It must be obvious that this area lying between the two proposed reservoirs acts as a sponge, and that any scheme embracing storage at Lake Albert must make provision for the flood to reach the Jebel Aulia Dam with as little loss as possible on the way. At the exit from Lake Albert a good passage exists, and the carry-off from Lake No to the reservoir is also adequate. But for the middle stretch, the Sudd region, a channel must be cut and dredged, and in places embankments raised, involving an estimate of 15,000,000l.

The irrigation defences of the White Nile and Lake Albert are primarily intended to conserve the water supply of Egypt alone. The dam at Jebel Aulia, which is to cost 3,000,000l., was begun and then abandoned. It should have been completed this year, but political distrust of Great Britain and an entire absence of appreciation of our aims in the Sudan decided the Egyptian Government to suspend the work indefinitely. The capture of Khartoum by the Anglo-Egyptian Army resulted in our maintaining the legal rights of Egypt to the Sudan, but retaining the actual administration in our own hands. It is this last circumstance which has created the present deadlock. The crux of the situation is that whoever holds the Sudan holds Egypt. As the development of Egypt proceeded, the necessity for a military occupation of the territory through which the Nile runs, and near which its catchment areas are found, became urgent; but the Power occupying the Sudan establishes a stranglehold upon Egypt, and it is this fear, carefully exploited by agitators, that caused the work to be stopped. This unfortunate situation, which has arisen since the war, has been augmented by the action of the Sudan Government in utilising the Blue Nile for the irrigation of the Gezira Plain, formed by the junction of the two Niles at Khartoum. A great dam at Sennar has been completed this year. The wall of masonry is one and three-quarter miles in length, and raises the level of the river fifty feet to enable it to flow into a canal which, with a network of 600 miles of subsidiary canalisation, will irrigate 300,000 feddans, of which one-third will be under cotton each year. The soil is suitable for cotton, and the crops produced in past years with the aid of pumping installations are equal to Egypt's best.

The possibility of the Sudan becoming a great cotton area is naturally a matter of moment to Egypt. From the point of competition the demand for good cotton is so great that for many years Egypt's prosperity cannot be materially affected. Disagreement comes from the use of water in the Sudan before the full requirements of Egypt are met. In the first place, it is argued

1 Since the writing of this article the Egyptian Government has granted the necessary credits for its continuance.

that any obstruction in the Blue Nile will decrease the volume of silt flowing northwards, thus depriving the Egyptian fellah of the mud upon which his prosperity depends. To obviate this real difficulty the Sudan has undertaken to impound the waters of the Blue Nile during the months when Egypt does not require them. The reservoir will be closed in November as the flood is receding and at a time when the river is almost silt-free. By then Egypt should have obtained her supplies of heavily silt-laden flood, and in January or early February the sluices will be opened to such an extent as to allow the passage of the river on to Egypt without diminution. The Gezira Plain will then be fed by a gradual lowering of the Sennar Dam. There are, however, larger potentialities in the scheme, as the irrigation of 300,000 feddans forms only one unit of a total area of 3,000,000 feddans capable of ultimate development by perennial irrigation. Whilst the ratio of Egypt's expansion becomes less until she reaches, in 1955, her limit, that of the Sudan will be constantly increasing. By this date the Gezira Plain will have 1,000,000 feddans under cultivation, provided her irrigation projects have kept pace with her commercial requirements. Statistics are being collected for the purpose of erecting another reservoir, with a capacity of seven milliards of cubic metres, on the upper reaches of the Blue Nile. To quote the opinion of Sir Murdoch MacDonald :

The construction of this dam is essential for the future development of the Sudan, for, whereas Egypt can provide for her own needs from the White Nile, it is only the water flowing in the Blue that can be of use to the Sudan Gezira. But, for Egypt, the upper Blue Nile Dam is also a valuable feature of the Nile control works, for the Blue Nile forms the flood, and this dam will be situated where the waters are as yet free from silt and can therefore be safely stored at the crest of the flood.

