nsable to the success of his
policy, and he watched the proceedings in the committee as calmly as he
might have watched a battle of frogs and mice.

Chapter IX. The Soudan. (1884-1885)

You can only govern men by imagination: without imagination they
are brutes.... 'Tis by speaking to the soul that you electrify
men.--NAPOLEON.

I

In the late summer of 1881 a certain native of Dongola, proclaiming
himself a heaven-inspired Mahdi, began to rally to his banner the wild
tribes of the southern Soudan. His mission was to confound the wicked, the
hypocrite, the unbeliever, and to convert the world to the true faith in
the one God and his prophet. The fame of the Mahdi's eloquence, his piety,
his zeal, rapidly spread. At his ear he found a counsellor, so well known
to us after as the khalifa, and this man soon taught the prophet politics.
The misrule of the Soudan by Egypt had been atrocious, and the combination
of a religious revival with the destruction of that hated yoke swelled a
cry that was irresistible. The rising rapidly extended, for fanaticism in
such regions soon takes fire, and the Egyptian pashas had been sore
oppressors, even judged by the rude standards of oriental states. Never
was insurrection more amply justified. From the first, Mr. Gladstone's
curious instinct for liberty disclosed to him that here was a case of "a
people rightly struggling to be free." The phrase was mocked and derided
then and down to the end of the chapter. Yet it was the simple truth.
"During all my political life," he said at a later stage of Soudanese
affairs, "I am thankful to say that I have never opened my lips in favour
of a domination such as that which has been exercised upon certain
countries by certain other countries, and I am not going now to begin."
(M55) "I look upon the possession of the Soudan," he proceeded, "as the
calamity of Egypt. It has been a drain on her treasury, it has been a
drain on her men. It is estimated that 100,000 Egyptians have laid down
their lives in endeavouring to maintain that barren conquest." Still
stronger was the Soudanese side of the case. The rule of the Mahdi was
itself a tyranny, and tribe fought with tribe, but that was deemed an
easier yoke than the sway of the pashas from Cairo. Every vice of eastern
rule flourished freely under Egyptian hands. At Khartoum whole families of
Coptic clerks kept the accounts of plundering raids supported by Egyptian
soldiers,