The British Campaign in the Soudan. 139 conquest. And be it remembered that the only alternative is between this imperfect but strong government, and a return to the former chaos and savagery ; for the Soudanese, if left to themselves, must inevitably fall under the rule of numerous rival chiefs of slave-traders, of whom Abou-Saoud, Zobehr-Pasha, and Osman-Digma are representative types.

Such, then, was the condition of the Soudan under Gordon’s administration before the deposition of Ismail ; and it cannot be denied that that country enjoyed many benefits of an incipient civilization, destined to increase and develop if its government remained undisturbed.

But no government can be supported without taxation, and an ignorant people are unable to realize that the protection they receive is far more than an equivalent return for the taxes which they pay. It is not astonishing therefore that the Soudanese lost sight of the advantages they enjoyed in the security for life and industry, and considered all taxation as robbery. In the memory of their fathers, time had been when no governors and soldiers were sent to make them pay tribute to a Turkish viceroy at Cairo. The traditions of the cruel conquest with fire and sword sixty years before still lingered among the people, and it told them of the days when they were subject only to their own native sultans. With the natural tendency of a primitive people to extol “the good old times,” they forgot that those petty despots were the absolute and unsparing masters of the lives and property of their subjects, and kept the country in a state of perpetual strife and devastation. These memories, kept alive by the extortions of some rapacious officials, nursed