“After that, for years, and until Kitchener came, Khartum was nothing but a brick pile and a dust heap. Omdurman had swallowed up not only its whole population, but that of a great part of the Sudan; for the Khalifa forced the tribes to come there to live, in order that he might have their men ready for his army in times of war. The result was that Omdurman had more than a half million inhabitants while Khartum had none. “Then we had the war with the Khalifa, whom we finally conquered,” the Governor continued. “After we had reduced the greater part of Omdurman to ruins, we began planning the building of a great city. The idea at first was to force the people to move from Omdurman to Khartum, but it was finally decided that it would be far better to have a native city there, and to make this place the government and foreign centre, with a manufacturing and commercial town at Halfaya, or Khartum, North, on the northern bank of the Blue Nile. “The Khartum of to-day was laid out after somewhat the same plan as your capital at Washington; at least the reasons that determined the plans were the same. As I recall it, Washington was plotted at about the time of the French Revolution by a French engineer. Major L’Enfant laid out the city so that it could be easily defended in case of a rebellion and at the same time be beautiful. For that reason the streets were made to cut one another at right angles with avenues running diagonally through them, forming squares and circles, where one cannon could command many streets. Lord Kitchener had the same idea as to Khartum. He directed his architects to make the streets wide, with several large squares, and to have the whole so arranged that guns placed at the chief crossings could command the whole city. The result is Khartum as you now see it. “The town is laid out in three great sections, and all building plans must be submitted to the government architects before permits of construction can be issued. The section along the Nile is devoted to the government buildings and the residences of the officials and others who can afford good houses. Back of that there are streets where less pretentious houses may be built, while farther back still and more to the south is a third section of houses for natives. The town is so planned that it can grow along these lines, and we believe it will some day be one of the largest and most beautiful of the cities of interior Africa.”