The great want of the Soudan at the present time is means of communication; there are enormous tracts of land on which cereals can be raised with the minimum of cost and labour, but without means of transport they might as well not exist. Some talk has been made of a line of rail connecting Khartoum with the Red Sea, and this, certainly, would provide the means of transport and enable the Soudan to compete with almost any other country in cereals, but it is a question whether it would be worth while to construct a railway for the sake of the grain trade, if the trucks which take it to the seaboard have to be hauled back empty, and, maybe, left idle for the greater part of the year. It is possible that during the last fifteen years Nature has to a great extent repaired the enormous damage done to indiarubber and gum trees, |357| when the plants and trees were destroyed in order to obtain a big enough crop to satisfy the rapacity of the “Turk” officials. The forests abound in ebony and other hard woods, but power to saw them into beams or planks of suitable dimensions for transit is requisite before this valuable industry can be developed. From what prisoners from the south told me, in places an almost pure iron is found on or near the surface; this the Shilluks and Dinkas smelt in mud furnaces about six to eight feet high and three to four feet in diameter. The spear heads of the Shilluks and Dinkas, beside their shape being different from all others, are readily distinguishable from their peculiarly deep black shade, while the spear heads made from imported iron are many shades lighter, and in comparison, when polished, have a tinny appearance. If coal is found, and I believe it will be, if the description I was given of “black stones” which took fire is correct, then one might say that there is no limit to the development of the country. Should the Nile and its tributaries be cleared of the “sudd,” considerable development would be immediately possible, but the whole country must first be studied, and its present condition with its existing means of transport thoroughly grasped, before people will be justified in subscribing for big ventures, for the failure of one means the failure of others, and a retarding, for want of new capital, of present possibilities in the way of development.