Note 57 — JOURNAL.

“Ismail, the ex-Khedive, fully considered that to maintain his hold of the Soudan, he must improve his communications with it and Egypt proper. Unfortunately, in his wish to bring the Soudan trade down the Nile through Egypt proper, he was led to abandon its natural outlet by the route from Berber to Suakin, across the 280-mile desert, and determined to make a railway through the desert along the Nile past the Cataracts from Wady Halfa to Hanneck, a distance of 180 miles. Contracts were made, and some £450,000 were spent on the line; but financial difficulties arose, and in 1877 it came to a standstill some fifty or sixty kilometres south of Wady Halfa. It was evident that on this grand scale the continuation of the line could not be hoped for, so I studied the question. There was the line made from Wady Halfa for say fifty miles; and therefore 130 miles remained to be got over before this barrier of desert was passed. By the researches of Colonel Mason and Mr. Gooding, and also by my own personal examination, the river for this 130 miles was shown to be not continuously encumbered by rocks. There were, as it were, long strips of open, water between the ridges of rocks,—one of these strips was forty miles in length. Now steamers built in England had in full flood been hauled up every one of these ridges, and had thus been brought to Kartoum and had plied to Gondokoro. My idea was to bring up small steamers during high Nile, place them on all the open strips of water of any reasonable extent; and thus work them from ridge to ridge in these open spaces. I proposed further to have only one crew, and to ship them from steamer to steamer so as to save expense. At those places where the ridge was of any great length, I proposed to use tramways to get over the space between the debarking landing-place of one open water-way to the embarking wharf of the other open water-way. Thus, by using the water-way where open, and tramways where the river was encumbered, I should get over these 130 miles. I calculated that the cost of all this work, steamers, and tramways, &c., would be £70,000, while the railway, if carried, would have cost over a million and a half. However, the revolts, troubles of different kinds, and other things, prevented this being carried out, and the controllers would not take it up; so, after an expense of nearly half-a-million, the railway exists with its end en l’air, with its valuable stores perishing, while Egypt proper has no more hold over the Soudan than was had by Ancient Egypt.”—See “Colonel Gordon in Central Africa,” p. 315.—Ed.