingenuity, and their appliances for working in wood and iron or other metals are rude in the extreme. The past in the Soudan has not been conducive to the development of the arts, but there is promise for the future.
One feature of the place is the curiosity shops, full of many strange spears and shields, knives and sabres, and occasionally an iron gauntlet or coat of mail such as the dervishes wore; but these are rare now. These Arab shopmen know how to drive a hard bargain, and love nothing better than chaffering over a price. All curiosities are called ‘antiquos.’ There is an annual flower-show in Khartoum, at which a prize is given for the best ‘antiquos.’ A Soudanese turned up who was very anxious to compete for this prize with a live porcupine, which he insisted was an ‘antiquo.’ He was allowed to exhibit at last, but not for competition, on condition that he himself led it about by a string, as the authorities could not undertake its charge. With more justice a live tortoise is also commonly offered for sale as a very choice ‘antiquo.’ In another quarter are the rope-makers, twisting their long coils of fibre in exactly the same way as they have been twisted for centuries; further on, the basket and net makers are weaving dried reeds in curious patterns. Yet another part is entirely devoted to the needs of women. Here are combs and strings of all kinds of beads, unguents, and the strange preparations they use for fixing the small plaits in which they tie their hair; cinnamon bark and other scents, without which no wedding is complete; cooking-pots and other articles of their scanty domestic furniture; even dolls of most weird and fantastic shapes and material, and many other quaint trifles. The whole place is crowded with women, black and brown, many of them tall in stature, easy and graceful in their movements, and, however ugly they may be in other respects, nearly all with the most beautifully shaped arms.
It is a strange contrast to go a little further on through the western outskirts of the town, and to find a game of polo proceeding on the hard desert sand. And beyond, again, in the middle of these great spaces, far from the rush and turmoil of the town, are the quiet graves of two or three of those who have laid down their lives in this far country, and shall see their homes no more.
It would take a long time to get tired of merely riding about in Omdurman and watching the thousand and one sights of such a place, and reflecting on the stranger scenes that must so frequently have been enacted there less than five short years ago. But if you want a gallop in the desert, nothing is more delightful than to pass along the broad street leading northwards through the deserted quarters of the once huge city, and to ride, with the keen wind blowing freshly in your face, to Gebel Surgham, the hill which overlooks the field of Kerreri, that historic field of bloodshed. The merest novice can easily follow every phase of the battle, and see where wave after wave of the dervish hosts rushed madly but heroically to their doom. Some of their skulls still lie bleaching in the sun. There, too, is the khor where the Lancers made their famous charge. Or you may take boat, and sail past the mud forts that saluted the steamers which came just too late for the watcher anxiously straining his eyes to see them from the palace in Khartoum. Almost every spot has its own historic interest. Perhaps as you skim along before the wind a battered old paddle-steamer labours creaking past, towing a string of barges. It is one of Gordon’s gunboats, once more patched up and restored to duty.
But of all the sights and interests of this fascinating place, by far the most impressive, as in Cairo itself, is the ancient and mighty river. Khartoum and Omdurman are what they are because here the two great tributaries join their forces and set out across the waterless desert on their great mission to Egypt. The spot where the Blue and White rivers meet, and for some distance flow side by side unmingled, would be still in many ways the most notable in all Northern Africa, even if Khartoum and all its eventful history were blotted out.
Khartoum would be a sad place to visit if it were nothing more than a city of memories. Happily, it is no longer so. It has indeed a history behind it, full of lessons and warnings which cannot be ignored. But the Khartoum of to-day is looking forwards, and not backwards; it is the young capital of a young country. It is barely four years since the final defeat and death of the Khalifa, and it is only from that date that the establishment of settled government can be reckoned.
