Egypt had held and ruled the Sudan from 1820 for a period of 60 years before the rise of the Mahdi drove her out. She had fai ed completely in the enterprise, The Sudan had one time ight and inhabitants. Tt is a vast country about two-thirds the size of China, being neatly 1,200 miles long by' a the id miles broad containing a m:
square miles of territory of which only @ small part, from lack of irrigation, is cultivated or occupied. In the south it stretches right down into Central Africa and includes great tracts of desert and swamps and forest. In the north its inhabitants are Moslem and by descent largely Arab—fierce, fant tie tribesmen, born fighting men and robbers, "ignorant and superstitious, and the ready prey of any religious prophet or impostor. In the south they are mostly pagan blacks. General Gordon declared that the Sudan was,.and always would be, "useless." Egypt, so long as she ruled there, found it only useful for the slave-trade and it iwas-under Egyptian rule that the were left to their own davie The story has been told by Lor Greiner, the organizer of modern Egypt, in his book. Sir Reginald Wingate visited in 1902 0 district which had previously contained 800 villages; he found that not one of riem remained. In the Berber re-ion villages which had produced 500 fighting men had now only from 50 to 60 adults, or even less. The towa of Metemmeh, which former-{ly hud a large population, had any 1,800 inhabitants when Lord Crom-ex visited it after the battle of Omdurman and of these 1,300 only 150 were-men. Metemmeh had belonged to the tribe of the Jaslin which had revolted against the Khalifa and had in consequence, been almost exterminated. These eases illustrate the devastation which went on in the Sudan until its reconquest' by the British, to which of course Egypt contributed 'a certain number of troops.
For over 20 years now the British Government has, through the Go ernor-General, ruled the Sudan and given it peace. Egypt has supplied: the troops of occupation and. paid about a million pounds a year for their upkeep. She ts fully titled to her share in the "condomin= ium." But itis not disputed that the marvellous progress which the Sudan has made-is due to the ad-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.