Chapter XIV: The Past

As with modern Egypt, so with the modern Soudan: the name of the Albanian tobacco-seller is writ large upon the pages of her history. In spite of the ancient connection between Egypt and Ethiopia, in spite of the dependence of Egypt upon the Soudan for her water, the warlike tribes of the south remained for more than 1,000 years free from any attempt at domination by their neighbours. It was Mehemet Ali who, in the year 1819, laid the foundations of the empire which reached its furthest limits under the Khedive Ismail, an empire of which the brief but disastrous history brought nothing but misery and ruin to the Soudanese, and made the Soudan a name of fear and trembling to every Egyptian peasant.

About A.D. 700 Arabs of the tribe of Beni Omr, driven out of Arabia, crossed the Red Sea, and began to settle about Sennar, on the Blue Nile. By degrees these fugitives, reinforced by other tribes, some from Arabia direct, some, it is said, by way of Egypt and the countries further west, swelled to an invading host and permeated the whole of the Northern Soudan, and the original inhabitants were largely converted to Islam. In the Sennar region the two principal negro tribes were the Fung and the Hameg. The conquerors, while they imposed their language and religion on the conquered, seemed to have been absorbed into their ranks; for the distinction between Arab and negro diminished, and the old tribal names reappeared. In 1493 Amara Dunkas, a sheikh of one of the Fung tribes, was recognised as king of all the Fungs, and conquered all the country on both sides of the Blue Nile from Khartoum to Fazokhl. The negroes who remained in the country were merged in the Fungs. The remainder emigrated to the mountains of Southern Kordofan, where, under the name of Nubas, they have ever since maintained themselves in a somewhat precarious independence against the raids of the Arabs of the plains. About the same time was founded the Sultanate of Darfur, which in time extended its dominion to the banks of the Nile. South of these two powers the Shilluks and other negro tribes continued, as before, generally engaged in some petty warfare, and regarded as a convenient reservoir of slaves by their Arab neighbours.

The Fung dynasty lasted 300 years, and attained a very considerable position. About A.D. 1600 in the reign of Adlan, Sennar even became famous for learning, and was the resort of many scientists and philosophers from Cairo and Bagdad. In the reign of King Baadi, 1719-1758, the fame of the kingdom of Sennar reached its height. A quarrel arose with Abyssinia on account of some presents from the King of France which had been intercepted by Baadi. The Abyssinian King invaded Sennar with a great host, but met with the most signal defeat. So great an event was heralded throughout the Mohammedan East. The bazaars of Constantinople and Delhi were alike filled with the renown of Sennar. Once more crowds of learned and celebrated men flocked into the country from every quarter. But it was the last flicker of sunlight before the night fell. Baadi himself was deposed and exiled on account of his bad administration. The Hameg tribe, long subject to the Fungs, began to lift their heads. By 1790 the kingdom of the Fungs had disappeared, and for thirty years the Hameg continued supreme. Fire and sword was their sole notion of supremacy; it was no mere theory with them. The country was utterly given over to anarchy when Mehemet Ali determined to interfere.

The motives that prompted him were many; possibly, ardent irrigationist that he was, the desire to secure the upper waters of the Nile may have been among them; but beyond a doubt, like Cambyses of old, his principal object was gold. Extraordinary rumours were current as to an El Dorado in the south. Every officer and man who took part in the expedition entertained the most extravagant notions of gold-strewn districts. By means of this, and also by securing the profitable traffic in slaves, Mehemet hoped to be able to win sufficient resources to carry out his ambitious schemes in Asia and Europe. It was also very convenient at the moment to find employment for his irregular troops. It would be a mistake, however, to explain his action wholly by such reasons as these. All through his life ran the dream of posing as a second Napoleon. It is curious to find that along with the army he sent a number of learned men and skilled artisans, while it was announced that the object of the invasion was to introduce the benefits of a regular government of civilization. Mehemet Ali had closely studied the methods of his great model.

