concessions of land. The fact is that there are immense tracts of soil suitable for the cultivation of cotton and corn. The one thing lacking is a supply of water for irrigation. Between the two Niles, between the Blue Nile and the Atbara, about the river Gaash in Kassala, and along the course of the Rahad and the Dinder tributaries of the Blue Nile, are millions of acres lying waiting for the engineers to perfect their schemes for controlling the waters of the Nile and its tributaries. Along the Nile itself, north of Khartoum, there is much to be done by bringing land under cultivation and pumping water during the flood and early winter. Mr. Leigh Hunt and Mr. Grieve are pioneers in this work, and their experience will prove of incalculable value some day when the water from the great lakes can be brought down without paying so great a toll in the Sudd country. It will then be possible for the Sudan to take water from the Nile for large irrigation all the year round, but at present, during the scanty summer supply, Egypt's claims have first to be considered. All the experiments up to the present, however, show that cotton can be successfully cultivated during the flood and winter, and cotton-growing has a great future before it.
Cotton and corn are far from being the only products of the Sudan. The gum trade has attained very considerable proportions since the reopening of the country. The best gum is the sap of the gray-barked acacia, which grows best in Kordofan, between El Obeid and the Nile. It is brought down to Omdurman by boat or camel, and the sorting of the different kinds is one of the sights of the beach. From the Bahr-el-Ghazal there comes even now a certain amount of first-class rubber, and more is hoped for when that province has been fully explored.
Altogether the economic prospects of the Sudan are promising enough. The mere fact that the annual revenue has increased from about £8,000, immediately after Omdurman, to over £500,000 tells its own tale. It would have been easy to increase this total by squeezing,
