"high official snubbing." 115 appointment of Zebehr Pasha) with the prevention or discouragement of slave-hunting and the slave-trade, with the policy of complete evacuation, and with the security of Egypt. They would also wish to be informed as to the progress which has been made in extricating the garrisons, and the length of time likely to elapse before the whole or the greater part may be withdrawn.

As her majesty's government require details as to each garrison, your report should be a full one, and may be sent by mail."

This is a specimen of what may be called high official snubbing; but though the refusal of the Government to countenance the employment of Zebehr in the Soudan may have been well founded, the snub and the satire were weak. Neither Gordon nor Baring could pretend to reconcile the proposal with their opinions of the character of the man, nor with what was known of his former conduct and what Gordon himself had said of it. Zebehr had been sentenced to death, and was still detained a prisoner under surveillance in Cairo; but he had been employed in an important crisis in the Russo-Turkish war, and his faults and crimes were such as did not single him out as the o-reatest of all villains in a countrv where Raouf Pasha and others had been sentenced and afterwards restored to hio;h office. It is true that in former instances, notably in that of the slave-dealer Abu Saoud, Gordon's plan of endeavouring to turn enemies into friends by conciliations had not been invariably successful; but here was a case in which he could only say, I retract nothing that I said of the character of Zebehr; I think it quite likely he is still something of a villain; very probably he and other members of his family may have had something to do with stirring up the rebellion for the very purpose of making it necessary that he should be sent to quell it. Should he do so he will have plenty to do, but he is capable. He alone of any man in Egypt and the Soudan provinces could at once grasp the situation, draw the tribes and their chiefs from the Mahdi, and, if it were made well worth his while, cause the slavetrade to die out by putting an end to the raids upon the villages, forbidding the passage of caravans, and so ending slave-hunting.

My urgent requests that Zebehr may be sent are not at all