Sim Samuel Baker addressed a letter to the Times of the 9th October on the low state of the Nile, which attracted a fiver than it had been for many years, deal of attention. The river was
and was rapidly sinking before time had been allowed for the due irrigation of lands which depend entirely upon the annual irrigation for their produce. He thinks the Mahdi has been damming up the Atbara river; he does not assert that the actual cause of the present low Nile is thedeflection of that river, but he thinks it highly probable and distinctly possible, and, he grimly adds, "if I myself were an enemy of Egypt, I know the place where I should commence the fatal work upon the river Atbara," An enemy could, as Sir Samuel said in letters which were published in the Times, when the Hicks disaster occurred and England insisted on the abandonment of the Soudan, easily do this by throwing a dam across the Atbara in the dry season, when the bed is empty, and thus effectually prevent the necessary flow towards Egypt. This would, he goes on to say, be an engineering work well within the native capability, and the Atbara thus made to flow east, would never reach the Red Sea, but would inundate a vast area of desert lands and render them fruitful through a deposit of mud which now passes down to lower Egypt. The Atbara is the stream which actually formed the Delta, and without its flood Egypt would only receive scanty supply of water. About: two hundred and thirty miles from the mouth of the Atbara is a place where the deflecting of the river could easily bedene, Sir Samuel says, and its stream be forced to the eastern course towards the Red Sea. The bed is dry for four to five months in the year, and a fringe of forest on the river banks would furnish all. the material required. "Huge sacks made from the fibrous bark of the mimosa are manufactured in lange quantities by the nomadic Arabs for are exactly suited as sand-bags for the the transport of gum arabic, and these
formation of a dam, while the Dome palms and mimosas are present for piles and fascines." This looks simple enough, and the effect on Egypt of the stoppage of the greater part of the black mud and slime which fertilises her, and of which the Atbara is the chief conveyer, would be fearfully serious. It would mean famine in Egypt, and the throwing out of gear, if not the destruction, of the administrative system which Britain has been at such pains to introduce and foster. The Atbara is the last tributary whi the Nile receives; after their junction the latter river flows 1,100 miles to its months.
"T have always believed," Sir Samuel Baker continues, "since I carefully examined the river system of the Nile tributaries, that the seven years of famine in Lower Egypt during the time of Joseph were occasioned by a stoppage of the Atbara river; also of the Rabat and Dinder affluents of the Blue Nile." This view is a very considerable departure from the story of the famine in Ezypt and other countries as related in Genesis. "The seven years of dearth "began to come," the Scripture says, "according as Joseph had said: and the dearth was in all lands." Again, it says, "the famine was over all the face of the earth," and the narrative subsequently tells how Joseph's brethren went down into Egypt to buy corn, going thence from Syria where the crops would not be hurt by the absence of water in the Nile basin. This somewhat impairs Sir Samuel's inference that the Mahdi has imitated the policy of the Ethiopians in the dim times of the Patriarchs. "The Ethiopians, with whom the Egyptians were continually at war, possessed the control of the Nile by damming and deflecting these affluents," and though Sir Samuel does not accuse Joseph of knowing this and making arrangements to meet the contingency, by laying in a great: store of provisions, he affirms that the plan is feasible. Moreover, that if any European is in command at the rebellious centre of the Soudan, his first strategical operation would be to deprive of the water which is necessary to her existence, and so at the same time fertilise the lands of the rebel tribes. Sir Samuel quotes the opinion of Mehemet Ah that the control of the Nile should brought 4 @ whole Nile basin within hie in Egypt's grasp: his grandson, Ismail,
territory, but the British Government thought all this should be given up, and the command of the waters upon which Egypt depends has been given to the enemy. Sir Samuel Baker is one of the highest authorities on all concerning that part of Africa, and he has been unsparing and vehement in his denunciation of the British abandonment of the country. But it would be terrible if one result of the wretched policy of the Gladstone government were a famine in Egypt. Nothing would leave such an indelible stain on our history during the last ten years as this would. it would be blacker than the throwing over Gordon and his policy and leaving him to his fate.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.