The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-09-26

Indian army. and use 1t. when the time
comes. to repay the debt to ourselves.
We have saved Egypt: and thereby we
nalf a monarch at the best; while a hostile
force sat on his borders to destroy him. and
every couple of years actually came down
to do 1t. he was not more than quarter.
There was plenty of sneaking sympathy
WITH Mahdism in Egypt17-ssven IN Cairo. and
ace But for British help the sympathizers
would have long ago. but yet too late, rec
ognlzed their fooHShneSS in the obliteration
of Egypt. Egypt alone could by no miracle
nave saved herself from utter destruction
oy Mandist invasion. We have saved her
blind, sincere undertakings of Mr.. Glad
stone We undertook TO leave Egypt; we
nave redeemed the promise in an uhfore-
seen manner. but we have redeemed it
amply. If undertook to evaeuate the
old Egypt. we have fathered new one.
saved from imminent extinction by our gold
and our sword Without there would
have been no Egypt to-day; what we made
We shall keen.
WHAT is GAINED.
That is our double gain; the vindication Of
our own honor and the vindication of our
right to go on making Egypt country fit to
live in. Egypts gain is her existence to-
day The worlds gain is the downfall of the
worst tyranny in the world and the acquisi-
ton of limited opportunity for open trade.
The Sudan's gain is immunity from rape
and torture and every extreme of misery.
The poor Sudan The wretched dry SUI
dan! Count up all the gains you will. yet
what hideous irony it remains, this fight
OF half a generation for such an emptiness.
People talk of the Sudan the East; it IS
not the East. The East has age and color;
the Sudan has no color and age-just
monotone or squalid barbarlsm. 1t is not a
country; 1t has nothing that makes coun-
Try. Some british institutions ii has and
some bloodthrsty chivalry. But it is not
country; it has neither nationality, nor his
natural FEATURES.
Just the Nile-the niggard Nile refusing him.
self TO the desert-and for the rest there is
Nothing grows green. Only yellow halfa
grass to make you stumble. and sapless mi
mosa bush, dom palms that mock you with
wooden fruit, and Sudan apples that lure
you with. green fiatulent poison. For beasts
it has tarantulas and scorpions and SER
penis, devouring white ants and every kind
of loathsome bug that flies crawls. Its
people naked and dirty, ignorant and
besotted. 1T is quarter of continent or
sheer squalor. Overhead the pitiless furnace
of the sun. under foot the never-ceasing
treadmill of the sand, dust in the throat,
tuneless singing in the ears, soaring hame
in the eye-the Sudan is God-accursed Will
desness, an empty limbo of torment for ever
and ever.
Surely enough. when Allah made the
Sudan" say the Arabs The laughed You
can almost hear the fendish echo OF 1t
cracking over the grilling sand. And yet
Who had 'h been there Sut Was ready and
eager to go again. Drink of Nile water,
say the same Arabs, land you will return
to drink it again. The Nile water is either
very brow or very green, according the
season; yet you do go back and drink it
again. Perhaps to Observation-Disclosures
age still on the pinnacle of their civiliza-
tion-the very charm of the land lies in us
empty barbarism. There is space in the
Sudan. There is the fine, purified desert
air, and the long stretching gallops over
its sand. There are the things at the very
back of life, and no other to posture in
front of them. Hunger and thirst to as
suage, distance to win through, pain to
bear, life to defend and death TO face.
You have gone back to the spring water
of your infancy. You are a savage again.
savage with Rosbach water II there -
carbine, if the sand has not choked it,
but still at the last word a savage. You
are unprejudiced, simple. free You are
naked man, facing naked nature.
] do not believe that any of us who come
home whole will think. from our coy
chairs, unkindly of the Sudan.