Within the period of a generation one of the longest rivers in the world, from its headwaters to the sea, should be completely harnessed to the service of man. Regulated, controlled, and disciplined, the achievement will be unsurpassed by any engineering feat, ancient or modern. How is the safety of these great works to be ensured? Egypt demands the evacuation of the Sudan by Great Britain, and the creation of a semi-independent State under her own direction. She demands that the water requirements of the Sudan, and thus its entire development, should be subordinated to her own needs. Great Britain offers Egypt a defensive alliance, a partnership in the administration of the Sudan, and the placing of the control of the Nile in the hands of a neutral and international body. In the opinion of the many thousands of foreigners living in Egypt, who are in a position to form an unprejudiced judgment, England's offer is generous in the extreme.

J. B. BARRON.

ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN NEPAL

THE announcements that appeared in the British Press about the beginning of this year to the effect that the Government of Nepal had proclaimed its intention to abolish the system of slavery as there practised aroused considerable attention in this country. That an independent Asiatic State should, of its own initiative, take a step of this kind, is indeed a development of much interest both in itself and in what it implies, and the interest is enhanced by a study of a remarkable speech made by the Prime Minister, Sir Chandra Shum Shere Jung,1 to a great assembly summoned to Katmandu from all parts of Nepal.

Most people in England would have somewhat vague ideas as to the nature of the institution that has now come under the ban of the Nepalese Government. In the Himalayas slavery has existed from time immemorial, and in some out-of-the-way parts it still lingers; but there it has little in common with the negro slave traffic, the abolition of which was one of the chief manifestations of a world conscience in the last century. Amongst Himalayan peoples slavery has, I believe, never been accompanied by such horrors as those that impelled Wilberforce and others to arouse the moral sense of the civilised world against the traffic in human beings-the 'seizure,' the march to the coast,' the 'middle passage,' and so on. The wicked old Mehtars of Chitral and the robber chiefs of Kanjut certainly used to sell boys and girls, their own subjects, as slaves in Badakshan and to the Mirs of Shignan and Roshan, till the practice was put an end to when the tribes of the Hindu Kush were definitely brought within the British sphere. But even these exceptional cases bore no similitude at all to the African traffic. The slave-dealing chiefs mentioned were, of course, Mohammedans, but of an unorthodox kind. Islam may condone, or even approve, the enslavement of the heathen,' but it certainly does not countenance a traffic in human beings who are followers of the Prophet.

1 His Highness Maharaja Sir Chandra Shum Shere Jung Bahadur Rana, G.C.B., G.C.S.I., G.C.V.O., G.C.M.G., D.C.L., Thong Lin Prim-ma Ko-Kang Wang Syan, Prime Minister and Marshal, Nepal, will be referred to in this paper by the designation most commonly used, the Maharaja.' The King of Nepal (who does not govern) is called the Maharaj Dhiraj.

In Nepal the State religion is Hinduism, and it may also be described as the popular religion, as the Buddhists who formerly constituted a large proportion of the population, seem gradually to be adopting the more ancient faith. The two religions at the present time indeed almost merge into one another. Hinduism, as is well known, goes further than any other religious system in controlling and ordering the secular lives of those born into it. Hindu children do not arrive into the world just human beings, but Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, and Sudras, or rather members of one of the indefinite number of castes into which these are subdivided; and from the estate into which they are born they may fall, but can never rise. On the top of this, there is in Nepal a tribal system of infinite complications with a strict order of precedence. To take as an example a single instance, that of the important tribe called Gurungs, from which are drawn some of the best fighting men in both the Nepalese and Indian 2 armies. Quâ Hindu, a man of this tribe ranks above Vaisya class but below the Kshatriyas. As a tribesman a Gurung would rank immediately below a Khas. Amongst the Gurungs themselves there is a difference in the standing of the clans into which they are divided. A Solajat Gurung will salaam a Charjat Gurung and even carry his load. Marriage between the two is impossible. How very uncompromising caste and religious rules may be in this country can be judged from the notorious case of a Gurkha officer in an Indian regiment who was sent to England to be one of the King's orderly officers. Now crossing the seas,' except for active service, according to the religious law of the country, entails outcasting, and this was the fate of this Gurkha commissioned officer. Nor could all the influence brought to bear on the religious authorities of the State avail to obtain a relaxation of the rule.

