The British Campaign in the Soudan. 137 A branch of the great Austro-Italian Roman-Catholic mission at Khartoum was established at El Obeid, consisting of twelve or fifteen priests and sisters. In that city of thirty thousand people, of whom two thirds were Mussulmans and the rest heathen negroes, priests and nuns in their distinctive costumes were daily seen plying their vocation absolutely unmolested in any way, though I cannot say that they made any converts, except the little boys and girls whom they purchased in infancy and taught in their school, and who continued good Christians so long as they were clothed and fed—and no longer. There were also some other branch missions far away from the protection of the garrison at E] Obeid, and they remained unmolested until the Mahdi captured that city, when twelve members were held for ransom and released upon payment of seventy thousand dollars by the Austrian consul at Khartoum. I can assert with truth that wherever an Egyptian garrison could enforce its authority, life and property were reasonably well protected, far better than could have been expected in such distant regions, and among a semi-barbarous people.

Yet I do not pretend to say that even under Ismail the Soudan was an Arcadia. By no means! For some years after the conquest, the military governors, all Turks, were cruel and rapacious, and confirmed the hatred for Turkish officials so deeply implanted in the Soudanese heart, and embracing all Egyptians whom they regard as Turks. But forthe last thirty years, a milder régime had gradually prevailed. It cannot be denied, however, that the rapacity of the governors and their subordinates could never be entirely checked at such a distance from the seat of government at Cairo. The peasant or laborer