162 The British Campaign in the Soudan.

intention of suppressing the Mahdi, Genl. Stone’s estimate appears very moderate, especially considering the very different value of British compared to Egyptian soldiers.

There were sufficient funds in the Egyptian treasury to fit out the expedition, and the required number of trained soldiers could have been very promptly raised by recalling the lately disbanded regiments to their colors. But just at that time the coupons were due to the foreign bondholders, and moreover, Egypt was to defray the cost of the British army of occupation and to pay $25,000,000 for the destruction of her own city of Alexandria by the British fleet. It mattered not that the Egyptian debt had been declared by British financiers in an official report to Parliament to be more than double what was justly due. The bondholders’ coupons must be paid though all Egypt perish. “Shylock must have his pound of flesh!” Therefore, when the Khedive asked of his British masters permission to send an expedition and submitted Genl. Stone’s estimates, he was answered that Heypt could not be permitted to increase her financial burdens, and that the funds in the treasury could not be applied to the recovery of the Soudan.

This opportunity being thrown away, nothing remained but to notify Abd-el-Kader to make the most of the means at his command. We have already seen with what energy he set about fortifymg Khartoum and organizing a force from the yet loyal tribes and the Dongolawee and other slave-hunting soldiers now out of employment. The only reinforcements given him were three or four of Arabi’s disaffected regiments, sent to the Soudan in December as a punishment for their rebellion, but too late to save El Obeid. With this accession, he had