to his hands.
Thousands of every class hastened to join his standard. No one
doubted that he was the divine messenger sent to free them from their
oppressors. The whole of the Arab tribes all over the Soudan rose at
once. The revolt broke out simultaneously in Sennar and Darfur, and
spread to provinces still more remote. The smaller Egyptian posts,
the tax-gatherers and local administrators, were massacred in every
district. Only the larger garrisons maintained themselves in the
principal towns. They were at once blockaded. All communications were
interrupted. All legal authority was defied. Only the Mahdi was obeyed.

It is now necessary to look for a moment to Egypt. The misgovernment
which in the Soudan had caused the rebellion of the Mahdi, in Egypt
produced the revolt of Arabi Pasha. As the people of the Soudan longed
to be rid of the foreign oppressors--the so-called 'Turks'--so those of
the Delta were eager to free themselves from the foreign regulators and
the real Turkish influence. While men who lived by the sources of the
Nile asserted that tribes did not exist for officials to harry, others
who dwelt at its mouth protested that nations were not made to be
exploited by creditors or aliens. The ignorant south found their leader
in a priest: the more educated north looked to a soldier. Mohammed Ahmed
broke the Egyptian yoke; Arabi gave expression to the hatred of the
Egyptians for the Turks. But although the hardy Arabs might scatter the
effete Egyptians, the effete Egyptians were not likely to disturb the
solid battalions of Europe. After much hesitation and many attempts at
compromise, the Liberal Administration of Mr. Gladstone sent a fleet
which reduced the forts of Alexandria to silence and the city to
anarchy. The bombardment of the fleet was followed by the invasion of
a powerful army. Twenty-five thousand men were landed in Egypt. The
campaign was conducted with celerity and skill. The Egyptian armies
were slaughtered or captured. Their patriotic but commonplace leader was
sentenced to death and condemned to exile, and Great Britain assumed the
direction of Egyptian affairs.

The British soon restored law and order in Egypt, and the question
of the revolt in the Soudan came before the English advisers of the
Khedive. Notwithstanding the poverty and military misfortunes which
depressed the people of the Delta, the desire to hold their southern
provinces was evident. The British Government, which at that