The Geography of the Middle East by Stephen Longrigg

Author:Stephen Longrigg [Longrigg, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Middle East, General, Travel
ISBN: 9780202362960
Google: t8QkUe1JFXAC
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
Published: 2009-01-01T05:12:48+00:00

6. The Sudan

The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan of 1899-195 5 enjoyed always the interested goodwill of the outside world, and not least that of Great Britain who, with her purely formal Egyptian partner, bore the entire responsibility for the country’s nurture and progress. Critics of colonialism, indeed, would do well to study the condition of this territory before the first date mentioned above, and at the second; a greater transformation for good, in terms of human happiness, can rarely have been witnessed in any country in so few years. Here, it seems, was the colonial system—never viewed by Britain in the Sudan otherwise than as a temporary expedient for rehabilitation—at its very best ; and in fact the administration, in this the solitary case where Great Britain enjoyed continuous years of power in an Arab country with no ‘local authorities’ to collaborate with or conciliate, was the work of able and devoted men. The superior type of a great majority of Sudanis, the picturesque vastness of their country, the magic of the Nile, perhaps also the unforgotten drama of Gordon and Kitchener, have added to the attractive popular image of the country abroad.

The Sudan Republic, as it became in 1956, has an area of 970,000 square miles (more than sixteen times that of England and Wales), an extreme length of 1,400 miles, a breadth of 1,200. Its boundaries were indicated on an earlier page (p. 14). Its frontage on the Red Sea is of over 400 miles in length, a strikingly desolate coastline with but two ports, Port Sudan and the now largely derelict Suakin. The country can be viewed as consisting of five main natural provinces, linked by their overlapping contiguity and by the all-dominating Nile. The northern area extends from Lake Nasser (on the Egyptian frontier) to Khartum ; here the river is flanked by rocky plains varied by isolated groups of hills, among which occasional but very rare rainfall can produce a few thorn-bushes, with, towards the south, acacias in the wadi beds. The whole region is denuded, almost soilless, and irrigable only by raising water from wells or from the river; it is the home of camel-grazing nomads, and of the sedentary owners of the narrow strip of cultivation and date-gardens along the Nile.

The Red Sea Hills region (the western flank of the great Afro-Asian rift-valley) contains a belt of impressive mountains, some over 7,000 feet in height, amid which are valleys where rough thorn grows on the lowest ground and increases, towards the Eritrean border, to a more copious vegetation. The higher hills, with greater moisture, can support small trees which include the wild olive. The maritime plain east of this hill-system is featureless and desolate, largely fringed with coral reefs; it can however after rain afford some grazing, and the deltas of the Gash and Baraka rivers, near Kassala and Tokar, are annually flooded and grow valuable crops, including cotton.

From south of Khartum, and stretching far west through Kordofan to Darfur, lies a predominantly sandy region, with light rains which are all locally absorbed without visible drainage.

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