1941-01-30 — Page 7

CHINA MAIL Who Holds Khartoum

WINDSOR HOUSE-

THE NEW LEAGUE Holds One of the Keys

OF NATIONS"

which bridges all known cen- turies. When the Queen of She-

a set out on her journey to King Solomon she went, so Sir Flinders Petrie believes, from Meror, capl- tal of that region, the Sudan, of

To

which Khartoum is now the head | 959

and jewel.

Egypt

is among the richest land in all the world. It will grow anything which grows in alluvial Africa.

The same sardonic Khartouni, Mecca of the hyena ↑ theatricalism that impel-hordes of Mussolini, has a history led. Hitler to force the

The country, which is 1,650 French to capitulate in

miles in length from Egypt to the famous armistice car

Uganda and the borders of tho Belgian Congo, has 1,001 miles of in the forest of Compiegne

a total

railways, 5,854 miles of telegraph Di more than Nearly every town and villago inspires the Germans to

265,000 people, so far as the diff was in ruins. Flocks and herd,

and telephone routes, 23 wireless

Khartoum, in those dim

were wiped out.

stations, a fleet of Government days culties of census-taking in swarm-

Men and wo- describe the bloc they are

when what is now the Bible rcing native cities

steamers on the Nile, ample motor can allow RC- men, were crucified. Dogs, vul- busily imposing on Eu- cord was no more than the tang- curacy.

tures and the sword were part-transport, and a submarine cable

across the Red Sea to the King The city proper is magnificent-ners in government.

dom of the Hedjaz. rope as a "league of na-led legends of desert tribes, was

a fishing village. Its mud-walledly modern, clean and well plan- Even the date palms were hewn tions." This is the brand huts, straw-thatched, basking in ued. Its hotels are unimpeach-down by the Mahdi's followers in

Since the Anglo-Egyptian arm- withable, its streets broad, its shops their frenzy of destruction. Bri- ies overthrow the Mahdi's fana- of satire the Nazis relish; dusty sunshine, querulous

tain was hated with a blood-lust | ties the country has been gover- it illuminates the real

ned of religious fervour which caused

by a Governor-Gener- the Sudanese to fling themselves al appointed by Egypt, with character of a revolution soil.

under withering fire on to British, the assent of Great Britain, bayonets. Those "low white a state of affairs embodied in a clouds" of maddened tribesinen convention signed with Cairo on died hating us with the last Jan. 19, 1899, and reaffirmed in the Anglo-Egyptian Trenty of 1926. The British and Egyptian flags fly together. Laws are marte by proclamation. Imports from Egypt are duty free. Slavery is abolished.

Koats and screaming children, stood on a tongue of chocolate-

On one side flowed the mighty

By

motivated by a spirit of waters of the Blue Nike Sparkling J. Wentworth Day

vengeance and directed by a leader driven ahead by the desire to get even with the rest of the world.

Abyssinian mountain torrents.

On

with the snow-water brillance af the other th White Nile, milky- coloured.

rame down brond-

basome d known heart of Alien.

By Test Of Battle

breath.

I have talked of those wars in excellent, good, transpert from the ghostly, un-

and the villages of the Nile with old watation above reproach. What nigh, black as night, stringy as was in the days of the Mahdi camels, who fought against us. squalid, mud-walled town, stink-Their old eyes still light up mis- In front of the Ashing village of cruelty and corruption, ischievously with the memories of

to-day one of the world's model tighting. cities, a shining tribute to British To-day the Sudar has a popu- mule. Khartoum is young, splen-lation of 6,342.477, of whom only 52,025 are non-native, Could any Let it be remembered that it is more eloquent testimony be given since this whole to the beneficence of British rule only 42 years

and of the Sudan was a slave than a jump in the population of State under the bloody hoel of nearly 5,000,000 m 40 years? Of that mad Khalifa in whose brief the 969,600 square miles which ign of 13 years a population of ¦ make up this vast territory, as big eight and a half millious was re- as all Europe bar Russia, the duced by famine, disease and 9,000,000 acres at the back of bettle to me and a half millions. | Khartoum, between the two rivers, built up by the tireless labours

Applying the name of League of Nations to a forced draft of conscripthese two great water; united to trum that vast river the Nile ... States emphasises as well ver of conquerors and Pharaohs, et vanished cities and dead gorls, as anything the quality of old wars and crumbled em- of Hitler's new order. It pires. To-day the ownership of is like a bad caricature, ide the future of the world. The That ancient river may well de-

drawn by some evil prophecy of the pyramids is about to be fulfilled within sight of their genius, of the plan for a

imunutab'. stones. The nation community of free nations which Hitler did most to wreck when he broke the League Covenant and the Treaty of Locarno,

sure

of the world furbish their pons, lighten their reins.

woa-

Khartoum. the jewel of the Sudan, is high among the prizes. Fe who wins Khartoum holds

even

is

The southern key to Egypt, as he who takes Alexandria has

Egypt the key to the north. the guardian of the Suez Canal. and the national which straddles the canal has its foot upon

gola,

Kitchener's Vision

the

į

did and eager.