But of all these designs only one, and that the worst, was destined to be fulfilled. The slave-trade had always flourished in the Soudan. The Arab States were founded upon slavery. Along the great Arbain road, the desert ‘track of the forty days’ from Darfur to Assiout, yearly caravans containing slaves as well as other merchandise passed into Egypt; the Nile route served the same purpose, and from the Red Sea ports there was a constant export trade to Arabia and Turkey. All this was nothing compared to the dimensions which the trade assumed under Egyptian rule. It became practically the sole trade of the country; it reached like a pestilential blight even as far as the Equator. Bitterly did the Soudan suffer for the Napoleonic ideas of Mehemet, and bitter, but deserved, was the penalty which Egypt had to pay for her misgovernment in the end. Even to-day among the remotest tribes the name of ‘Turk’ stands for loathing and terror.

The army, commanded by Ismail, son of the Viceroy, reached Sennar without opposition. Thence, accompanied by his brother Ibrahim, he advanced to Fazokhl in search of the famous gold-mines in the Beni Shangul. But the gold proved disappointing. Ibrahim returned to Egypt, destined to win fame as the butcher of the Peloponnese in the Greek War of Independence. The Arabs rose against Ismail, and he had to return to defeat them. Unsuccessful in his quest for gold, he had devoted all his energy to the slave-trade, but his cruelties and barbarities were too much even for a people familiar with the Hameg. The local chief at Shendi, appropriately named El Nemr (the Tiger), invited him to a banquet. While he and his followers, contrary to the precepts of their own Koran, drank freely of the forbidden wine, straw was silently piled high about the house and fired. To a man they perished in the flames.

Meantime, Achmet Bey, the Defterdar, had conquered the province of Kordofan from the Sultan of Darfur. Hearing of Ismail’s fate, he marched towards Shendi to avenge him. The story of what happened, as told by the Egyptians, wears an ugly look. The details are wanting, but, at any rate, few were left to tell the other side of the story. At Metemmeh, on the bank of the Nile opposite Shendi, the people sent messengers to sue for pardon. It was granted. But when the Defterdar marched into the town a lance was thrown at him. The pardon was at once rescinded, and a general massacre ensued. El Nemr himself, however, had fled to Abyssinia. He, at any rate, had no faith in Egyptian promises. The Defterdar then marched towards Khartoum, and at Tuti Island another great slaughter took place. It was a bad beginning. To the native Soudanese the distinction between the benefits of a regular government of civilization and the fire and sword of the Hameg must have seemed slight indeed.

To build aright on such foundations would have been difficult for a nation of born administrators. For the Egyptians it was impossible. There were among the Egyptian Governors of the Soudan honest and righteous men, but, amid a crowd of officials bred and trained in an atmosphere of corruption and slavery, their spasmodic efforts after good only gave fresh opportunities for evil. Military stations were established in various parts of the country for the sake of security, and they became fountains of slave recruits to swell the ranks of the army. The navigation of the White Nile was declared free, and it became the favourite route of the slave-traders. Khartoum, from a village of skins and reeds, rose to be a city of bricks and the capital of the Soudan, but also a convenient and central market for a huge slave-trade. The Abyssinians, who espoused the cause of the Sennar rebels, were beaten back into their mountains, but the savage methods of warfare only brutalized and demoralized the victors. It speaks volumes for the barbarous character of the times that when Adlan, the leader of the Abyssinians, was captured by Kurshid, reputed the best of the Governors of the Soudan, he was immediately impaled. The annals of these years are filled with stories of famine and rebellion, and, to add to the general desolation, cholera and other diseases constantly ravaged the country.

But worse was to come. Down to 1853 the southernmost Egyptian station was only 120 miles south of Khartoum. The annexed provinces of Kordofan, Sennar, and Kassala (or Taka) groaned under oppression and tyranny, but the negro inhabitants of the Upper White Nile and the Bahr el Ghazal were still comparatively unmolested. In that year the English Consul in the Soudan started a trading expedition up the river. Other traders followed, who established stations far up the country. Peaceful trading soon succumbed to the temptations of the slave-trade. For the sake of protection, it began to be found necessary to employ bands of armed Arabs or Nubians. Gradually the European traders disappeared; by 1860 the last of them had sold their stations to their Arab agents. No greater curse was ever let loose upon a country than these human locusts, and the Egyptian Government was directly responsible. Under the shallow pretence of legitimate commerce, trading monopolies were leased to these traders in various districts. The fact that the Government had not a shadow of claim even by right of conquest to the territories leased was no obstacle. All the country south of Kordofan and Darfur along the White Nile or the Bahr el Ghazal was regarded as peculiarly suitable for these nefarious bargains. The Khartoumers, as they were called, because they had their headquarters in the capital, established themselves everywhere, and became practically independent potentates. With their armed bands of brigands they raided the native tribes, and even used them to fight against each other. Only the Dinkas, protected by the impenetrable marshes of the sudd region, and the powerful and warlike Azande, or Niam-Niam, in the south, were able to maintain themselves. But the Bongo, a numerous and peaceful agricultural people, were easily reduced. The fact that they had attained a higher civilization than their neighbours (for they smelted the iron found in their swamps with furnaces of clay and rude bellows, and worked it with stone hammers on anvils of granite, made pottery, and even had some acquaintance with surgery) only made them the more valuable in the slave-market. The Jur, Dembo, and Golo tribes were likewise among the principal sufferers. Anarchy is but a mild term for the condition of affairs.

