announcement, the Notables asked Gordon whether the Slavetrade Convention with England, which he had promulgated in 1877, would be enforced. To such a question Gordon could give but one answer, 'No,' and he issued a Proclamation which gave no fresh encouragement to the Slave-trade, and simply recognized a state of affairs that resulted from the policy of Her Majesty's Government.

Throughout Gordon's mission, there seems to have been a certain reserve in the relations between Her Majesty's Government and himself. It is evident that when Gordon left England he did not sufficiently appreciate the change that had taken place in the Sudan since he had quitted it, and the prestige that the Mahdi had acquired by the destruction of Hicks's army. He must have felt, soon after his arrival at Khartum, that he could not, unaided, carry out his instructions; yet he never made any direct appeal for assistance, perhaps no man would have done so under the circumstances. On the other hand, Her Majesty's Government must have known, from Gordon's telegrams, that the evacuation of the Sudan and the restoration of the country to the petty sultans was more difficult than had been supposed, and that it could not be effected without their assistance. They did not, however, recal Gordon; they gave him no definite instructions; and the assistance, when sent, arrived too late. Gordon's feelings on the subject are recorded in his 'Journal': 'Had they telegraphed (when Baring telegraphed to Cuzzi, 29th March, which arrived here, saying, "No British troops are coming to Berber, negociations going on about opening road-Graham was about to attack Osman Digna"), "Shift for yourself," why nothing would have been said; but Her Majesty's Government would not say they were going to abandon the garrisons, and therefore "shift for yourself." (Page 149.)

Whilst General Hicks was making preparations for his disastrous campaign, a rebellion unexpectedly broke out amongst the Ethiopic tribes of the Eastern Sudan. These tribes had, since they passed under Egyptian rule, been on friendly terms with the Government; and they were so little fanatical, that during the troubled period of 1882 the Sheikhs had protected the Christians at Sawákin and prevented a pronunciamiento in favour of Arabi Pasha. Early in 1883, however, the tribes were called upon to supply an enormous number of camels for the transport of soldiers and supplies to Berber. They were promised seven mejidiehs per camel for the journey; but, when pay day came, they were only given one; the difference is said to have gone into the pockets of the Governor of the Eastern Sudan and

his friends. This created a widespread feeling of discontent, and when Osman Digna arrived, late in July, to plead the Mahdi's cause in the Erkowit Mountains, he found the ground partly prepared for him, and preached to no unwilling ears. On the 5th of August, 1883, Osman attacked Sinkat, and was repulsed with heavy loss. The rebels retired, deeply discouraged, and there the matter would have ended if a capable man had been filling the post of Governor of the Eastern Sudan. Unfortunately that position was occupied by Suleiman Niazi, the ancient warrior who had shown such incompetence at Khartum, and the troops were commanded by a man who had neither capacity nor courage. Osman resumed his preaching, and, gradually rousing a spirit of fanaticism amongst the Hadendowa tribes and their tributaries, succeeded in forming a confederation of tribes under his own leadership. On the 18th of October hostilities recommenced with the destruction of an Egyptian detachment on its way to Sinkat; and on the 4th of November, the day of Hicks's defeat, a force advancing towards Tokar was defeated, and Captain Moncrieff, R.N., the British Consul at Sawákin, who was present, was killed. The news of this last disaster reached Cairo a few days before that of the destruction of Hicks and his army; it was determined to send an expedition to relieve Tokar, but, as the British officers in the Egyptian army could not be sent to the Sudan without violating the policy of Her Majesty's Government, the army took charge of the police duties in Egypt, and Baker Pasha and his gendarmerie were sent to Sawákin. The defeat of this untrained rabble was a foregone conclusion. The men looked with horror upon service in the Sudan; and no scene in a burlesque ever equalled that in which Baker's Egyptian warriors wept and prayed for peace in the courtyard of Government House at Sawákin; whilst, in the balcony above, the wavering Sheikhs were being told that it was impossible for Osman Digna to resist the hosts of Pharaoh. The annihilation of Baker's force at Teb; the occupation of Sawákin by British marines; the fall first of Sinkat, then of Tokar; and General Graham's brief but brilliant campaign, followed in quick succession. In these operations many valuable lives were lost, and many hundred warriors of the most interesting race in Africa were slaughtered; but, when Graham's force withdrew from Sawákin, the substantial results rested with Osman Digna.

As early as the 25th of April, General Stephenson was instructed to report on the best way of relieving Gordon. In his reply he recommended the Sawákin route, and proposed that a force of 10,000 men should leave that place for Berber in

September.

September. From that moment, a struggle commenced between the advocates of the Sawákin and Nile routes; the local authorities in Egypt were in favour of the former: the military advisers of Her Majesty's Government at home, of the latter. The Government appear to have favoured, at first, the Sawákin route, and considerable preparations were made at Sawákin for landing the heavy stores required for an expedition; even as late as July 18th, they refused to allow English or Egyptian troops to proceed to Dongola. Early in August, however, a vote of credit was obtained from Parliament, and on the 7th of that month Sir F. Stephenson was instructed to make preparations for an expedition to proceed in small boats to Dongola. After some correspondence on the subject, General Stephenson reported, August 21st, that he believed an expedition to New Dongola by means of small boats impracticable.' On the 26th of August Lord Wolseley was appointed to the command in Egypt, and Her Majesty's Government were finally committed to the Nile route.

