The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan

Justice.

The Sudan judicial codes, based, in part, on those of India, and, in part, on the principles of English law and of Egyp tian commercial law, provide for the recognition of "customary law" so far as applicable and "not repugnant to good conscience." In each mudiria criminal justice is administered by a court, con sisting of the mudir (or a judge) and two magistrates, which has general competence. The magistrates are members of the admin istrative staff, who try minor cases without the help of the mudir (or judge). The governor-general possesses revising powers in all cases. Civil cases of importance are beard by a judge (or where no judge is available by the mudir or his representative) ; minor civil cases are tried by magistrates. From the decision of the judges an appeal lies to the High Court at Khartoum, composed of a chief justice and four puisne judges. Jurisdiction in all legal matters as regards personal status of Mohammedans is adminis tered by a grand cadi and a staff of subordinate cadis. The police force of each mudiria is independently organized under the con trol of the mudirs.

Education.

Education is in charge of the department of pub lic instruction. Elementary education, the medium of instruction being Arabic, is given in kuttabs or village schools. There are pri mary schools in the chief towns where English, Arabic, mathe matics, and, in some cases, land-measuring are taught. There are also Government industrial workshops, and a few schools for girls. The Gordon college at Khartoum undertakes a suitable variety of vocational teaching, along with the training of teachers and judges in the Mohammedan courts, and has annexed to it a secondary school. The college also contains the Wellcome laboratories for scientific research. Among the pagan negro tribes Protestant and Roman Catholic missions are established. These missions carry on educational work, special attention being given to industrial train ing.

Defence.

The defence of the country used to be entrusted to the Egyptian army; but in 1924 the Egyptian units were removed, and the defence force is now composed of local material under British officers. A small force of British troops is also stationed in the Sudan—chiefly at Khartoum. They are under the command of the governor-general in virtue of an arrangement made in 1905, having previously been part of the Egyptian command.

Archaeological study in the Sudan, retarded for many years by political conditions, gave rich returns. The work, which had been begun by Cailliaud, Champollion, Lepsius and others, was interrupted by the rise of the Mandist power; and with the frontiers of Egypt itself menaced by dervishes, the country south of Aswan was necessarily closed to the student of antiquity. Even after the dervishes had been overthrown at the battle of Omdur man (1898) it was some time before archaeologists awoke to the sense of the historical importance of the regions thus made accessible to them. What aroused them was the danger of

submergence with which many ancient sites were threatened by the raising of the Aswan dam. A large sum of money was assigned by the Government, partly for the preservation of the visible temples in the area to be submerged, partly for an official expedition under the charge of Dr. G. A. Reisner, which was to search for all remains of antiquity hidden beneath the ground. At the same time the University of Pennsylvania dis patched the Eckley B. Coxe, jun., expedition, which devoted its attention to the southern half of Lower Nubia, from Halfa to Korosko, while the Government excavators explored from Korosko to Aswan. Thus material was acquired which throws a flood of light on the archaeology at once of Egypt and the Sudan. For though all except the southern twenty miles of Lower Nubia has been attached for purposes of administration to Egypt proper, yet this political boundary is purely artificial. The natural geographical and ethnical southern frontier of Egypt is the First Cataract; Egyptian scribes of the Old Empire recognized this truth no less clearly than Diocletian, and Juvenal anticipates the verdict of every modern observer when he describes the "porta Syenes" as the gate of Africa. The reconnaissances of Dr. Wallis Budge, Prof. A. H. Sayce, Mr. Somers Clarke, Prof. J. Garstang and more recent investigators, cover the well known monuments left by Egyptian kings whose history is tolerably familiar from other sources. The inscriptions of these kings and their officials have been collected by Prof. J. H. Breasted. But, while the central and southern Sudan is almost a virgin field for the archaeologist, the exploration of Lower Nubia has made important progress.

The Sudan is primarily and above all the country of the black races, of those Nilotic negroes whose birthplace may be supposed to have been near the Great Lakes. But upon this aboriginal stock were grafted, in very early times, fresh shoots of more vigorous and intellectual races coming, probably, from the East. Lower Nubia was one of the crucibles in which several times was formed a mixed nation which defied or actually dominated Egypt. There is some scientific ground for dating the earliest example of such a fusion to the exact period of the Egyptian Old Empire. The Ethi opians who usurped the crown of the Pharaohs from 74o-66o B.C. were of a mixed stock akin to the modern Barabra; the northern Nubians who successfully defied the Roman emperors were under the lordship of the Blemyes (Blemmyes), an East African tribe, and the empire of the Candace dynasty, no less than the Christian kingdoms which succeeded it, included many heterogeneous racial elements. The real history of the Sudan will, therefore, be con cerned with the evolution of what may be called East African or East Central African civilizations.