our main body; and the ugly rush that caused such a shocking slaughter on both sides could not possibly have occurred. Oh! but,' say our military Solons, it would have caused delay to send artillery from Cairo; and if it had been sent it could not have been moved; and if it could have been moved it would have defeated our purposes; it would have kept the enemy at a distance; we should never have come to close quarters-in fact, we should not have got a good bag.' But events have disproved every one of these arguments. Osman Digma had no intention of running away; and whether we attacked him on Tuesday, or Wednesday, or even Thursday, did not signify in the least, if the delay enabled us to make better provision for the safety of our men.

It is rather comical to tell the country that horse artillery could not move in the neighbourhood of Suakim, when at that very moment our sailors were dragging their nine-pound guns all over the country. We had a very large force of cavalry, including a squadron of that hitherto mythical force, the 'Horse Marines.' Cannot horse artillery go everywhere where cavalry can go, to say nothing of horse marines? If they cannot, then all I can say is that the very first axiom of military tactics falls to the ground. There is no doubt whatever that horse artillery can go anywhere that cavalry can go, and there is no doubt whatever that a battery of horse artillery is a more efficient force than a squadron of horse marines.

It is not true that there was not water enough for a battery of horse artillery, because there was actually water enough for 800 horses. It is not true that guns could not be moved, because they did move and manoeuvre their field guns without difficulty. But it is true that a battery of horse artillery would have prevented the Arabs coming to close quarters with our men; and the result has proved that this is the chief object we ought to have had in view. Our gallant foes were perfectly harmless at a distance, and

every effort should have been made to keep them there. At close quarters they were better than our own men, and every effort should have been made to prevent their coming up. The courage of the Arab is quite distinct from the courage of the English soldier; it is not physical at all, it does not result from discipline; it is entirely religious and fanatical. He believes that Paradise is assured to him who with his own hand slays a Giaour; and the man who would flee in terror from a shell fired a couple of miles off would rush with desperate joy on fixed bayonets if he thought that by so doing he could kill a Christian before he died. The Koran teaches that the highest dignity the faithful can attain is that of making war in person against the enemies of his religion. Whoever falls in battle,' says Mohammed, 'his sins are forgiven; at the day of judgment his wounds shall be resplendent as vermilion and odoriferous as musk, and the loss of his limbs shall be replaced with the wings of angels and cherubims.' Seventy-two of the houris of Paradise, with eyes large as eggs and charms in proportion, wait impatiently the approach of every true believer whose thread of life is severed in battle with a Giaour.

6

When we talk of getting a good bag,' of reaping a full harvest of death in the Soudan, are we not troubled with the old question, 'Why; what evil hath he done?' What evil have these daring tribesmen done us that we should kill and mutilate them, and destroy their villages, and their herds? They have done us no harm in thought, word, or deed. They are fighting for their country, and for their faith; and if they have for the moment crossed the path of our interest, or our ambition, we have no right to slaughter them without mercy. If we had employed artillery against the Arabs, we should have convinced

them at once of our immeasurable superiority in war, and of the hopelessness of their opposition. By omitting to employ artillery we have put ourselves on a level with. them, and encouraged them to come to close quarters, where they find themselves as good or better than we are. Surely the evil spirit of England has directed the Egyptian policy of the present Government? Unintentionally, no doubt, it is a history of blood. Everywhere our progress has been marked by a multitude of slain, and a great number of carcases; by the smell of death; by garments soaked in blood.

The Nemesis that has dogged our hesitating footsteps has been startling indeed. We have been prevented doing everything that we declared we would do, and we have been compelled to do everything we declared we would not do. We declared we would free the Egyptians from the tyranny of Arabi, and we smote 10,000 Egyptians at Tel-el-Kebir. We declared the Soudan should be free from the degrading tyranny of Egypt, and behold at this moment the land of Suakim is a Golgotha. Within a circuit of twenty miles 10,000 or 15,000 skeletons of Arabs lie bleaching on the sands of the desert. Surely Egyptians and Arabs alike will cry in the bitterness of their hearts, 'My father chastised us with whips, but you have chastised us with scorpions.'

XXII.

TWO MANDATES.

WHEN Arabi Pasha decided to fight, the British Government decided to fight also, and requested the other Powers of Europe to support them; but this they refused point blank to do, and steamed away. How this isolation came to be interpreted into a mandate of Europe to bombard Alexandria, stamp out the national party, and put Humpty Dumpty on the wall again, it is difficult to understand. I

am inclined to think the European mandate had no existence whatever except in the sanguine imagination of the Prime Minister. But though the European mandate was probably entirely imaginary, there was another mandate that was not imaginary at all, but had a very real existence indeed, and that was the Radical mandate-the teterrima causa of all the humiliating muddle we now see in Egypt. But there were yet other mandates to be obeyed, so, at least, we were told-the mandate of humanity, the mandate of civilisation. With so many mandates impelling in different directions, it is not surprising that John Bull has been like a man dancing a quadrille, taking one step forward and another step back, making a glissade to the right, and another glissade to the left, turning round, bowing to his partner, and leaving off in exactly the same place he started from.

Now, the European mandate, as acted up to by Mr. Gladstone, was a very serious affair, and was held to authorise the destruction of Alexandria, the slaughter of Tel-elKebir, and other acts of blood-guiltiness; but as I understand that the Powers of Europe gave no mandate whatever, it appears to me they are at perfect liberty to wash their hands entirely of these acts; and, more than that, I understand that, in fact, they do so, fully and completely. Whether a bold policy of common sense, persistently. carried out, would have educed order out of chaos and saved Egypt it is impossible to say, for it was never tried. Whenever, in accordance with what they assumed to be the European mandate, the Government put their hand to the plough, the Radical mandate invariably compelled them to turn back, and there the plough remains, stuck fast in the unfinished furrow, a cause of ridicule to the world.

Of course, in these days of superfine political morality, no earnest statesman ventures to eat his political fig without invoking the name of the prophet, and therefore when we invaded Egypt, bombarded her ports, killed her sons,

&c., high heaven was called to witness that we had no eye whatever to our own interests, that we were impelled entirely by the interests of Egypt, the interests of Europe, the interests of humanity, the interests of civilisation. Of course those hypocritical professions imposed on no one; everyone knew they were sham, both those who spoke and those who listened; but they answered a purpose. They gave an excuse for the Radical mandate to suppress by force of arms, what appeared to many, a genuine struggle for freedom. It is the silly persistence in the assertion of these sham motives that has so aroused the contemptuous indignation of every nation in Europe. If John Bull in his isle chooses to swallow this nauseous dose of hypocrisy,' say France, and Germany, and Italy, by all means let him do so, "si populus vult decipi, decipiatur," but please remember that it is intended entirely for home consumption. Don't ask us to swallow it, for we won't do so. We don't want to be told why you went to Egypt; we know perfectly well. We know that the interests of Egypt, of Europe, of humanity, of civilisation, had nothing whatever to do with it, and that if there had been no other inducements than these, you would not have sent a man or a gun to Egypt. You went to Egypt solely and entirely because your own interests, British interests pure and simple, required it, and for no other reason in the world. Why can't you deal honestly with us, my dear friend? What do you gain by parading false motives before us all, and thanking God you are not like the rest of us, when, indeed, if there is anything to pick and choose, you are rather worse? We never liked you much, my dear John, but we never despised you before.' Whether Europe has gained by the destruction of Alexandria; whether humanity has gained by the slaughter of thousands upon thousands of wretched peasants sent in chains to the shambles at Telel-Kebir, Obeid, Teb, Sinkat, &c.; whether civilisation has gained by the re-establishment of the greatest and most