The Sirdar, Sir Reginald Wingate (the post of Governor-General of the Soudan is still combined with the command of the Egyptian Army) might well have despaired of the task which confronted him of administering those vast regions, 1,000,000 square miles in extent, when he succeeded to his post. The difficulties to be faced were enormous. It seemed as if every germ of civilization had been extinguished by the dervish rule. Everywhere villages were deserted; lands, once fertile, had gone out of cultivation; actual famine was seriously threatened. The decrease of population was extraordinary. Whole tribes enumerated in Colonel Stewart’s list had totally disappeared. When the British troops reached Metemmeh in the final march to Khartoum, they found the place a shambles. The once powerful tribe of the Jaalin had been massacred almost to a man by the Baggara dervishes. That was but one instance out of many of the Khalifa’s methods of government.
From a country so wasted and desolate it seemed hopeless to expect a revenue for many years. The fabric of administration had to be built up again from the very bottom, and there was no money to do it with, far less to provide for that capital expenditure always necessary in a new country. Only Suakin, Halfa, and Dongola, from their longer military occupation, possessed even the rudiments of the machinery of government. No money was to be expected from England. More than that, every British officer in the Soudan was turning longing eyes to the war in South Africa. It was difficult to get new men with such an attraction elsewhere. Yet in spite of this it may be fairly said that the Soudan government has come safely through the troublous period of infancy. Sheer hard work on wise and statesman-like lines has had its due effect, and the British officials, most of them soldiers whose abilities would have brought them to distinction elsewhere could they have been spared, can so far congratulate themselves on the result of their patient labours.
Though greatly shrunk within its former limits, the Anglo-Egyptian Soudan is still of very great extent. On the north the boundary with Egypt is now the twenty-second parallel, following this line, which passes just north of Wadi Halfa, right across the desert to the Tripoli border on the west, and to the Red Sea on the east. It then follows the coast past Suakin as far as a point about seventy miles south of Tokar, where it meets the Italian colony of Eritrea. Here, turning inland, it runs south-west, crossing the river Gash just above Kassala, down to a point on the Setit River, another tributary of the Atbara. Here Abyssinian territory begins, and the boundary trends more to the south than before, going by Gallabat and crossing the upper waters of the Rahad and the Dinder, tributaries of the Blue Nile, till it reaches the Blue Nile itself just above Famaka and Fazokhl. Hence it runs right south to the west of the Beni Shangul hills, across the Baro, Pibor, and Akobo rivers, all in the Upper Sobat district, till it reaches a point where the sixth degree of north latitude cuts the thirty-fifth degree of longitude east of Greenwich. The sixth parallel is roughly the line of division between the Soudan and the Uganda Protectorate as far as the Nile, the southernmost Soudanese post on the Nile being at Mongalla, and the northernmost British at Gondokoro. On the other side of the Nile the boundary, starting from Lake Albert, runs north-west for a very long distance along the Nile-Congo watershed, first along the Congo Free State, then along French Congoland, till it reaches the borders of Darfur. The corner, however, between the Nile and this line, as far west as the thirtieth degree of longitude east, and as far north as a point nearly opposite Mongalla, is known as the Lado Enclave, and is still held by the Belgians, being leased by them during the life of King Leopold. On reaching Darfur the boundary runs northwards along the western edge of that country to about the thirteenth parallel, and thence north-west across the desert to the borders of Tripoli.
In this vast area, some 1,200 miles in length and 1,000 in breadth at the broadest part, there is naturally an immense variety of country. The Northern Soudan is, with the exception of a strip of land along the Nile, almost a desert; it is, in fact, a lesser Egypt. Up to Shendi it is a rainless country. From Shendi to Khartoum, and some way south, there is a regular but not extraordinary rainfall during the months of July, August, and September. Further south, about parallel 13°, tropical rains begin, becoming heavier and longer towards the Abyssinian hills on the one side and the Upper White Nile and the Bahr el Ghazal on the other. With the rainfall the character of the country changes. To the west of the White Nile, between parallels 15° and 11°—that is, nearly as far south as Fashoda—the country of Kordofan and Darfur stretches in vast plains or steppes, covered with low thorny trees, mimosa and gum trees, and prickly-grass. Water is scarce, and stored in wells and the trunks of baobab-trees. There are occasional hills, which become greater and more numerous towards the west and the south. In Southern Kordofan the plains and valleys between the hills are rich in vegetation and huge trees. They are impassable during the rains, and also after them, until the long grass has been cleared by burning.
