336 Egypt
the Sudan. And then matters were complicated still
further when the Sudan began to put in a claim on its
own account.
The general scheme now in course of construction was
inaugurated under Lord Kitchener, and its main features
consist in a dam at Makwar, on the Blue Nile, for the
irrigation of the Sudan Gezireh, and another dam at
Gebel Aulia for the future irrigation of Egypt. The
general idea of this scheme seems to be that eventually
the Sudan is to use the whole of its own tributary, the
Blue Nile, leaving the main stream, the White Nile,
wholly to Egypt. For the Blue Nile water is, it appears,
of little use to Egypt, and now mostly runs to waste,
because Egypt wants its water in the summer. Whereas
it will be invaluable to the Sudan, which wants water in
the winter. Moreover, if and when the plans for utilising
the whole supply of both Blue and White Niles from their
respective sources of Lake Tana in Abyssinia and of
Lake Albert in Uganda are fully put in force, both the
Sudan and Egypt will by this division get as much as
they require. But engineering estimates as to this in no
way satisfy the Egyptians, who continue to oppose every
diversion of water from the Blue Nile for Sudanese de-
velopment. Much of this opposition is factious, but there
is a real difficulty at present in such a distribution of the
two Niles between the two countries, for the Makwar dam
has been completed and the preliminary preparations for
the Tana dam in Abyssinia are being carried out, whereas
the Gebel Aulia dam on the White Nile has not yet been
begun and no preparations, political or other, have as yet
been made for the Lake Albert dam in Uganda. More-
over, the development of the Blue Nile offers no very
great technical difficulty, and the necessary financial
support is practically assured owing to the big British