Il8 EGYPT AND THE SOUUAN.

sultan. They could never combine. Zebehr is fifty times the Mahdi's match. He is also of good family, well known, and fitted to be sultan; the Mahdi, in all these respects, is the exact opposite, besides being a fanatic. I daresay Zebehr, who hates the tribes, did stir up the fires of revolt, in hopes that he would be sent to quell it. It is the irony of fate that he will get his wish if he is sent up." This telegram gives a distinct impression of the condition of affairs at that date; and the fears then expressed were soon to be more than realized. This, however, did not prove that the opinion of the government and their subsequent refusal to send Zebehr could not be defended, even though Stewart and Baring both agreed with Gordon.

" I think," said Sir E. Baring, " that the policy of sending Zebehr Pasha to Khartum and giving him a subsidy is in harmony with the policy of evacuation. It is in principle the same policy as that adopted by the government of India towards Afghanistan and the tribes on the north-west frontier. I have always contemplated making some arrangements for the future government of the Soudan, as will be seen from my despatch of the 2 2d December, 1883, in which I said that it would be 'necessary to send an English officer of high authority to Khartum with full powers to withdraw all garrisons in the Soudan and make the best arrangements possible for the future government of that country.'

As regards slavery, it may certainly receive a stimulus from the abandonment of the Soudan by Egypt, but the despatch of Zebehr Pasha to Khartum will not affect the question in one way or the other. No middle course is possible as far as the Soudan is concerned. We must either virtually annex the country, which is out of the question, or else we must accept the inevitable consequences of the policy of abandonment.

Your lordship will see what General Gordon says about the question of the security of Egypt. I believe that Zebehr Pasha may be made a bulwark against the approach of the Mahdi. Of course there is a risk that he will constitute a danger to Egypt, but this risk is, I think, a small one, and it is in any case preferable to