ecided to waste no
more time over the question, more especially as he had not yet been to
Khartoum, the capital of his huge province, to take up his duties, and
all the time there was a revolt going on in Darfour, on the extreme
west of his dominion. Having once made up his mind, he lost no time in
getting to Khartoum, leaving Walad to be dealt with at his leisure
later on. On reaching Khartoum, which he did by travelling forty-five
miles a day in the extremely hot months of April and May, he had to
submit to the ordeal of installation. It was on this occasion, after
the firman had been read and the royal salute had been fired, that he
made the memorable speech which so delighted the people, and which may
be summed up in one sentence that he made use of, "With the help of God
I will hold the balance level." By this he meant to say, that as long
as he was Governor-General there should be none of the cruel, grinding
tyranny that had existed in the time of his predecessor. It may be well
here, anticipating events, to illustrate the desperate condition of the
people under the tyranny of the Egyptian rule. Mr. Frank Power,
correspondent of the _Times_, in a private letter to his mother in the
year 1884, describes the way in which the poor people were ground down
with taxation. He says:--

"Every Arab must pay a tax for himself, children, and wife or
wives. This he has to pay three times over--once for the Khedive,
once for the tax collector or local Beys, and once for the
Governor-General. The last two are illegal, but still scrupulously
collected to the piastre. To pay this he must grow some corn, and
for the privilege of growing corn he must pay L3 per annum. To grow
corn the desert earth must have water: the means of irrigation is a
'Sakeh,' a wheel like a mill-wheel with buckets on it, which raise
the water into a trough, and then it flows in little streams over
the land. A sakeh is turned by two oxen. Every man who uses a sakeh
must pay L7: if he does not use it, he must go into prison for
life, and have his hut burned. Every one must pay for the right of
working to earn money; every one must pay if they are idle; in any
case every one must pay to make the officials rich. If you have a
trading boat, you are fined L4 if you do not continually fly the
Egyptian flag, and you must pay L4 for the privilege of flying it."

In another letter he says:--

"If