356 THE STORY OF THE KHEDIVATE.

was Still held by the Egyptian troops— on the i8th of February. He proceeded to inaugurate his return as Governor-General by a number of acts which, however irregular according to British ideas, were calculated to impress the imagination and attract the sympathies of an Oriental population. He caused all official records of debts due for unpaid taxes to be burnt in public, together with all the implements contained in the Government stores for the application of the kurbash. He made a general gaol delivery of all prisoners confined by order of his predecessors, and finally he issued a proclamation rescinding, in the name of the Khedive, all the decrees prohibiting slavery in the Soudan, as forming part and parcel of Egyptian territory.

As I have said before, the object of this " Story of the Khedivate" is to give, in as far as can be done, a consecutive and intelligible account of the chain of events, from the days of Ismail down to those of Abbas, which have rendered England the dominant Power in Egypt. The military campaigns in which ._ our troops have been engaged on Egyptian soil hav been the results, rather than the causes, of our para mount position in the land of the Pharaohs, and therefore it is inconsistent with my purpose to assign full importance to the Gordon episode, which, owing to its element of tragic romance, has tended to obscui re public appreciation of events of far greater intrinsic magnitude. For the moment, therefore, I mUt revert to the political situation in Egypt during tie