Under such a system it would not have been surprising to find slavery as an institution fully developed in the country, and the higher castes all owning slaves. As a matter of fact, according to figures given in the Maharaja's speech, slaveowners and slaves comprise no very large fraction of the whole.

Speaking generally, in Nepal slaves are not ill treated. The Hindu religion induces a humane spirit, and the lot of a slave in a Nepalese home is as a rule ameliorated by many kindly influences, so that in the majority of instances a slave is in little worse position than a servant who cannot change his master, or his status. That the position of slaves is far from being desperate is otherwise shown by the existence of a practice, not uncommon, by which people go into voluntary slavery for the satisfaction of debts. Volunteer slaves of this sort are termed bandhas, as opposed to

* Under an old agreement the Indian Army authorities are entitled to enlist Gurkhas in Nepal up to a limited number.

the kamaras, or born slaves. Correctly speaking, perhaps the bandhas should not be called slaves at all, as the essence of slavery is status and not contract.

The chief evil of the slavery system, as may be gathered from the Maharaja's speech, is that though no foreign slave traffic exists, yet within the country slaves are bought and sold. The practice is not general, but it exists-' in the hills,' i.e., in the remoter parts. Some instances that have come to the Maharaja's own notice are related in the speech, the worst case being told in the following words:

The mother, a slave, had given birth to seven children, and her master, despite her protests and tearful prayers, had already disposed of one daughter and four sons by sale. The woman in her petition through the Niksari Office wrote that the bitter lament of the children at thus being forced to separate from their mother sent a pang through her heart more acute than any she had ever suffered; that she summoned resignation to bear the misfortune and drew consolation from what was left her; that she submitted to it as the work of that fatality, the result of the accumulated Karma of her previous births, which had followed her like a shadow to her present existence; but that when, to her dismay, the hardhearted master arranged to take away the baby slave that was still suckling at her breast, her endurance broke down completely: she supplicated and prayed as parents do pray, as you and I pray to the gods on high when the dearest of our children lies in the clutches of grim death-to her master, the arbiter of her destiny, and to her as omnipotent in this crisis as fell Death himself. But all to no purpose. The adamant heart did not melt ; the master completed the transaction. Then, maddened at a treatment which is resented even by irrational beasts, she came all the way to see if the Maharaja, 'the common father of all people,' could do aught to allay the consuming sorrow at her breast. As this was so different from the ordinary run of complaints, the people concerned were sent for, and the matter on investigation turned out to be true to the letter of the petition : the child had been sold by a regular deed, the parambhatta. The master was asked if he did not feel pity for the poor woman, though a slave ; what would have been the feelings of himself or the mother of his children if such an infant of theirs were either forcibly taken away or sold elsewhere? what reply could he make to his Creator when summoned to His presence to answer this charge of inhumanity? He replied, and the purchasers replied, that that was the custom in the hills, and the law did not forbid it. Now what does it mean to us all? That so long as we permit this sort of thing every one of us must bear a part in the sin, must share the curse of the weeping mothers, inasmuch as we tolerate the custom and uphold such laws. The poor woman was given the wherewithal to free her sold children according to the law which provides that on sale of slaves their kith and kin or those interested can liberate them on payment of the legal amounts to their masters.

Let us now glance at the arguments put forward by the Prime Minister to support his proposals, and in doing so bear in mind the teaching of history that his endeavours would be opposed by interested persons as revolutionary, an attack on the caste system,