SOUDAN'S FASCINATION.

Colonist, Volume LII, Issue 12770, 11 February 1910, Page 1

SOUDAN'S FASCINATION.

The tourist season is beginning, and is likely to be a record one (says a message to English papers from Khartoum). After the New Year, exPresident Itoosevelfc will arrive from Uganda, and his visit may bring many Americans. Later on Lord Kitchener is expected on his first visit of inspection since his appointment to his new position. It is difficult for those who visit Khartoum to understand all it means to get them there and provide for them. Only those who know the country can understand what it involves in convoying them incomfort and comparative luxury and providing for .them at a place surrounded by hundreds of miles of desert in every direc tion. It is not easy also, to understand at first what they come to Khartoum for. There is little to see here as compared with the show places of the world. What there is is chielfy of a sentimental interest. The attractions are probably such things as the distance from civilisation, or rather from the more beaten paths of civilisation. It re- j quires a certain amount of determin- ■ ation to face the journey. A further attraction is no doubt the ! glorious climate in the winter — the \ certainty of brilliant sunshine, the desert air, keen and bracing and so extraordinarily dry that blankets, etc, will crackle and sparkle with electricity when handled— a unique place for 1 persons with consumptive or rheumat- ' iic tendencies. To be added to this are the perfect sanitation of the place and freedom from disease and dirt. Already bicycles are becoming common in Khartoum, and two or three have penetrated into Omdurman. Tie electric tramway in future years may set one down at the Khalifa's House or the Mahdi's Tomb.