It would be a great piece of organization; but, with Indian experience before us, there is no reason why it should not be a success. Direct administration ought not to be in the hands of the Foreign Office, which has plenty of diplomatic business of its own to look after. In one department, and that a very important one, the whole of Nileland will, indeed, be so organized in practice. When the great schemes for the final binding of the Nile are put in hand, they must be all under one control, and that control will be exercised from Cairo. It would be intolerable and impossible that every time it was thought desirable to open the Reservoir gates, say of Lake Albert, there should have to be negotiations between district governments or departments. The water of the Nile has made its powerful political influence felt throughout the Soudan; in time it will play its part in Uganda. But such semi-continental speculations are unprofitable except for those who have some power to realize them. For the present the horizon of Soudan politics is bounded by the railway. From its completion all immediate plans of progress must take their start. It would be foolish to take too sanguine a view. Railway communication between Khartoum and the Red Sea will not smooth away all the difficulties of administration. There will still be years of low Nile and scanty rainfall. There will still be an abominable climate during a large portion of the year. Mosquitoes, sand-flies, and other insects will still ply their uncomfortable occupations. Dhurra will still suffer from curious and unique parasites. Cattle will be subject to murrain. Perhaps cotton, free from ‘worm’ and ‘hog,’ will discover some new foe to combat. Locusts and white ants will still occasionally devour what they ought not, and possibly develop fresh objectionable tastes. New Mahdis, unconvinced by the doom of their predecessors, may still require to be put down from time to time. Economic laws cannot be expected to work with the same certainty and freedom from cross-currents as they do in Egypt. In other words, the Soudan is a tropical country, subject to surprises: it will have its ups and downs like other places. These and similar difficulties it would have to face, railway or no railway. But beyond question, once the line is open, it will be in a far better position to grapple with them all, and to reap the benefits of the sound foundations which are now being solidly and patiently laid by the handful of Englishmen to whose charge its destinies have been entrusted by Fate. And whatever else of good or evil the future may have in store, the Soudan has one treasure which makes it certain that it will never again be allowed to lapse from the pale of civilization, and that is not the gold which attracted the attention of its former invaders, with such disastrous consequences both to conquerors and conquered, but the inestimable possession of the Nile. INDEX