The Bahr el Ghazal is a real land of waters, the Punjab of the Soudan, for it has five principal rivers, all affluents of the Bahr el Ghazal. Part of the country consists of little but the most dismal swamps; but nearer to the watershed there is much rolling country between the rivers. The soil is fertile, and there is an abundance of forests and parklands. To the east, along the course of the Atbara, and between the Blue and White Niles, there are vast level plains of alluvial soil, very fertile when flooded or after the rains. The country gradually rises towards the Abyssinian frontier. At wide intervals great masses of rock protrude, some consisting of excellent granite, better than that in the Assouan quarries. As the country rises it becomes more and more wooded, until there is dense jungle, especially near the Blue Nile. The scenery all along the Abyssinian frontier is described as very beautiful and mountainous; but most of it is very unhealthy, especially during and after the rains, when the climate is fearfully hot and oppressive, and malarial fevers of several kinds are common even among the natives themselves. The country south of the Sobat near the Nile belongs to the swamp districts. Further inland is the least explored and most uninhabited part of the Soudan; it is not likely to attract much attention at present.
The natives of the Soudan fall roughly into two divisions—Arab and negro. Generally speaking, the Arabs are all north of a line drawn east and west some distance below Fashoda, the negroes south of it. But any precise classification of races is impossible. The Arabs, as a conquering race, imposed their religion and their language upon the original inhabitants. Many so-called Arab tribes are really almost negro. The confusion of blood is very great. Slavery has introduced a very strong negro element into many tribes whose Arabic descent is unquestioned. Sometimes, when the original race was not negro, they have preserved their own language. Thus, the people of Dongola speak a tongue of their own besides Arabic, and several of the nomad tribes in the Halfa-Suakin district are apparently not Arabic in descent.
The inhabitants of Kordofan afford an example of the mixture of blood. The sedentary village population consists of the aboriginal inhabitants, with an admixture from Darfur. Under the Egyptian conquest a good deal of Turkish and Levantine blood was introduced, as well as negro blood from the South by means of slavery. The nomad tribes are a much superior race mentally and physically, and talk a much purer Arabic. Their great occupations are cattle-breeding, carried on by the Baggara tribes, and camel-breeding, carried on by the Kabbabish and the Beni Gerrar. Besides these there are also the hill tribes, negroes, very black in colour and small in stature, peaceful by nature, but warlike when roused by the attacks of the nomad Arabs. Of all the negro races in the Soudan, these are the most intelligent and hard-working.
The whole of the Soudan is now directly governed, with the exception of Darfur, by the Governor-General and his subordinates. Darfur, though a tributary State, once more enjoys internal independence under its own Sultan. After the fall of Omdurman Ali Dinar, a member of the former ruling house, then resident in Egypt, was sent back to Darfur. The people had been for some time uneasy under the Khalifa’s hand, and he found little difficulty in establishing his position. His prestige and power were considerably increased in 1902 by the surrender to him of the last remnant of the dervishes, who had fled westwards from Bor, on the Nile, their last station. The remainder of the country is divided into provinces, or mudiriehs, for the purposes of administration. The capital, Khartoum, with its sister towns and a district within a radius of ten miles, forms one province by itself. Immediately south of it is the Ghezireh (the Island), comprising all the rich and fertile district between the two Niles, formerly known as the island of Sennar. It is the kernel of the Soudan. South and south-east of the Ghezireh, stretching along the Abyssinian frontier, and extending from the White Nile on one side across the Blue Nile to Gallabat and Gedaref, is the province of Sennar. North of Sennar, along the upper waters of the Atbara and the boundary of Eritrea is Kassala. Suakin is the maritime province. Halfa is the northern frontier district. Dongola and Berber extend along the Nile. Kordofan, largest of all in extent, occupies all the country west of the White Nile as far as Darfur. All these make up the Arab and Mohammedan Soudan. The pagan negro portion is divided into Fashoda Province, including all the Sobat country, and the Bahr el Ghazal Province, to the east of the Nile and south of Kordofan.
