bsalom fired the corn of Joab, so they
rallied round the Mahdi, who exhorted them to revolt against the
Turkish yoke. I am convinced that it is an entire mistake to
regard the Mahdi as in any sense a religious leader: he
personifies popular discontent. All the Soudanese are potential
Mahdis, just as all the Egyptians are potential Arabis. The
movement is not religious, but an outbreak of despair. Three
times over I warned the late Khedive that it would be impossible
to govern the Soudan on the old system, after my appointment to
the Governor-Generalship. During the three years that I wielded
full powers in the Soudan, I taught the natives that they had a
right to exist. I waged war against the Turks and Circassians,
who had harried the population. I had taught them something of
the meaning of liberty and justice, and accustomed them to a
higher ideal of government than that with which they had
previously been acquainted. As soon as I had gone, the Turks and
Circassians returned in full force; the old Bashi-Bazouk system
was re-established; my old _employes_ were persecuted; and a
population which had begun to appreciate something like decent
government was flung back to suffer the worst excesses of Turkish
rule. The inevitable result followed; and thus it may be said
that the egg of the present rebellion was laid in the three years
during which I was allowed to govern the Soudan on other than
Turkish principles.

"The Soudanese are a very nice people. They deserve the sincere
compassion and sympathy of all civilised men. I got on very well
with them, and I am sincerely sorry at the prospect of seeing
them handed over to be ground down once more by their Turkish and
Circassian oppressors. Yet, unless an attempt is made to hold on
to the present garrisons, it is inevitable that the Turks, for
the sake of self-preservation, must attempt to crush them. They
deserve a better fate. It ought not to be impossible to come to
terms with them, to grant them a free amnesty for the past, to
offer them security for decent government in the future. If this
were done, and the government entrusted to a man whose word was
truth, all might yet be re-established. So far from believing it
impossible to make an arrangement with the Mahdi, I strongly
suspect t