Within about two months of the battle of Omdurman the plans were made for a further extension of the railway from Atbara to Khartoum, and Khartoum North was reached on the last day of 1899. The construction of a bridge over the Blue Nile subsequently allowed of trains running direct into Khartoum. To-day this same railway has been carried a distance of 430 miles south of Khartoum. It continues along the Blue Nile to Sennah, where it turns to the westward, crosses the White Nile at Kosti, and has its terminus at El Obeid, the capital of Kordofan Province. What this means is that an enormous expanse of territory has been opened up both to civilisation and to commercial development. Apart from the important gum trade of which El Obeid is the centre, the Sudan is pre-eminently a pastoral country. The number of its cattle, sheep and goats is estimated at "several millions"; it has thousands of square miles available for cotton-growing, already carried on there for centuries, and it has wide possibilities in other directions, besides; though stock-raising and cotton cultivation should alone suffice to ensure for the Sudan a future of great wealth and commercial importance. Beyond the districts immediately served by the extension there are others which are to be brought into touch with the railway, either direct or via the Nile, by means of a "roads system" linking up towns and villages with a number of highways extending to all the frontiers of the Sudan. On these roads and highways motor traction will, it is hoped, be gradually substituted for transport animals, the troubles caused by the tsetse fly and other pests being thus avoided.