Each province is ruled by a Governor, or Mudir, a British officer of the Egyptian Army; under him are one or two inspectors, also British officers, and one or two subinspectors, who are English civilians, members of the newly-formed Soudan Civil Service. The mudiriehs are subdivided into mamuriehs, or police districts, presided over by a mamur, or inferior magistrate; all the mamurs are Egyptian officers. Each province is, in many respects, a little empire by itself. Where the distances are so great, there must necessarily be a great deal of decentralization, and every Governor has a great deal of independence. But he is, of course, subject to the authority of the Governor-General, and his expenditure is carefully controlled by the central Finance Department.
The first duty of the provincial Governors is to maintain peace within their borders, and to make the inhabitants acknowledge the authority of the Government. In the elder provinces, Halfa, Suakin, Dongola, and Berber, there was no difficulty. The nomad tribes, the only possible source of trouble, are regularly paying the tribute, which has been imposed on them more as a badge of authority than for revenue purposes. As long as this is paid and they behave well, they are left to the rule of their own sheikhs, according to their custom. At Khartoum the presence of a British battalion insures order among a people who have not forgotten the sound of bullets. The stories of mutiny among the black troops were greatly exaggerated. It lasted only for a day, and was nothing more than a skirmish between two battalions which had a difference over some women. On the borders of Darfur there was a slight disturbance, but Ali Dinar is a strong and capable ruler, who understands very well that it is his interest to be on good terms with the Government, and the matter has been satisfactorily settled. In South-Western Kordofan the Nubas in the hills have been accustomed for centuries to raid each other, and be raided in their turn by the Arabs of the plains. In such remote regions it is difficult to summarily suppress customs of this sort, but it is hoped that permanent peace will soon be established by means of camel-corps patrols. The same applies to the frontier raids on the Abyssinian side. There was some reluctance at first to deal drastically with these raiders, for fear of trouble with Menelik, but now that the boundary has been definitely settled by the recent agreement, the raiders can be punished without any question of violating the frontier. In Fashoda Province the tribes, even the wild and shy Nuers, are settling down quietly, and though they hate the ‘Turk,’ they are glad to welcome the British.
The Mek or King of the Shilluks, who live on the banks of the Nile from Lake No to a point above Fashoda, gave some little trouble at one time. He was very much struck with the institution of tax-collectors, which he determined to imitate. Accordingly, he put some of his people into a kind of uniform, and sent them round the villages to collect women and corn, nominally for the authorities of Khartoum. But he was informed that, while the Government admired his zeal for civilization, they felt, at the same time, that his knowledge of it was so elementary that it was necessary for him to devote some time to further study before he put his theory into practice. He is now undergoing a course of tuition at Wadi Halfa.
The Bahr el Ghazal is the most recently occupied province. Posts are now occupied at Wau, Rumbek, Dem Zubehr, Shambe, Chak Chak, Tonj, Meshra-el-Rek, and Channamin on the Jur River. The country was occupied without difficulty. Here the two principal tribes were the Dinkas in the north and east and the Niam-Niams or Azande in the south. All the smaller tribes, Jur, Bongo, Golo, etc., had been broken up by repeated raids, and had fled to one or other of these powerful neighbours for protection, the protection practically taking the form of slavery. A tract of 150 miles square had thus relapsed into absolute wilderness, though once thickly peopled. Now the tribes from the Dinka side are returning and rebuilding their villages under British protection, an immense advantage to the country, for they are hard-working and industrious, while the Dinkas are lazy and troublesome in civil life, although good soldiers. Early in 1902 one of the Dinka tribes fell upon a convoy and murdered a British officer near Rumbek by treachery. But the murder was speedily avenged, and this was the only instance of active hostility. The Niam-Niams, although cannibals, are much more intelligent and progressive. They are very well disposed and anxious to trade. The worst enemy in the Bahr el Ghazal is not any human foe, but disease, especially the blackwater fever, which has been of a severe type, and more than one valuable life has been sacrificed to it. Fortunately, as experience of the country grows, the danger diminishes, and it is hoped that as the country is developed, with better housing and communication, and less moving about in the rains, still greater improvement may be looked for.