Silk Stockings

Homily From A Victorian

indeed!"

and

an

LLS.

silk

|

The country is defended by the Sudan Defence Furce, one of the finest Colonial forces in the world, I owes allegiance to the Gover ner-General, although since the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty was signed a few Egyptian troops have re- turned to Khartoumi and Port Sudan.

Line of Great Men

This Defence Force has been

and in the great traditions of a mighty line of Sirdars and Gay- ernors-General. Names of the great men of the Sudan ring through the brief and stirring The assembly at Gene-

pageant of its present history-- Gordon and Kitchener. Slatin va was created to be a

Pusha and Hicks Pasha, Wingate forum of small nations; ertebra of the British Empire

and Lee Stack, down to Sir John "This mad scramble for silk even grey, stockings, but we think Maffey and his successor of to- it was the first interna- They called it Khartoum in the stockings is a disgrace to our sex," it must have been about the be- day. Sir Stuart Symes, a Gover-

Ter-off days when Tirhakah was said Grandmamma. tional congress in history King of Ethiopta and

Her evening ginning of the century when so nor-General cast in the true mould Hezekiah gown was long enough to conceal many girls took to sport of every of British pro-Consuls, that in- in which the little coun was King of Juden, because the her fect entirely, and not even kind and skirts grew shorter

dividual race of men whose motto tries spoke as loudly as the fishing huts was shaped like surt of hosiery its folds concealed. the ground was enough for

tongue of land upon which stood | Ida had the courage to ask what though even then six inches off of rule is "Persuade but be firm.” The tradition of Kitchener is the big powers.

In Hit an elephant's trunk, where f the "Dues none of you know there's It was only in that time of licence strong in the land. The hand of

word is hartoum.

# war on?" she added, for ler's league they will have

the after the Great War, when skirts the great Sirdar seems still living old never weary of cliches.

literally flared upwards, that I re-

on every brick and stone. His no voice at all. As he in-

"It's all very well," said Ida member purchasing grey or bronze name is constantly in men's corporates Hungary, Ru- For a time this wild land of pacifically. Her husband is in the stockings as, a matter of course mouths. It is as though one dwelt hills and mighty R.A.F., and she herself was in and that the shops began to pro-in a land where the living walk mania and Bulgaria into desert, savage

rivers was Christian. St. Athama-utuform till she resigned for what duce cheap silk varieties. It was hand in hand with the mighty the system, encircles ius is said to have introduced the Grandmamina calls "nursery rea- then that everyone, as you say, dead.

faith from Abyssinia. There are sons." "But what else are we began to wear them, and a great I shall not soon forget that ram- Yugoslavia as Sweden is

to-day the dusty remains of to wear? Everyone always has mistake too. Old people got rod-like Bimbashi, black as coal, encircled, puts the pres Christian churches in Sobi, 10 worn silk stockings."

rheumatism in their legs and smart as a grenadier, with the miles south of Khartoum: their "Always of all on

resistant

people had endless magnificent boots and Savile-row snorted young piles of forgotten bricks are Grandmamma.

"Why I read only strain on their dress allowances. breeches, who fought with Kit- Greece, the whole contin- scattered here and there in the

the other day that Queen Eliza-

And as for the working classes" chener at Omdurman. This whip- ent will be bound by a trim, toylike mud towns of Don-

beth was the first woman in Eng (Grandmamma still employs this cord man of war remembered Mr. When the Arabs swept in land to wear silk stockings,

old-world term), "I think

Churchill as a dashing subaltern, silence as complete as the across the Red Seu in the Eighth

they were carpentered out

stockings did far, far more harm Seventy-three years old and as Century Christianity was over- tomb-like quiet of the oc-whelmed there and the Muslim a bit of silk, I gather, so

active as a snipe, his contempt for than cinemas or wireless or even the Italians was summed up in wouldn't have cared

education! Not a girl will get one terse phrase "The One voice, creed was paramount. cupied lands.

indeed! Long before the brief period of And everyone

down to a good scrub or turn out jackals." very loud and familiar-

those a room as she should in Christian enlightenment the realise that my generation never ~will speak for all. No Sudan was ruled by a monstrous wore anything but woollen stock-ridiculous flimsy things. Girls live race of queens, the Canadace, ings till they were grown up? in one perpetual fear, that they'll State can keep out of this Amazons of a terrifying mould. Black ribbed woollen stockings, ladder their stockings. That's.

Let Mussolini, Scipio Africanus "league," or get out once Their portraits in stone invariably summer and winter, and we," said why, when they marry, they cat (very much Minor) remember in it is in; none, we are told, show them hauling along a bunch Grandmamma, striking out rather out of tins and neglect their chil- his African venture not only the

of prisoners by the hair in one unfairly on a side issue of can maintain even a "si-hand and brandishing a battle-own, "never had our tonsils

adenoids dragged out in this lax lent partnership with the axe in the other.

