CHAPTER IX.
KORDOFÂN.
HIS country, which was till recently an Egyptian province, and
which, at the commencement of 1883, became the centre of a new
state destined probably to have but a short existence, is a perfectly
distinct natural region, although without any clearly defined frontiers.
On the whole its form is quadrilateral, inclined from the north to
the south, parallel with the main stream between the Sobat and Blue Nile confluence.
On the south and east Kordofân, or Kordofal, has for its natural frontiers low-
lying tracts flooded by the Nile; to the north and west it merges in the steppes
roamed over by nomad tribes. The total area of the region, thus roughly defined,
may be estimated at 100,000 square miles, or nearly half the size of France. This
space is very sparsely populated; in 1875, Prout, an American officer in the
Egvptian service, made an official return, according to which the inhabitants of
the eight hundred and fifty-three towns and villages of Kordofân numbered
164,740 persons. At the same period the nomad tribes amounted to a total of
114,000 persons, but the governor of the province had made no attempt to number
the turbulent mountaineers of the south. The total population of Kordofan can be
provisionally estimated at 300,000, giving a density of about three persons to the
equare mile. Wars have frequently devastated the country, and it is supposed
that the number of people has considerably decreased since the massacres ordered
by Mohammed Bey, the terrible "Treasurer," who conquered this region for his
father-in-law, Mohammed Ali. Fresh butcheries have again taken place since the
Mahdi, or "Guide," has made Kordofan the centre of his empire, and proclaimed
the holy war throughout his camps.
Physical Features.
By the general slope of the land Kordofân belongs to the Nilotic basins. If the rains were sufficiently abundant the wadies, which dry up at the mouth of the mountain valleys, would reach as far as the White Nile; even the waters rising on the western slope flow to the Nile intermittently, on the one side through the Keilak and the Bahr-el-Ghazal, on the other through the Wady-Melek. In other