On the whole, the Soudan is far more peaceful internally than it has ever been before. Nothing has had a more pacifying effect than the spectacle constantly witnessed of British officials roaming the country unarmed and unescorted. This visible confidence has done much more than years of campaigning could ever do. There have been, it is true, one or two occasions when troops have had to be employed. The Soudan is still full of combustible materials. Fanaticism and ignorant superstition combined are dangerous elements. But the Government has taken to heart the lesson taught by the rise of the Mahdi. When troops are sent, care is taken that they shall strike swiftly and effectively. A new Mahdi appears in the Soudan once or twice a year. Once a woman proclaimed herself, and gained a considerable following. Sometimes they die away of themselves, but all require to be carefully watched. Such an one a few months ago had to be put down by an expedition in Kordofan. His capture and defeat at once put an end to his divine pretensions. These petty outbursts are legacies from the unhappy past; under good government they will become less frequent and less dangerous. Every day the Pax Britannica grows stronger and more deeply rooted in every direction. Peace once established, the British officer finds his real work only begun. The restoration of order was comparatively simple, the kind of business for which he had been trained. His regimental duties may have given him some slight acquaintance with accounts and book-keeping, or the elements of military law and procedure. Every scrap of such knowledge must be beaten out and made to reach as far as possible, and so guide him in his financial and judicial duties. But where will he have learnt to make bricks, to measure land, to make roads, to pronounce on methods of gathering rubber or gum, or the diseases of cattle or dhurra? Yet all these things he will have to do, and many others in the course of his busy days. One of the great attractions of the Soudan is the splendid keenness of all these men, soldiers and civilians alike. From Wadi Halfa onwards the same spirit is observable in everyone you meet. Grumbling you will hear, but it is the grumbling of keen men. The Governor of one province is convinced that too much is being spent on the capital. If only some of that money were given to him, he would soon show startling developments. Another thinks his trade suffers because the railways or the steamers are not so good as they ought to be. Another is dissatisfied because he cannot get a schoolmaster sent him, and so on. All are not, of course, equally competent (that could not be), but there are no idlers. All are working heartily for the good of the Soudan and its people, and the honour of their own country. Many of the Governors and Inspectors of Provinces have fought in command of the black battalions against the Arabs. They learned to like the one and to respect the other. The liking and the respect are repaid tenfold. There could be no better foundation for sound government, and from Suakin to El Obeid, and from Halfa to Gondokoro the Englishman is obeyed and trusted as no ruler of the Soudan has ever been before. It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to add that all these men are young. The Sirdar himself, old in experience, is young in years, and from him downwards, whether on the civil or the military side, there is hardly a man over forty. The administration of these vast regions in a tropical climate is no sinecure. A young country needs youth and activity in its rulers.
It must not be forgotten that we have been immensely assisted in our task by the Egyptians. All the minor administrative posts are held by them. Most of the clerks in the various Government offices are Syrians or Copts from Egypt. Without this small fry of officialdom, it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to carry on at all. Many of these Egyptians have done and are doing their work faithfully and well, but it has been a hard struggle to fight against the old Soudan traditions. In former days, when a man went from Egypt to serve in the Soudan, he expected either to die or to get rich in a very short time. Death was always before his eyes, so he made haste to be rich while he could. To the fellah the Soudan meant nothing less than death; his family mourned him as lost, and lost he generally was; but the official, if he came back at all, was set up for life. Of course, any case of taking a bribe or extortion is severely punished whenever detected; but, in spite of this, corruption undoubtedly does go on to a certain extent, so much is it in harmony with the traditions of the official and the expectations of his victim. Moreover, the Egyptian is not very capable of enduring a bad climate. He seems to give up heart immediately. A class of natives educated enough to take his place in the Government service is badly required, but does not at present exist.