Some of these unhappy victims may have heard the news on their way to the northern slave-market that slavery was abolished in the Soudan. If so, it cannot have done much to sweeten their bondage or to heal the strokes of the lash, yet a viceregal decree to that effect had been solemnly promulgated at Berber in 1857. It was characteristic of many of the descendants of Mehemet Ali that they inherited great part of his intellectual vigour and wide sweep of imagination without any of his executive capacity. Said Pasha, who became Viceroy in 1854, visited the Soudan and clearly recognised the failure of his foreign empire. A large force had to be maintained to screw exorbitant demands out of a discontented population. Agriculture was depressed, and every other industry was perishing under a system of taxation vicious in itself, and collected by methods which might have made a Verres blush. He determined to evacuate the country. But the burden of the Soudan, so lightly taken up in greed of gain, was not to be so lightly laid aside. Egypt was now holding a wolf by the ears. The officials who battened on the ruin of the country opposed a strenuous resistance. Things had come to such a pass that the sheikhs and notables of the provinces themselves feared that the withdrawal of one devil would be followed by the entry of many. Said contented himself with reorganizing the government and announcing a number of reforms of a drastic and far-reaching nature, and then returned to Egypt. It was the first of many reorganizations and many reforms, all of which were as effective as the decree for the abolition of slavery. The plan of much talking and little doing became a fixed principle of Soudan policy.

The story of the tax on sakiehs (water-wheels) affords a good illustration of Egyptian methods. One of Said’s reforms was to fix this tax at 200 piastres per annum. In less than nine years it had risen to 500 piastres. Jaaffar Pasha, who finally raised it to this extent, declared openly that he fixed it at that rate in order to see how much the peasants would really pay, and he hoped after a three years’ trial to be able to arrive at a just assessment. It was not a very scientific plan of taxation in any case, but, unfortunately, Jaaffar was removed before the scheme had time to work out, and his successors, absolutely indifferent to his motives, retained the tax, and even further increased it. It was calculated that on average land the tax often far exceeded the net returns for one sakieh. Even a ruined wheel was liable to the full amount, and if an owner returned to it after an interval he was saddled with the whole of the arrears. On the same principle taxes continued to be charged on land and trees that had long since been carried away by the floods. The natural results followed. Many cultivators were ruined and reduced to beggary, others fled the country, and much land went out of cultivation. In 1881 more than 2,000 sakiehs were lying derelict in Berber and Dongola.

By the time Ismail Pasha came to the throne in 1863 it had become abundantly clear that the Egyptians were unfit to govern the Soudan. It looked as though in a few years the whole country would have become a wilderness, totally uninhabited save for a few wanderers, whose sole occupation would be selling each other into slavery. And yet the next few years witnessed an enormous extension of the Egyptian Empire, and Ismail himself enjoyed, until the bubble burst, a great reputation as a genuine and whole-hearted reformer. Nor was that reputation wholly undeserved. Strange compound that he was of vast ambitions but changeable resolution, of far-reaching sagacity but reckless carelessness, a Westerner in the conception of his ideals but an Oriental in every sense in his pursuit of them, he proved himself in his treatment of the Soudan, as in other spheres, to possess many of the elements of greatness. If he failed, it was partly because the evil was beyond cure: the impending catastrophe was too great to be averted. His employment of Baker and Gordon and other Europeans showed that he realized the incapacity of Egypt to perform the task by herself. That was in itself a great step forward; undoubtedly it staved off for a little the day of retribution. His eager support of the project of a railway to Khartoum, first mooted by his predecessor, Said, showed a sound appreciation of the position, though his ineffective attempts to carry it out showed his weakness as clearly. But the whole hierarchy of Egyptian officialdom was rotten to the core. The best of rulers without good ministers is predestined to failure.

