The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-11-24
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fourth as large as the United States with Alaska and the Philippines added there to; and it has some lands which are richer than almost any part of our coun- try. The province of the Gezreh, to which 1 have referred could be irrigated and form a country more fertile and bigger than Egypt, and there are regions of good rainfall in the south which are susceptible of cultivation The Sudan has vast forests and rich deposits of iron and other minerals. It has extensive grazing lands and at the time when the mahdi began his wars against the khedive and the Christians, it contained population of more than 100000. It would prob ably support ten times that number, all though 1t has only about 100000 today. This country is all tributary to Khar- tum. The best parts of it are reached by the upper Nile system and the other regions will be tapped by railroads, some of which are already planned and soon to be built.
 The Story of khartum.
 l called upon the governor of Khar- tum this afternoon and asked him to tell me the story of the city, Said he:
 The buildings which you see here are all new, but the town is older than some of the mushroom cities of the United States It was born before Chicago, be- ing founded by Mohammed Ali in 1921. It grew with remarkable rapidity, and along about 10 years later it was made the seat of the government of the Sudan and became important commercial center. It was such just before the insur- rection of the nrahdi occurred and it was here that Gordon ruled and here that he was killed. He was butchered on the steps of a building on the site of the present governors palace. After that the mahdi declared that khartum.
 should be wiped out He destroyed all the houses and made the inhabitants come to his new capital. Omdurman, which he had laid out on the other side of the White Nile about five miles to the southward. When the people left they tore off the roofs and pulled out the doors to their houses and carried them along to use in their new houses at Omdurman.
 After that, for years and until Kitch- ener came, Khartum was nothing but a
 brick pile and a dust heap. Omdurman had swallowed up not only its whole population, but that of a great part of the Sudan. The khalifa forced the tribes 10 come there to live, in order that he might have their men ready for his army in times of war, and the result was that Omdurman had more than a half million inhabitants, while Khartum had nothing.
 Like Washington.
 Then we had the war with the khalifa, and we finally conquered him. the gov ernor continued. We reduced the greater part Of Omdurman to ruins. and then be- gan planning the building of a great city. The idea at first was to force the people to move from Omdurman to Khartum, but it was finally decided that it would be far better to have native city there, and to make this place the government and foreign center with manufactur- ing and commercial town at Halfaya, on the northern bank of the Blue Nile.
 "The khartum of today was laid out after somewhat the same plan as your capital at Washington; at least the req sons that determined the plans were the same. Washington city was plotted at about the time of the French revolution, and its architect was l. Enfant, French engineer. He planned the city so that it could be easily defended in case of re- 1 bellion and at the same time be beautiful. For that reason the streets were made to cut one another at right angles with ave-
 nues running diagonally through them. | forming squares and circles, where one | cannon could command many streets. ] Lord Kitchener had the same idea as to 1 Khartum. He directed his architects to