A great deal is often talked of the evils of military government, and, of course, there comes a time when military methods are out of place. But I doubt very much if any set of civilians could have done so well with a country like the Soudan as the soldiers have. Whatever may be the soldier’s fault, what he is told to do, that he will set to work to do, and very likely he will carry it through successfully, however little training he may have had, where a cleverer man might be dismayed by difficulties. In fact, the government is military because it is mainly carried on by soldiers (there was no one else to do it), but it is run on civilian lines. Spend a morning in the office of a Mudir or Governor of a province, and you will go away with an enhanced opinion of the powers of a British officer.
First of all, you will find him talking fluent, if not always perfect, Arabic, that most difficult of tongues. An interpreter is present in case of an emergency, but he is seldom appealed to. In turn, a bewildering variety of subjects is dealt with. A criminal trial has to be steered through one of its stages. Next, two sets of villagers come in with a petition as to a dispute of land-ownership. In a land which has seen such vicissitudes as the Soudan, questions of title are numerous and difficult in the extreme; within the last twenty years the same plot of land may have had several sets of bonâ fide occupiers, and finally none. The two parties come in scowling fiercely at each other (they have probably had a fight already on the land in question), and squat down on the floor, while their spokesmen step forward to tell their tale. The Mudir is addressed as the Protector of the Poor, the Shield from Oppression, and a number of other names. When the matter is disposed of, after a great deal of hard swearing on both sides, everybody who has anything to do with it attempts to give his version simultaneously, and finally the whole crowd has to be thrust out separately by the police, still talking as they go.
Then comes a succession of applicants with other grievances and petitions—Greeks alleging some breach of contract, Arab land-owners demanding remission of taxation or loans for a sakieh, or for sowing seeds. Next the plan of a house has to be examined, the quality of certain bricks to be looked into, an auction of river-fisheries to be held, or a contract about a Government ferry adjusted. Then there are questions concerning drains or wells, pumps or police, licenses for boats or liquor, and a thousand and one other questions of administration. Finally, there is correspondence with headquarters, to adjust some financial, legal, or educational matter. It is no use being a Mudir, or, indeed, any other official, under the Soudan Government, unless you are prepared to work like a horse, and deal fearlessly with nearly every department of human life.
There is no Magna Charta in the Soudan. It is expressly laid down in the Anglo-Egyptian Agreement of 1899 that the country is to be governed under Martial Law, and all legislative power resides in the Governor-General, subject to the approval of H.M.’s representative in Egypt. But Martial Law is a vague and unsatisfactory term. During the recent operations in the Transvaal a flying column was sent to occupy a railway terminus and to secure the rolling-stock therein. The seizure was successfully accomplished, but when the engines were examined they were all found to be defective in certain essential parts of the mechanism. The commander of the column sent for the railway officials and ordered them to restore the missing pieces. In vain they protested that they knew nothing of them. The soldier, an Australian, was a man of few words. ‘I shall shoot you in the morning,’ said he, ‘unless the pieces are found.’ They objected that such a course was utterly illegal, even under Martial Law. ‘My view of Martial Law,’ he replied, ‘is that you must do what I tell you or take the consequences. In any case, discussion is useless. The shooting-party is ordered at eight.’ The engines were complete in every particular long before the fatal hour; but such methods, though sometimes necessary in war, are not suitable to peaceful administration. Martial Law remains a power in the background, but the Government lost no time in setting up a system of Civil Justice, and one of its earliest acts was to appoint a properly qualified Legal Adviser.
It is fortunate that English barristers are accustomed to give advice on a great variety of matters. The Legal Adviser, especially at first, when he acted temporarily as Director of Education, had very multifarious duties. He was at that time the only judge in the country, and, besides strictly legal matters, had to assist in drafting regulations relating to customs and commerce, game, travellers, and many other subjects. But his chief occupation was the preparation of penal and civil codes. With one exception, which will presently be noticed, there was no existing foundation to build upon. Under the old Egyptian rule the criminal law supposed to be administered was the Khanoon Humayoun, a Turkish code dating from 1837, but this was perfectly unsuitable for use by a civilized Power. It was wisely decided to make use of Indian and Colonial experience. A penal code and code of criminal procedure were promulgated as soon as possible, founded on the Indian codes, modified to suit the simpler requirements of the Soudan, and made to resemble courts-martial in their procedure to facilitate their working by soldiers. This was followed by a civil ordinance, likewise adapted from the Indian Civil Procedure Code, as used in Burma and British Bechuanaland. By the end of 1901 a system of civil justice was at work in all the provinces except Kordofan, Fashoda, and the Bahr el Ghazal. It has since been extended to Kordofan, and even in the Bahr el Ghazal and Fashoda a beginning has been made.
