The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-06-14
LACE SOUDAN z AT LAST OPENED Vast African Realm Now
 Being Civilized SIDNEY LOWS STORY Writer Tells of Old and New Condi- tions in a Great 'New
 World" Just Being
 Discovered
SIDNEY LOWS STORY
From inc Now york world.

From the New York World.
 "rhe Egypt of History" writes Sid ney Low, paused at that gorge among the Nubian rocks where the Nile spouts its way over the second catar- act. Often it could not get so far, and the frontier fell back to the first cat aract where now the great dam blocks the stream by the island temples of Philae sometimes an ambitious ruler pushed his armies to the south and levied tribute from the tribes and na- tions toward the equator; once or twice in the age-long process the movement was reversed, and the lower valley of the river has been subject to the mas ters of the upper plains
 But nearly always, be 1t under Usertsen or Rameses, under the Ptole- mics. the Romans, ths Arabs or the Turks, line was drawn at some bor- der fortress below the cataract, by the site of what in modern times is called Wady Halfa, Egypt, with one hand clasped to Asia, ended here: all beyond was Africa-vast, confused, mysterious, incomprehensible, at once menace and a temptation: a land perhaps to prey upon, perhaps to fear, but one that seemed to have little kinship or com munity with the kindly, habitable earth men knew.
 But now this vast realm lies open For the first time in its history it is in full touch with the outer world. When British generals overthrow the Khalifa's hordes they did more than merely reconquer the Soudan for Egypt; they conquered it in a sense in which conquest had never been effec- tual here before"
 And under the title, Egypt in Trans ition" CMacmillan), MT. Low presents an entertaining and informing book of Ptar- aoh land and the beyond as they are today. First as to getting there:
 SOudan Near to England
 Now the neat and well-appointed express boats of the Soudan govern ment service floats you smoothly up to Halfa in the extreme of comfort. And at Halfa you transfer yourself and your baggage to the train, which is also run by the Soudan authorities, with no greater trouble than you would experience at Clapham Junction You will make your first acquaintance with the realms of Queen Candace through the windows of the dining car You enter the barrier desert to the whistle of locomotive that will roll you up to J the capital of North Central Africa ip4 night and a day of luxurious traYdf It is a very simple business t4E-i to khartoum nowadays. You cxT/o get through from Charing CroX<~F:n book
 
 need befali you on the ctNentuar,es that bad channel crossing e way Will be a luncheon at railwaN s,tfat an inaSeanate ed by time of transf~'y buHet. Measur- practical methodfi, which is the only tance, omdurmY of calculating dis than Inverres an is nearer Piccadilly Kinr t,Tn nr It llss when George III was dissod r-veniee when Charles Dickens Flight days and a half from door to ba Ina +A Nile Good goingr said an officer who went up with Kitchener in '9S It took us three years to do the same journey the first time We tried it. But we didn't happen to have railway ready for us then. We had to build it as we went along-and fight battle every few months while we were doing that
 Our author impresses the political fact, however, that Egypt is not an Independent country; still less, I need hardly say does it belong to England it Is a province of Turkey and its ruler is theoretically the Viceroy of the Sul- tan, who has kindly permitted some British troops to occupy the country Temporarily to assist in maintaining order, with some British officials to help the Egyptians in the business of government"
 Crescent Beside Union Jack
 As to the Soudan, 1t is Ia vast terrf- tory inhabited by African natives ad- ministered by English officials, with the assistance of Egyptian subordi- mates, and defended by a force of Egyptians and Soudanese troops under English command single battalion of the British army of occupation is garrisoned in Khartoum. But in this town and in Omdurman and elsewhere an the Soudan are stationed four-ffths of the Egyptian army" Concerning rrft, rtia t1ar
 DO we all know, for instance. that here, alone on the earth. the British ensign floats alongside of another? The Soudan is under two flags On all the public buildings on the barracks, the government steamers, the palaces, the postoffce. at a review of troops. you look a1oft and see two hagstaffs- the White Crescent of Egypt waves from the one, the Union Jack crackles jauntily from the other. Through all the length of the Nile. from Uganda to the Mediterranean, England Is in partnership with the Khedival govern ment. In Egypt it is relation some what yelled and not formally admitted, though real enough; in the Soudan, though Britain is, beyond question, the predominant partner, the joint rights of Egypt-itself nominally still a Turkish province-are carefully as- serted"
 To those who are in doubt-as are some quoted by MT. Low-wh ether the Soudan is a town, a district or a province, notes of it's magnitude will be of interest:
 Tt is 1900 miles long and 1000 miles wide, and 1t has an area of a million square mles-two-thrds the size of India. larger than Great Britain, France Germany and Austria together. One province alone would hold Spain comfortably and have rocm to spare, such as used to be left blank on those old maps of Africa which are still too often reprod duced in our modern atlases
 At Halfa the Nile bends in a mighty loop to the west, and then turns north again before it resumes it's proper eouthward course at Abu Hamed. Wolse1ey, in 1884, took the long and tedious way round the bend and over the two cataracts it passes. Kitchen CT. in 1898, determined to take the short cut across the 2S0 miles of desert. And such desert, Africa the world, has scarcely its equal. Treeless. waterless. 1ifeless, it glistens on either side---a sea of dead sand that washes to the