The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-11-03

tribe has a certain number of wells and their water Is the principal part of It's visible wealth. During the past few years the English officials of the Soudan have located these wells, and they have now information as 10 their depth and the quality and flow Of the water. ae government has also sunk some wells and has found water at about loo feet.
 The Nuba of today is a part of the Upper Nile valley. If you will imagine u cultivated strip, about a quarter of a mile wide, winding It's way like a snake from north to south as far as from New York city to Detroit, and embracing both sides of q river as large as the Mississippi you may have some idea of this country. You must not think that the cultivated strip has any regularity of width In some places the desert comes close to the river, and in others the stream is walled with black rocky hills which rise. almost straight up, a thousand feet above it. Farther on may be yellow sand, spotted with black rocks which show signs of volcanic origin, and farther still a-low bend in the river where the water can be conducted out over the sands and make a cultivated patch three miles in width In no place can you get out of sight of the desert. There are always rock and sand on the other side of the green, and generally only thin strip of green with the bleak, bare desert reaching out beyond to the horizon.
 irrigation In Nubla.
 The valley of the Nile here is narrow to an extreme. The river has cut it's way through the rocks, and is so walled with hills that it's waters have 10 be lifted in order 10 flow oyer any level place whatsoever. The is done chiefly by sal1eyehs, of which there are something like 40oo on the Nubian Nile. The great wheels. moving in cogs. can be seen, here and there, high up on the banks with their strings of buckets hanging to them. As the buckets descend each dips into the water and carries to the top few quarts In some places men raise the water in baskets or buckets. and in others they carry 1t up by hand and water little patches 20 or 90 feet wide, where the river slopes at such an angle that this can be done. Every low place In the river is used, and as the Nile falls. the sand banks and islands arc planted.
 Wherever there is a strip of cultivated land a village of huts. made of mud and stones, has grown up and such vil lages spot the banks for hundreds of miles. At times there will be no green except between them and the river, and one wonders how men can be born and live and die there. Nevertheless there are more than 10o.o00 people to whom tnls region is the center of the earth.
 I understand that this Nile strip is very fertile The government officials tell m that it raises excellent cotton, and that a movement is under way to open Up cot ton plantations wherever there Is a big enough block of land for the purpose. At present the chief crops are wheat, bar ley and nlllet, and the chief fruit is dates. The date tree thrlves and the fruit is sweeter and larger than that grown farther down the Nile valley. One sees date palms almost everywhere along the banks The government looks upon them as a source of revenue. and taxes them at the rate of 10 cents per tree
 On a Government Steamer.
 The Ibis, on which I have been travel ing, is one of the little steamers of the Soudan government, which goes twice q week from Shellal, Just above the As