To add to a falling house must always be a desperate remedy. No other course seemed open to Ismail, if he was really to cope with the slave-trade. So long as the basin of the Upper Nile remained in the hands of the ‘Khartoumers,’ the sources of the traffic flowed as briskly as ever, and at the same time the Red Sea ports afforded every facility for export. Accordingly, in 1866 Ismail purchased the districts of Suakin and Massowah from the Turks by an increase of tribute. In 1869 he took a still more important step, and determined to annex the whole basin of the Nile. He invested Sir S. Baker with absolute and despotic powers over the whole country south of Gondokoro. No better choice could have been made. An administrator of the best type, energetic and high-minded, Baker was also no stranger to the scene of his mission. He had already in 1861 conducted an expedition up the White Nile to join hands with Speke and Grant in their investigations of the sources of the Nile, and in 1864 he had discovered the Albert Nyanza.

A strong man was needed. The Khedive seemed in earnest, but he was occupied with the Suez Canal and other matters nearer home. His representatives in Khartoum took quite another view; it was the custom of the Soudan Government to take away with one hand what it gave with the other. Baker’s appointment bore the ominous date of April 1, and the fact may well have recurred to him when, on arriving at Khartoum towards the close of the year, he discovered that the territory he was sent to annex had already been leased by the Governor-General to a couple of notorious slave-dealers. Every conceivable obstacle was put in his way by the officials. But, in spite of all opposition, he organized his expedition, and after a journey of incredible difficulty and labour, for the real channel of the river was blocked by sudd, he reached Gondokoro in May, 1871, and formally annexed it as ‘Ismailia.’ Next year he passed south, and proclaimed Unyoro an Egyptian province, organized a number of military posts, and entered into friendly relations with M’tesa, King of Uganda. For the time the slave-traffic in these new provinces was crushed. In 1873 Baker returned to Cairo with a record of successful work behind him, which must have astonished no one more than the Khedive himself.

But once the strong hand was removed, the stone which had been heaved uphill with so much labour rolled swiftly down again. Less than a year elapsed between the departure of Baker and the arrival of Colonel Gordon, on his appointment as Governor-General of Equatoria. Even in that short time the Egyptian occupation had become merely nominal. Two posts only were held, Gondokoro and Fatiko. Three large slave-trading stations were in full swing on the Bahr el Zeraf alone, whilst on the Bahr el Ghazal the notorious Zubehr had established himself as a practically independent potentate, and was even preparing on his own account an invasion of Darfur. The situation called forth Gordon’s fullest energies. Never did he perform better work than during his three years in Equatoria. As far as it could be done under Egyptian supremacy, he checked the slave-trade and laid the foundations of good government. The country was organized and divided into districts with proper garrisons both along the Sobat and the White Nile. The tribes were peaceful and contented. Communication was established with the great lakes; Lake Albert Nyanza was for the first time circumnavigated. A treaty was made with M’tesa, King of Uganda, recognising his independence, and Emin Bey was sent to represent Egypt at his Court. In 1876 Gordon returned to England.

In Egypt, meantime, the Khedive’s reckless extravagance was fast hurrying him to disaster. But the more involved he became, the more he extended his ambitions, like a ruined spendthrift who must keep up his credit at any cost. Extension of his Empire became a mania. After Equatoria came the turn of Darfur in 1874. Darfur had maintained its independence for over 400 years under an unbroken line of Sultans. One of them, Abd-el-Rahman the Just, had entered into correspondence with Napoleon during his occupation of Egypt, and congratulated him upon his defeat of the Mamelukes. Napoleon replied in a remarkable letter:

_‘To the Sultan of Darfur, 12 Messidor, Year VII. In the Name of God, compassionate and merciful; there is no other God but God! To the Sultan of Darfur, Abd-el-Rahman._

‘I have received your letter, and understand its purport. When your caravan arrived I was absent in Syria punishing and destroying my enemies. I pray you send me by the first caravan 2,000 black slaves, over sixteen years of age, healthy and strong. I will buy them from you. Order your caravan to come immediately, without delay. I have given orders for its protection all along the route.