In each province the inferior police-court work is done by the Egyptian mamurs, who exercise summary jurisdiction on a small scale. All the more important cases are heard by the Mudir, inspectors and sub-inspectors, who form various courts of differing strength according to the nature of the trial. Besides the Legal Adviser there have also been appointed three English judges, all trained English barristers. Their headquarters are at Khartoum, where they form the superior court and court of appeal, and they also travel on circuit in the provinces, either to relieve a particular pressure of work or to avoid the trouble and expense of bringing up cases to Khartoum. At present, of course, any very definite or precise division of duties among the different members of the judiciary is impossible. The ordinary judicial business has been immensely added to by the work of Land Commissions, and every available person has had to be pressed into the service. Naturally, after twenty years of anarchy, of emigrations and immigrations, and of general unsettlement, the ownership of the land is a matter of the greatest possible doubt and confusion, and endless disputes arise. In the early part of 1903 one of the English judges was sitting in Dongola Province on a Land Commission. His preliminary list alone contained 400 cases; and Dongola is by no means the most contentious province. But this work will now soon be completed, and a more complete organization of the courts will be possible.
Meanwhile the criminal law has been very well administered, and, if the complete inexperience in such matters of the British officers who have had to act as judges in the provinces is taken into account, the administration of the civil law has also been most creditable. Mistakes are made, of course, but substantial justice has been done. Confidence in the tribunals, as well as the need for them, is growing rapidly. The fact that the amount of work done in the civil courts in 1902 was exactly double what it was in 1901 is striking testimony to the growing belief in their impartiality.
The only department in which the whole system had not to be built up again from the bottom was the administration of the Mekhemeh Sharia, the courts dealing with the sacred Mohammedan law. Just as in our own country the ecclesiastical courts formerly dealt with all questions relating to wills or marriages according to the canon law, so these courts administer the sacred law in all matters relating to succession, marriage, personal status, and charitable endowments. Once they covered the whole field, but as the sacred law was unchanging, or nearly so, other codes had to be introduced to suit changing conditions, and their action was gradually restricted to the subjects mentioned. In the old Soudan nearly every place of any pretensions had one of these courts presided over by a Cadi, and they doubtless dealt with many matters outside the limit, for civil cases could be tried by the Cadi, if both parties were agreed. The Cadi was frequently paid a very small salary, or none at all, and was expected to make his living out of court-fees and the presents he received, a system by no means conducive to strict justice. Now these courts are much fewer in number than formerly, but each Cadi receives a regular salary, and all the fees go to the Government. All the Cadis are under the direct supervision of the Grand Cadi or Cadi of Cadis, assisted by a Mohammedan inspector. It was very difficult at first to find properly qualified occupants for these posts. Among native-born Soudanese there were practically none, and the supply had to come from Egypt. If they were honest, it was at any rate something to be thankful for. But in days to come, especially when the Training College at Khartoum has been more developed, it may be hoped that they will be not only honest, but also capable, and that they will also possess a sound knowledge of the law which they have to administer. It is worthy of note that a Soudanese Cadi has been appointed at El Obeid.
The sacred Mohammedan law is a very delicate matter for Europeans to deal with. It abounds in defects, but suggestions for reform coming from a Christian would not be well received. There are also opportunities for conflict with the ordinary civil courts. For example, in a question of inheritance a dispute as to whether the deceased person was a Mohammedan or not could only be properly settled by the civil court. But all difficulties have been avoided up to now by tact shown on both sides. The Grand Cadi is a man of singular enlightenment and ability, and is working hard to improve the administration of the Mohammedan courts. His remarks on the general situation, as quoted in Lord Cromer’s Report for 1902, are worth repeating: