STILL FURTHER REVERSES. 49 ted two years earlier the massacre at Alexandria, the ruin of that town, the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, and all the attendant waste of life and treasure would never have occurred. Let us not be content with this one feeble use of a valuable and bloodless weapon. Other garrisons remain. Shall we wait until they are beleaguered before we attempt to save them from their fate ? Shall we tempt Providence by leaving all on the broad shoulders of one man 1 No ; let us appoint General Gordon British High Commissioner in the Soudan, placing at his disposition not only the force now commanded by his old friend and school-fellow, Major-General Graham, but a supplemental body of Indian cavalry. Let such a force be used only when and where he directs, and it may march unopposed through the whole of the Soudan. Then, when all the beleaguered garrisons are free, when the accursed rule of the Turkish-Egyptians over a people who are their superiors is destroyed, let us withdraw once and forever from the Soudan, accept our responsibilities in Egypt, strangle the slave trade where it can alone be reached, trust to time bringing the Soudan voluntarily under the civilized rule of a regenerated Egypt, and receive the gratitude of the millions inhabiting the Nile Yalley !”

Many other towns were either in the hands of the rebels or were sur¬ rounded by them; amongst others : El Fasher, Darra, Masteri, Foga, Om Shanga, and Thashi.