‘BONAPARTE,
‘_Commander-in-Chief_.’

Many motives combined to make Ismail desire the annexation of the country. There were longstanding frontier grievances. Its commerce and slave-trade were still considerable, and Ismail hoped to profit by the one as well as to suppress the other. The copper-mines of Hofrat-en-Nahas in Southern Darfur were also a powerful attraction in view of his failing treasury. They were reported to be extraordinarily rich, with veins standing 2 feet out of the ground. And, since Zubehr could not be prevented from his proposed expedition, the only course seemed to be to join him in the conquest. Accordingly, an expedition was despatched from the north, while Zubehr co-operated from the south. The Sultan and two of his sons were killed in battle, and another troublesome province was added to the Khedive’s dominions. Zubehr was made a Pasha, but was refused the governorship, which he claimed as his right. For a moment he seemed inclined to assert his independence, but in the end he rashly determined to press his case in person at Cairo, leaving his son Suleiman to fill his place in his absence.

The same year saw the annexation of Harrar at the request of the Mohammedans in that country. Raouf Pasha, who had been left in charge at Gondokoro after Baker’s departure, was sent for that purpose. He showed that he had learnt but little wisdom or mercy from his association with Baker and Gordon, for he commenced his administration by strangling the late Sultan, a wholly unnecessary act. Egyptian territory had been extending down the Red Sea coast for some years previously, at the expense of Abyssinia. Little was gained, except some friction with the King of Abyssinia, for the occupation was generally quite nominal, and the tributes imposed by Egypt were seldom or never paid. Still, Egypt now possessed the coast-line as far as the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, and the purchase of the port of Zeila from Turkey in 1875 extended her possessions to Cape Guardafui and beyond, and consolidated her position, such as it was, in Harrar, and what is now Somaliland. But even this did not satisfy the Khedive.

Gordon had clearly perceived that it was impossible to properly control the Equatorial provinces without an outlet to the Indian Ocean, to replace the long and precarious line of communication by the Nile. He therefore advised the Khedive to occupy Mombasa from the sea, while he himself co-operated from inland by way of the Victoria Nyanza. Although the difficult nature of the country and the inferior quality of his troops soon convinced Gordon that it was impossible for him to carry out his part in the project, a naval expedition, known as the Juba River Expedition, set out in 1875 under the command of McKillop Pasha. Missing the mouth of the Juba River, which had been selected by the Khedive as their objective, without any great knowledge of the geography of these regions, they ran further south, but encroached on the territory of the Sultan of Zanzibar. At the instance of Great Britain the expedition was given up, but no objection was raised to the recognition of the Khedive’s authority as far south as the tenth degree of latitude.

It was not long before the folly of all this extravagant expansion began to appear. Abyssinia had had many causes of quarrel with Egypt, and, in fact, the relations between the two countries had consisted of a state of intermittent war or at best armed neutrality since the time of Mehemet Ali. But the purchase of Zeila thoroughly alarmed King John, and he took steps to protect his rights. War followed, disastrous to Egypt. A first army under Arendrup, a Dane, was, after a few preliminary successes, totally annihilated. A second was hastily fitted out and despatched. It was a model of all an army should not be, and had not King John been diverted by the fear of his rebellious vassal, Menelik, it would no doubt have suffered the fate of the first. As it was, it managed to return to Massowah after two or three months’ tedious and inglorious campaigning and one severe defeat.

The falling house had been extended in every direction, but it was falling still. The Abyssinian trouble was not the only sign of weakness. The internal condition of the provinces was as bad as ever; the whole country was restless and disturbed; the feebleness of the Government was increased by the huge distances over which its garrisons were scattered; the slave-trade, openly favoured by the officials whose duty it was to suppress it, was recovering from the blows which had been dealt it. One more heroic effort was made to set things right. Gordon was recalled to Egypt and made Governor-General of the whole Soudan, including Equatoria and the Red Sea provinces. He was specially charged with the duty of settling matters with Abyssinia, of suppressing the slave-trade, and of improving communications.

