“Take, for instance, the country along the Abyssinian border and that which lies between the White and Blue Niles. Those regions have been built up in the same manner as Egypt, and they contain all the rich fertilizing materials which have made the Lower Nile valley one of the great grain lands of the world. The only difference is that the Egyptian soil, by the cultivation and the watering of thousands of years, has been leached of its best fertilizing elements; while the soil of the Gezirah, as the region I have referred to is called, has hardly been touched. Indeed, the plain between the White and Blue Niles is so rich that, if water is put upon it, it will produce four or five crops every year, and that for many years in succession. We have millions of acres of such soil awaiting only the hand of man to bring them into the world’s markets as live commercial factors.” “What kind of crops can be raised in that country, your Excellency?” I asked. “Almost anything that is now produced in Egypt,” was the reply. “The Gezirah is already growing a great deal of dura, or millet. It produces an excellent wheat and also maize. In fact, that plain is now the chief granary of this part of the world. It raises so much that, when the season is good, the crops are more than the people consume, so the grain is stored away in great pits. I have seen dura pits forty feet deep and about fifty feet in diameter. They are to be found about almost every village. At ordinary times they are kept full of grain for fear of a famine, but while the Mahdi reigned, his soldiers used to rob them. The result was that whole communities were wiped out by starvation.” “But if the bad years eat up the good ones, where is the Sudan to get its grain for export?” I inquired. “That will come by irrigation and better transportation. Until the Upper Nile irrigation projects can be put through the people must rely, as they do now, upon the rainfall, which is uncertain. When those plans have been carried out the country can be irrigated by the two Niles without diminishing the supply of water required for Egypt. Then the land will have water all the year round. Improved methods of cultivation will enormously increase the crops. At present the native merely walks over the ground after a rain and stirs it up with a stick while his wife or children follow behind dropping the seeds and covering them with their feet. Nothing more is done until two months later, when the crop is ready for reaping.” “How about cotton?”