250 THE DOWNFALL OF THE DERVISHES Sahara, that “the soil was rather light,” would apply equally well to our arid conquests in the Sudan. The so-called French occupation of the Bahr-el-Ghazal must not be allowed to count for anything. Their utter failure as colonisers in French Congo, Senegal, and even Algeria, and the selfish tariffs with which they seek to exclude foreign industry from the regions which they reserve for Frenchmen who never come—these things deprive them of any moral claim to further annexations of vast territories in the interior of Africa. Moreover, the Bahr-el-Ghazal was indubitably a province of Egypt before the Mahdi’s revolt, and must _be restored to the Khedive intact. Under British control this fertile province will be able to develop its splendid resources. Coffee grows wild, timber abounds, and thousands of square miles are ready for the cultivation of corn, two crops of which can be grown in a single year. In ancient days Egypt was the granary of Europe.. Rome and Byzantium were dependent almost entirely upon the Alex--andrian corn-ships. In fact, one of the most _ serious accusations which could be brought against a citizen was that he was carrying on