thousand men were distributed among
eight main and numerous minor garrisons. Isolated in a roadless country
by enormous distances and natural obstacles, and living in the midst
of large savage populations of fanatical character and warlike habits,
whose exasperation was yearly growing with their miseries, the Viceregal
forces might depend for their safety only on the skill of their
officers, the excellence of their discipline, and the superiority of
their weapons. But the Egyptian officers were at that time distinguished
for nothing but their public incapacity and private misbehaviour. The
evil reputation of the Soudan and its climate deterred the more educated
or more wealthy from serving in such distant regions, and none went
south who could avoid it. The army which the Khedives maintained in the
Delta was, judged by European standards, only a rabble. It was badly
trained, rarely paid, and very cowardly; and the scum of the army of the
Delta was the cream of the army of the Soudan. The officers remained
for long periods, many all their lives, in the obscurity of the remote
provinces. Some had been sent there in disgrace, others in disfavour.
Some had been forced to serve out of Egypt by extreme poverty, others
were drawn to the Soudan by the hopes of gratifying peculiar tastes. The
majority had harems of the women of the country, which were limited only
by the amount of money they could lay their hands on by any method. Many
were hopeless and habitual drunkards. Nearly all were dishonest. All
were indolent and incapable.

Under such leadership the finest soldiery would have soon degenerated.
The Egyptians in the Soudan were not fine soldiers. Like their officers,
they were the worst part of the Khedivial army. Like them, they had been
driven to the south. Like them, they were slothful and effete. Their
training was imperfect; their discipline was lax; their courage was
low. Nor was even this all the weakness and peril of their position; for
while the regular troops were thus demoralised, there existed a powerful
local irregular force of Bazingers (Soudanese riflemen), as well armed
as the soldiers, more numerous, more courageous, and who regarded the
alien garrisons with fear that continually diminished and hate that
continually grew. And behind regulars and irregulars alike the wild
Arab tribes of the desert and the hardy blacks of the forests, goaded by
suffering and injustice, thought the foreigners the cause of al