Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1885-03-11
THE CITY OF KHARTOUM.
The Town in the Soudan
where Gordon Fell.
Description of the Place, It's Inhabitants
Mud Houses and Traffic.

Description of the Place, It's Inhabitants
Mud Houses and Traffic,
Khartoum may lie called the Gate of
Central Africa. European civilization
enters at one side of the city and
African barbarism comes in at the
other. Beyond Khartoum from the
north few tourists have ever made
their way, and beyond Khartoum from
the south few savages have ever ven
tured. From the south the Nubian
sends his stores of ebony, ostrich feath'
ers, ivory, skins of animals and other
products of the equatorial lake district,
while from the north the trader carries
grain, cotton, gum, Brummaglm knick-
knacks and beads to feed and clothe
the "savages pouting at the line" AS
the entrepot Of the products of Central
Africa. Khartoum is a place of some
commercial Importance. Among the
$4,000 people who make up its popula-
tion there are many Greeks and Ital-
ians, while two or three Americans
here find profitable investments in fur
nishing beads and other trumpery to
the savages from Khordofan, Ell Obeid
and Dafour. The traders sell canned
fruits, meats and vegetables and make
the Dongolowee howl through the
streets after taking some of their raki
as refresher. Arabs in their bour-
naises, Turks with the traditional fez,
Copts with their bashe, and Birhareen
| Arabs with their knotted and combined
locks Of hair, standing up like quilts of
the porcupine, wander through its ir-
regular, narrow and badly drained
streets. 1t is no wonder that Khar-
toum is unhealthy. When it rains,
great pools of stagnant water are
formed, and from these fevers are gen.
Grated and the deadly miasma does its
work among the people.
The street that borders the river
side looks down upon the water from
an elevation along which stately palm
trees and large gardens Of citron and
orange trees stand. Many neatly
whitewashed buildings stand along the
river bank, and these are relieved by
the minarets aud mosques which give
the air of city in Upper Egypt, like
Benisooef or Rhoda in large way.
There are, of course the characteristic
mud houses, the tropical foliage, the
palms and the weeping domes, the
dedebahas hauled on the beach for re,
pairs, the bales of cotton heaped on
the shore, the sacks of gum, the tusks
of ivory and the stevedore population
who brave crocodiles for their paltry
paras.
The palace of the Governor is an
ugly looking building facing the river
and the helmeted and caSqued negroes
who form the guard of honor, are
dressed in white uniforms. An army
of men as large as the army of the
United States is engaged in capturing
the negroes of the Upper Nile, and it i:
said that 100000 slaves, worth about
$50 head, yearly pass through the
tortuous thoroughfare Of this gateway
city. The Turk, with his Moslem re
ligon, sees no great harm in tht
traffic, for he is taught polygamy ant
the servitude of one race to another
At Khartoum the harem is regarded
as a sacred institution, as the Koran il
the inspired law of the majority
Even if the mountain passes o
Abbysinia were sealed up, the seaport
of the Cape of Good Hope blockaded
and all the outlets of Central Afric;
barricaded, yet it is believed that tn
same silent caravans will be founC
starting over the deserts. and the sam
slave dealers sneaking through Khar
toum across the Red Sea or the Per
sian Gulf. For 400 miles south O
Khartoum the White Nile is covere'
with rich cotton fields, which slop
away from the banks of the river fron
five to fifty miles into the interior
The resources of the country are i'm
, mense, and Khartoum is destined t.
play an important part in the develop
ment of the resources of Central Africa