The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1896-03-29

in the most disastrous pestilences of
| the middle ages.
No one knows what the population of
the sudan may now be, but IL is not
| doubted that it has decreased So 60.
| possibly even rs per cent within two
decades; but though less in absolute
| size, II is far more concentrated, so
that the Khalifa still has at his com
mand great armies of resolute men
bound to him not less by interest than
by religious fervor; for while he has
mercilessly chastised every clan that
he has even suspected of meditating
revolt he has loaded with rewards the
strong military tribes upon whose de-
votion his empire rests. And about his
low-walled palace, in the heart of Om-
durman, he has drawn as a safeguard
against attack or assassination, many
thousands of desert warriors.
Thus the Khalifa is strong, but his
strength Is of the sort that would Weld
readily to a determined attack The
fanaticism of the followers of the NAH
al himself, when Is years ago. they
hurled their naked bodies against the
lines of the we'll drilled soldiery. has
declined with the discovery that the
promised victory over all the world has
not come to pass. There is discomfort.
too, among the tribesmen whom the
Khalifa has turned from their homes;
among the river boatmen whose daha-
belas he has confiscated under the
name of taxation; among the mer-
chants of the Arab race whose former
business along the great caravan lines
leading from Khartoum to Assouan,
kassala, Lower Egypt and the Red
sea he has almost entirely destroyed.
Disaffection reaches it's height in the
distant armies which, from Dongola
the northern province of the Dervishes,
confront the Egyptian advance at
Wady Halfa. These tribes are charged
quite as much with the duty of allow
Ing no one to leave as of allowing no
one to enter the Sudan, because such
has been the misrule of the Khalifa.
and the suffering IL has caused that a |
large proportion of his subjects would. |
if permitted, gladly leave the country. |
For this reason a resolute advance |
made by the armies of Egypt might |
encounter sharp fighting for a time 4
but If they were successful in captur- |
ing Dongola, the birthplace of the Nah |
oil himself, and now the northermost 4
possession of the Dervishes, il is proba- /
bic that assertions would be numerous /
and that whole tribes of harried desert |
jewellers would go over in masses TO |
the Egyptians.
The situation is not what II was Is
years ago. Then the people of the Su-
dan were irritated by the minor mis-
takes which the Egyptian officials had
made; now they have an opportunity
to see how much worse than even inn
perfect colonial government is anarchy
with a grand center of despotic power.
with broken telegraph wires and
steamboats,: with caravan
roads, used for a thousand years in the
past, nearly deserted; with ruined vii
lagos dotting the distant GASES as far
as the borders of the Congo Free State:
with spies on every hand and prosper
ity only memory in the minds OF the
people old enough to recall what Egypt
ian rule really was. For although
Egypt did not do all things for the Su-
dan, and although many of it's minor
officials were corrupt and incompetent
L did do much; and the older Sudanese
must appreciate that fact
Had the Mahdi lived. il is probable
that the power of the Dervishes might
now be more strongly entrenched, for
10 considerable ability the Mahdi added
4 reasonable degree of human kind
ness. For his successor. the Khalifa
no word Of excuse can be uttered; his
character as IL has been painted by
Slatin Pacha. Father Don Joseph Ohr-
valdez. and one or two other European
prisoners who have escaped to Cairo |
md as IL has been revealed by his
wholesale murders. his shameless phi !
rate life and his lack OF ordinary in
diligence, is utterly and irredeemably |
lad. In order 10 remove the least ex-