It was with the utmost reluctance that Gordon returned to the Soudan. Under existing conditions his task was a hopeless one, and he knew it. His letters show how clearly he foresaw the coming catastrophe. He was aware that, while the Egyptian Government was concluding an anti-slavery convention with England, it was at the same time intriguing almost openly with Zubehr, the prince of slave-dealers. Less than half-hearted support was to be expected from Cairo. At the very moment that he needed them most, great part of his troops were withdrawn to serve in the Russo-Turkish War. Immediately on assuming the reins of government he found himself confronted by a serious rebellion in Darfur; at the same time the slave-dealers in the south were gathering in force under the leadership of Suleiman, Zubehr’s son. But Gordon faced the peril undismayed. His activity was almost superhuman. Hastily patching up a temporary arrangement on the Abyssinian frontier, he travelled to Khartoum by way of Kassala, Gedaref, and Sennar. Here he spent some time in carrying out a number of reforms, and in May set out to deal with the rebellion in Darfur. Darfur had had its first experience of Egyptian rule, and Harûn, a member of the deposed royal house, had taken advantage of the general discontent. There flocked also to his standard the nomad Arab tribes, who had stood aloof when Darfur was first conquered, but now saw their hereditary trade threatened. But Gordon in a few months had drawn together his scattered garrisons and scattered the rebels by a display of force. By the almost unsupported exercise of his personal influence he next dispersed the combination of slave-dealers under Suleiman, and by the end of the year he was back again at Khartoum, after another visit to the Abyssinian frontier and a round by Suakin and Berber.

Early in the next year he made the tour of all the Red Sea provinces, including Harrar. But in spite of all this ceaseless activity, the close of the year 1878 found things worse than ever. Trouble was once more stirring on the Abyssinian frontier. The northern provinces were quiet, but their quiet was the torpor of exhaustion. In Darfur Harûn had once more reappeared, and in Kordofan, too, a rising had taken place. In the Bahr el Ghazal Suleiman had this time revolted in good earnest. Only Equatoria was comparatively happy under the rule of Emin. Unyoro had been given up, and the Somerset Nile was now the southern boundary. Gessi had been despatched by Gordon to the Bahr el Ghazal, and in March he himself undertook an expedition to Kordofan and Darfur, with the object of pacifying the country and preventing help being sent to Suleiman. At the same time he made great efforts to put down the slave-trade, and captured many caravans. In June he was able to return to Khartoum, and left for Cairo to confer with the new Khedive Tewfik. The short remainder of his time as Governor-General was occupied with his mission to Abyssinia, and in December he left for England.

Meantime Gessi had been performing marvels in the Bahr el Ghazal. Gessi is one of the heroic figures of Soudan history. An Italian by birth, he served in the Crimea as interpreter to the British troops. In 1874 he joined Gordon in Central Africa. Thanks to his energy, a dangerous rising of the Shilluks at Fashoda was put down, and it was he who circumnavigated Lake Albert. The rising he had now to face was most serious. Zubehr, before he left for Cairo after the conquest of Darfur, had assembled his officers and made them swear to revolt when he should send them word that the time was ripe. That time was now come. Their organization was complete; their following was numerous and well-equipped; they had already proved the incapacity of the Government troops. It seemed that there was nothing to stop them from dividing the Soudan provinces among themselves, and finally throwing off the yoke of the hated and despised Egyptian. They even announced that they intended to seize Egypt itself. But they had reckoned without Gessi. With a handful of troops, inferior in quality as well as in number, short of supplies and ammunition, impeded by floods and generally cut off from his base by the sudd, in two notable campaigns he utterly broke their power, seized and shot Suleiman and his principal confederates, and completely liberated the Bahr el Ghazal.

His end was characteristic of the fate of those who, in those dark days, dared to serve the best interests of Egypt. In spite of his successful administration of his province, he found his position made impossible for him after Gordon’s departure. In September, 1880, he resigned. After nearly perishing in the sudd, which blocked his steamers, he reached Khartoum. But there, under the new regime, he was no welcome guest. He struggled on to Suez, where he soon after died, unrecognised and unrewarded, utterly worn out by his exertions and privations. When such a man met with such treatment, it was clear that there was no chance of the regeneration of the Soudan under Egyptian rule. The last ray of hope had been extinguished with Gordon’s departure.