164 EGYPT AND THE SOUDAN.

of course we only get taxes paid in lead, so you are running up a good bill up here." On the 31st July he added a postscript which showed that though the despatches had not reached him he had received the telegram sent him with respect to his abandonment of Khartum : — "You ask me 'state cause and intention in staying at Khartum, knowing government means to abandon Soudan,' and in answer I say, I stay at Khartum because Arabs have shut us up, and will not let us out. I also add that even if the road was opened the people would not let me go unless I gave them some government or took them with me, which I could not do. No one would leave more willingly than I would if it was possible.

"We continue, thank God, to drive Arabs back up Blue Nile, and hope to open road to Sennar in eight days or less, and to recapture small steamer lost by Saleh Bey. We then hope to send an expedition to surprise and recapture Berber. It is a sine qua 11011 that you send me Zebehr; otherwise my stay here is indefinite. And you should send ,£50,000 to Dongola, to be forwarded to Berber if we take it. River begins to fall in, say, A four months. Before that time you must either let the sultan take back the Soudan, or send Zebehr with a subsidy yearly. D. V. we will send down to Berber, to take it, the Egyptian troops here, so that they will be on their way home; and I shall send Stewart. We hope (D. V.) to recapture the two steamers which were lost at Berber on its fall.

The equator and Bahr-Gazelle provinces can be (D. V.) relieved later on, and their troops brought here. As to Darfur, it must be afterwards thought of, for we do not know if it still holds out. As for Kordofan, I hope and believe the Mahdi has his hands full. I would vacate Sennar if it was possible, but I do not think it is, and also the moral effect of its evacuation would be fatal to our future success, while we have not food to feed the refugee people who would come here. You will see if we open road to Sennar from here, we cut the Arab movement in two by Blue Nile. I repeat I have no wish to retain this country. My sole desire is to restore the prestige of the government in