The Sawákin route was a question of camels, which could have been easily procured; the Nile route by small boats, a question of time. The advocates of the former were wrong in insisting on the construction of a railway, and in declaring the Nile impracticable for small boats; those of the latter were wrong in their estimate of the time which it would take small boats to ascend the river, and in their neglect of camel transport. Instead of reaching Korti by the middle of November, the first boats did not arrive at that place until the 15th of December, the day after that upon which Gordon had said he would be hard pressed for provisions. It became a point of honour, with the advocates of the Nile route, to prove that boats could be taken up the Nile to Khartum, and it is to be feared the camel transport was somewhat neglected. At any rate, it is interesting to compare the rapid advance to Korti of Ismail Pasha, who depended on camels and used boats as auxiliary transport, with the progress of the British Expedition which depended upon their boats. The failure of the expedition to attain its object is, however, really due to the delay in its organization, from April, when the question was first discussed, to August, when the Vote of Credit was obtained, and for this delay Her Majesty's Government are alone responsible.

During the progress of the Nile Expedition the policy laid down by Her Majesty's Government was reversed in nearly every particular. The object of Gordon's mission was to withdraw the Turkish and Egyptian officials, and to rid the Sudan

of

6

of Bashi-Bazuk government. Yet the first public act of Lord Wolseley on reaching Dongola was to hang the cross of St. Michael and St. George round the neck of the Circassian Mudir who had grossly insulted Sir Herbert Stewart by refusing him an audience for three days. By this act Her Majesty's Government proclaimed to all the people struggling to be free' that they had entered the Sudan, not in any friendly spirit to the Sudanîs, but as the ally of the hated Turk. They had proclaimed the abandonment of the Sudan, and Gordon had declared Berber to be independent of Cairo, yet their action led the natives to believe that they intended to re-establish the authority of the Khedive. They had on several occasions declared that the new Egyptian Army was not raised for service in the Sudan, and had refused to allow any portion of it to go to Sawákin and Berber at a time when native troops were much needed and would have been of great value at those places; yet during the expedition more than half of the army was employed in the Soudan, and an Egyptian battery took part in the fight at Kirbekan. They had been indignant at Gordon's slave circular, yet they allowed the Mudir of Dongola to raise battalions of slaves forcibly taken from their masters. When at the commencement of his perilous mission Gordon asked that Zebehr might be removed from Cairo, his request was refused; yet before the expedition was at an end, Zebehr was a state prisoner at Gibraltar. The results of the policy of Her Majesty's Government-results obtained by an expenditure of eleven millions of money and the loss of many valuable lives-have been anarchy in the Sudan, the abandonment of the Egyptian province of Dongola, and injury to British prestige in Egypt and the Levant.

The events connected with the Nile Expedition, and its failure to accomplish its object; with the second fruitless campaign of General Graham at Sawákin; and with the final evacuation of the Sudan, after Her Majesty's Government had declared their intention of destroying the Mahdi's power at Khartum, are fresh in the memory of every one. Though Kassala, Sennar, and the Equatorial Province are still holding out, the evacuation is practically complete, and the only question that remains is, whether that evacuation is likely to be permanent. To this we can only answer in the words of Sherif Pasha, that the Sudan is absolutely necessary to the existence of Egypt. Darfur and Kordofan may be neglected; they are not very productive, and the first is a long way from any navigable river; but Egypt can never give up the control of the great river to which she owes her existence; and the Power that

holds

holds the destinies of Egypt in her hands can never allow the Sudan to be occupied by a European Power hostile to her interests, or the formation of a barbarous Slave State, under the influence of European adventurers, in the fertile districts which were formerly ruled by the Kings of Sennar. Ministers may protest that they will have nothing to do with the Sudan, but they cannot prevent its inevitable re-occupation by Egypt. No one can possibly desire the restoration of Bashi-Bazuk government, with all its attendant horrors; but it is surely not beyond the powers of the race that governs India to devise some scheme by which, whilst the rights of the natives are protected, Egypt, under English tutelage, should become the paramount Power in the Sudan.

ART. VII.-Corpus Inscriptionum Græcarum. Auctoritate et impensis Academiæ Litterarum Regia Borussica. Edidit Augustus Boeckhius. Berolini. 4 vols. fo. 1828-1877.

No revivor
N°

O sooner had the revival of learning commenced, and with it the enthusiasm for classical literature, than writings purporting to be amongst the earliest productions of Greece and Rome were put forth, and for a time believed to be genuine, which the more critical spirit of later generations has decided to be spurious. There were few more popular works in the latter part of the fifteenth century than the Epistles of Phalaris. They were among the first Greek books printed; two editions of the original, more than twenty-three of the Latin translation of Aretin, seven of the Italian translation of Bartolommeo Fonzio, and one of that of Andrea Ferabos, were given to the world before 1500. The Epistles of Phalaris, like those of Themistocles, of Plato, and of Brutus, have long been relegated to the limbo of spurious books; and if the Odes of Anacreon have been allowed to retain the rank of a classic, they are admitted only on the footing of being productions of a much later age than that of the Teian bard.

But the authors of all these writings, and the dates of their composition, are absolutely unknown to us. They all seem to have been first printed by editors who sincerely believed that they were giving to the world genuine remains of antiquity, the work of the writers whose names they bear. But while the authors of the comparatively few spurious Greek works have generally remained unknown-except indeed, those which our contemporary Simonides produced-forgeries of Latin writings,

some