The Times' correspondent with the Egyptian Army gives in Friday's
issue an interesting account, derived from Slatin Pasha, of Mohammed Wad Bishara, the Governor of Dongola, the young Dervish General on whom will fall the duty of opposing our advance. He belongs to the Baggara tribe, and he is thirty-two years of age. He has already gone through all the stages of Mahdism. He began as a sincere fanatic, but has ended, like his master, by being the slave of every vicious indulgence. Always a shrewd man of the world, he took means to make himself popular with the mob, whom he conciliated by lavish gifts of money. "The wise," as he said to Slatin Pasha, "buy men when they are cheap, not when they are dear,"—signifying that a little liberality displayed when all was going well with one, and when there was apparently nothing to be gained by it, was accepted by the people as evidence of a kind heart, and pro- duced a far greater effect than a more lavish expenditure in a season of danger and difficulty, when the reason for such generosity was patent to all. Clearly Bishara has the politician's instinct.
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