The town lies in a direct line 3 miles from Khartoum—but by water another mile, some 40 minutes by steamer. Very many of the houses are now deserted, but the population still numbers some 46,000. It lies on good gravel soil, and comprises, besides the old Dervish buildings above-mentioned, barracks for the garrison, which consists of 2 battalions infantry and 2 maxims. There is a large market (Suk), where a considerable trade in gum and other produce is carried on. On the sloping banks a large boat traffic is at work. Steamers and ferry boats connect the town with Khartoum. It is the residence of the sub-Governor of Khartoum Province who resides in a house built in the late Khalifa’s enclosure. [Illustration: _By kind permission of W. Crooke, Edinburgh_. MAJ.-GEN. SIR REGINALD WINGATE. _Governor-General and Sirdar._] [Sidenote: Khartoum North (Halfaya).] KHARTOUM NORTH (lately Halfaya) is the terminus of the railway from Halfa, and lies opposite to Khartoum, on the right bank of the Blue Nile. It includes storehouses, workshops, the headquarters and the dockyard of the Steamers and Boats Department, barracks for an Egyptian garrison, consisting of infantry and artillery, Custom-house, etc., etc. Population about 2,000. A steam chain ferry, running every half-hour, connects it with Khartoum. [Sidenote: Khartoum. Principal towns.] KHARTOUM, including the towns of Khartoum North (late Halfaya) and Omdurman, together with a little hinterland (_vide_ App. G.), forms a Province by itself. It is once again the capital of the Sudan and the seat of Government, though Omdurman still is, and Khartoum North will probably become in a few years, the principal trade centre. Khartoum (meaning elephant’s trunk—with reference to the point of land jutting out between the two Niles) is a rapidly growing town, on the left bank of the Blue Nile, just before it joins the White Nile, and is built on the site of the old town of the same name, which was so gallantly held by Gordon and destroyed by the Dervishes in 1885. Its population is now 8,500 souls, and is gradually increasing. The soil is alluvial; bank of Blue Nile about 30 feet above the river at low Nile. In 1898 the old town was found entirely deserted and in ruins. The main buildings are the Palace (built in 1899), the seat of the Governor-General; the Government Buildings (including the local War Office and the Offices of the Sudan Government); the Nuzl or Government store, the Post and Telegraph buildings, the Mosque, the Department of Works, the Mudiria (Governor’s office), branches of the National Bank and the Bank of Egypt, the Gordon College, the British barracks (holding one battalion of British troops), houses of the chief officials, and a small town of well-built mud-brick and stone houses (including a market square, landing place, a good European hotel, club, brick kilns, Zoological Gardens, etc., etc.), which is daily increasing in size. [Sidenote: Barracks.]