One hundred and twenty years modern way!"" British firm" and play ago, when the all-conquering "But Grannie, you

can't have even its mum and minor Turkish and Egyptian armies of worn them for dances or parties,"

that great Albanian adventurer protested Ida. role in the future of Eu- Mohommed Ali the First, ancestor Grandmamma paused,

of King Farouk. of Egypt, invaded tain, as old ladies rope.

the Sudan they pitched upon the whether to portray a past devoid Opposition to Britain is, ushing village as the strategic key of foolish, unnecessary galety or It was unfortunate that Grand-

of their new-won territories. in fact, the only binding

emphasised this noble It is the key to-day; but it is one in which she

thought with a tap of her foot, so Lord Kitchener in 1910 principle. Hitler's league more. is simply a war front prophesied that by 1980 Khartoum The latter was evidently winning that the watchful Ida could ex-

claim reproachfully; would be the greatest city in as she admitted, "Well, yes, we

stockings "Oh, Gråanie! You've the best against the British. It is Africa, provider of all the cotton had fine white cotton significant that the new that Lancashire can need, mighty for parties I remember, but not silk stockings yourself!"

market of wheat, sugar, rice, gum silk. My grandmother gave ine "Not at all," said Grandmamma two voices of the Sudan-English continental order begins arabic, rubber, hides and oil. That two pairs once, given to her at undismayed. "I am wearing, as and Arabic-rolled thunderously west of Russia," and in prophecy is well on the way to the time of the Great Exhibition. I always do, a pair of thin silk in the National Anthem of Great fulfilment. To-day the Govern- They had the date 1850 or so over a pair of Lisle thread. Let Britain. A day worthy of Alexan- this connection the most mental City of Khartoum proper embroidered in open work across me hand the idea on to all you der the Great Grecian in its

queen of charm and

for

of

you them! Do you

often

ruled

her

ог

unger-

are,

as 2

attraction.

Bons of

After Omdurman

dren. They won't bother to cook fate of Cambyses' armies, swal- and they spend half their money lowed in the Libyan desert, but that this restriction may put good sent spirit in the Sudan, when, on or their legs. I have great hopes that more recent sign of this pre-

sensible wool on their legs and Sept. 3, 1898, two days after the ideas into their heads, and that battle of Omdurman, Kitchener we shall see a better England held that impressive ceremony at even before the war is over. For, Khartoum of the spot where as I always say, good may come, Gordon fell. evén out of evil!"

mamma

drawn

The Union Jack flew from the ruined palace in the scorching desert sunlight. The troops, sand stained, black and brown, were lines. up in impressive. Native faces, scarred with the tribal marks on either cheek, stretcher in silent waves to left and right. Under the hot sun the

interesting item in the has a population of 46,076; Khar- the ankles and she thought them young people. The material be epic significance.

toum North 'one of 107,720, and too fast to wear. I wore them low trebles the life of the silk Gordon was avenged; Britain's

one

Cannouncements from Omdurman, across the river, 110,- once, I recollect, at a garden par- and the effect is very rich. It prestige was restored. Egypt was

ty, and the midges bit Berlin is the state-

through is my own idea and I am proud saved from invasion. That day. them till I found the date across of it."

may well come again, and soon. in

For ment

in of the no reason to doubt that my instep in red spots

the Sudan Kitcherjer on my "But what will you do when kindled a flame for the future return. For we did not scratch they're all worn out?" asked Ida, which, though strong, is not yet most conservative of Stalin, whose policy is our legs in public in those days,{ I have laid in enough during fully bright. Nazi organs, the "Ham- dictated by fear of Hitler, my dear."

the last year to last my time, I burger Fremdenblatt," has given the go-ahead silk, anyway?" asked Ida.

"Well, when did you bogin hope," replied the old lady ma- Alexander's birth:

The priests, of Ephesus said at "This day. jestically... that recent diplomatic signal.

there is in some part of the world "My first pair was given Jme

"Without remembering that a torch kindled which shall one developments in Europe stance simply adds the when I married; very thick with there was a war on," murmured day consume all the East."

lace openwork, and they cost a and also in the Far East plaster cornice to a fake guinea. I had a black pair and her undismayed.

Ida, but Grandmamma turned on We, too, may say when the battle of Egypt and the Sudan' is are proceeding "with the structure, exhibited be a pink pair, too. I remember, but

"When you have lived through it in Africa as will not die till the joined, that such a light will be authoritative cooperation fore the foundation stone your mother only yesterday how as many wars as I have you and full approval of the is laid and doomed to fall odd it is how one forgets these learn prudence," she said majes-Axis, its faith, its Mediterranean Soviet Union."

sands which swallowed the `cm- There is long before it is built.

things, We cannot remember when tically as she rose to take herself mercenaries have perished in the 'people began to wear brown, or

Winifred Peck.pires of the past

That

circum-

that was all. I was saying to