The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1885-03-19
THE sOUDAN.

in which Gen. Wolseley is operating
is given by an officer, who has been
serving in the Egyptian army. In
the narrow valley of the Nile, rarely
three miles in width, and generally
much less, is contained all the cult
vable land of Egypt, excepting a
few GASES. The river begins to rise
at Khartoum about June 81, is at its
full about September l, and decreases
regularly and steadily from October L
to the next summer solstice. The
city of Khartoum has about fifty
thousand inhabitants, and carries
on the trade of the Soudan, estimated
at $65,000,0O0 a year, through 1900
Egyptians and 1000 European houses.
The NileValley is wonderfully fertile,
and every foot of it is cultivated.
Even if there is only yard or two of
ground at the base of the cliffs, it is
made to bear few rows of beans or
onions. The labor of irrigation is
prodigious; if intermitted for few
hours the crops would be burned, and
at the line where the irrigating waters
halt the limit of the desert is as sharp
ly marked as a gravel walk against a
green sWard. The desert has neither
stream nor spring, but only few
deep wells here and there. Droughts
ontwo and three years duration are
frequent. Water has to be carried
from one well to another, on the
backs of camels, the distance be-
tween these water supplies being
from four to six days journey.
The desert proper, away from
the mountains where there is som 9
vegetation in the valleys, extends over
an area of 10000 square miles, nearly
three times as great as Texas, and is
devoid of vegetable and animal life.
It consists mainly of hard gravel
plains, diversified by zones of deep
sand, rocky ridges. sometimes of con-.
siderable altitude, and rugged defiles.
Only a few caravan trails cross these
wastes at their narrowest parts, with
scanty wells at long intervals. Insum-
mer the mercury rises to $50 degrees
or 1909, though the nights are COM
paratively cool-80o. The Bedouins,
who inhabit the country are under
the Mudir of Dongola. The English
at present have powerful and most
efficient ally in Mohammed Husse1n
Khalifa, but under the successes OF
the Mahdi, he may at any time aban-
don the English. The same authority
states that the Mahdi has wonderful
power over his followers, and like
all commanders of barbarians he
may one day have only q
thousand men at his back, and the
next day he may have fifty thousand
During the summer many of his fol
lowers have to go home and plant anG
harvest their scanty crops of dourt
the only grain that natures during
the brief rainy season, on which theil
families must depend for the mex
year, If he could muster all tn;
Bedonin tribes and the people from
Kordofan to Dongola he would have
an army of more than 100000 me1
That part of the Nile wher'
military operations are progress
ing has the shape the letter s. A
the top is Korosko, with not far from
it Wady Halfa, at the Second o
Great Cataract, 800 miles from the sea
Navigation thence to Berber, $50 miles
is impracticable, Pretty well dow
the upper bow of the S is New Don
COLA, and at the turn of the curve ar
Debbeh and korti, Abou Hamed, Bel
Der, Shendy and Khartoum are strun,
at pretty regular distances round tn
lower curve. Suakin, Trinkitat an
Sinkat are on the coast of the Red Sci
to the left, a little above Berber. TIL
, English, therefore, have two lines O
operation, by river, or else by sea t
! Suakin, whence the great carava
route conducts to Berber, town @
10000 inhabitants, the entrepot of
great trade, since the Nile beloy
(North) Is not navigable for hundred
of miles.