The news from the Soudan is not encouraging. It is
now certain that the Egyptian Army has perished, owing, as we suspected, to thirst and the total failure of ammunition, and that the natives consider the victory to settle the Mahdi's claims. On December 5th, a dervish entered Sennaar, and swore on the Koran that not a soldier of General Hicks's army had been left alive in Kordofan. Five thousand of the people at once armed themselves and declared for the Mahdi, and this province also may be considered lost. It will be the same at Khartoum, and General Baker, if he fights his way from Suakim—which, in the temper of his troops, is doubtful—will arrive too late. Fortunately, the British authorities in Egypt are not hopeful, and are taking the wise course of throwing up works at Assouan, the lowest point on the river at which the British Army can in- terfere. They leave the Soudan to the Egyptian Government, and that Government has appointed Zebehr Pasha, the king of slave-dealers, its supreme agent in Kordofan. The notion is to pit his local influence against the spiritual influence of the Mahdi, and it will probably fail.
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