The British Campaign in the Soudan. 129 “EKeypt was given to understand that after having bombarded Alexandria, invaded the country, exiled Arabi, deprived the Khedive of his authority, disorganized the native administration, destroyed the mechanism by which hitherto order had been maintained after a fashion, and established in its stead a number of institutions on paper, which could be converted into realities only if ensured by a prolonged occupation, we were about to throw up the task we had undertaken and leave the country to its fate—z. e., to a state of confusion closely bordering upon anarchy.”

But this programme of evacuation was suddenly abandoned. Mr. Gladstone’s Guildhall speech was made on the 9th of November, and on the 20th, news reached London of the entire annihilation in the Soudan of Hicks-Pasha’s army of eleven thousand men, and of the defeat and death of Consul Moncrieff at Tokar. The orders already issued for the embarkation of one half of the British army and the withdrawal of the remainder from Cairo to Alexandria were countermanded, and the Soudan suddenly loomed up into formidable prominence, for while England had concentrated all her efforts to suppress Arabi’s rebellion, another much more formidable had broken out in the distant regions of the Upper Nile. The easy triumph over the meek fel/aheen in the holiday campaign of Tel-el-Kebir had been thought the end of the troubles, but now it seemed only the beginning thereof.

_ Acdescription of the Soudan with its relation to Egypt proper is necessary to a complete understanding of what _ follows.

In the words of Herodotus, Egypt is the gift (or crea-