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Show PORT Said, situated at the northern north-ern entrance to the Suez canal, has, by force of many circumstances, circum-stances, become one of tie most important outposts of the vast British empire, says a bulletin of the National Geographic society. It is the British storehouse In the Levantine world; it is a British arsenal and troop station of rank; it i9 the base for defense de-fense of the all-important route to India In-dia and for offense against the Mediterranean Med-iterranean and Red sea flanks of the Turks. A pioneer city In the ancient East; Dne entirely the product of modern times, without traditions, customs, or proprieties; a heterogeneous, undefin-able undefin-able city of sweaty toU, gigantic business, busi-ness, of all races aDl cf all the outcasts, out-casts, Port Said hat been a highly interesting phenomenon since its birth. It early earned a world-wide reputation reputa-tion for wickedness, beside which the modest fame of the western mining camp seems to merge into the mild and conventional. The most undesirable unde-sirable elements In the eastern and Levantine nations met, mingled and made life one excitement after another an-other at Port Said. And the damp of the climate, the incessant clatter of snipping, me urear uceueiy, ma uevei-ending uevei-ending coaling operations and the often of-ten fierce heat have combined to give the town a renown of a most unenviable unen-viable sort. Not So Wicked In Later Years. The English, however, have steadily dampened the ardorous excesses of the busy, modern Babel; and, with the extensive harbor improvements of 1903-1909, with the addition of a large cotton export to the town's activities, and with the building of a standard-gauge standard-gauge railroad to Cairo, a better class of people have sought new interests In Port Said. Thus, with the Increasing Increas-ing of the port's commercial possibilities possi-bilities and the coming of the merchants, mer-chants, the place has been considerably consider-ably raised in the social scale and lowered in the scale of lurid interest. The port city was founded in ISflS, and its site was determined by tile needs of the great canal. It liee an a low, narrow, desolate strip of c&nd that separates the Mediterranean yom ' Lake Menzaleh. It is on the western side of the canal. The harbors of the port, improved by splendid modern hinterland. It Is just ten years old and is one of the great latter-day achievements toward the reclaiming of the Dark Continent for the white man and civilization. More than this, however, how-ever, it is a strategic link in the British Brit-ish empire, fitted so well into the chain that today it is one of the most important im-portant factors in the defense of Egypt's back door. Port Soudan is a brand new harbor, planned in all the details of its construction con-struction and outfitting, and then build-ed build-ed as a whole. It was a successful port from the first, and it is now better bet-ter prepared to handle a mad rush of war business than most of the ports in the middle East. Through this port, should it be necessary for the defense of lower Egypt, Great Britain might pour all of the strength of her Indian1 empire without any such fear of a traffic traf-fic jam as that realized by munitions import at Vladivostok. Army supplies sup-plies and troops might be handled la any quantity there, the most modern port on the Red sea. A railway line connects the port with the Wady Haifa on the Nile,' whence, by steamer and rail, it is connected con-nected with Cairo and the ports of lower Egypt. The railway was opened in 1906 and the stimulus that it brought to the country went a long way toward justifying British confidence confi-dence in the future of the Soudan. The railway has a terminus also at Port Suakin, a less suitable harbor a little to the south of the made-to-con-tract city. On a Barren, Hot Plain. Mecca, the holy city of the Mohammedan Moham-medan world, lies a little to the north across the Red sea from Port Soudan. The port is 700 miles by boat south of Suez, the southern terminus of the great canal, and 495 miles by rail northeast of Khartum. It is situated In an arid plain, backed by a fringe of hills and barren save for mimosa thorns. The climate is very hot and damp, full of fever-danger for the European, Eu-ropean, and this has proved the greatest great-est drawback for the city. Soudan was planned in 1905. Its laying out and equipping went forward steadily until 1901. by which time the government had Epent more than $4,-500,000 $4,-500,000 on the town and harbor works. Commodious docks, outfitted with electric elec-tric cranes and other up-to-date harbor L f?: r3 Iff ff Uaaaa aaaaaa.iMmammaaav anaaaaaaa mmmmmtmmsrm' immmmmm works, are safe and commodious. Port Said is rated as the largest coaling station in the world, and it is one of the world's important depots for all manner of maritime supplies. The population pop-ulation of the city is about 50,000, including in-cluding representatives of every race and individuals representing all races at once. Port Soudan Also Is New. Another interesting city of the near East is Port Soudan, which was built to contract under a capable military administration and designed to meet all the requirements of a great future trade brought about by the development develop-ment of the primitive Central African machinery, together with administration administra-tion and storage buildings, were constructed con-structed according to generous specifications. speci-fications. The new port was a successful venture ven-ture from the start, doing a business of more than $2,000,000 in the first year of its existence. By the outbreak out-break of the war it was handling a rapid-growing business of about twice the amount in value of its first year's work. Raw cotton, ivory, sesame, duri ra, skins, gum and senna, the Soudan's leading products, constituted the new port's exports, and its imports were mostly provisions, manufactures and timber. |