264 EGYPT AND THE SOUDAN.

a mere dull, dying ripple; and it may surely be said that the stone cast into Cairo after the suppression of Arabi's rebellion has awakened the slumbering life of the corrupt pool. Even those who may denounce the intervention and depreciate its probable effects, cannot altogether deny the awakening that followed the vigorous organization of a better government ; the prosecution of sanitary laws previously unknown or neglected; the earnest determined efforts to ameliorate the condition of those in sickness and in prison ; the stern demand for the establishment of juster tribunals and the exercise of power, with a real desire, at all events, to reform the government which had to be sustained.

It is not at all likely that the last chapter of British intervention in Egypt has been written. It is, perhaps, not improbable that the story of British interposition in the Soudan may have to be resumed ; it is even possible that such interposition may be manifested not from the side of the Nile on the desert route, but from the side of Abyssinia and the Equatorial Provinces. Who can tell?