With respect to General Gordon’s commission as Governor-General which is objected to—how could he have derived any power without it? The number of Egyptian employés and troops could be counted by thousands, each province being under the government of an Egyptian Pasha. How could he have issued any orders unless he derived his authority from the firman of the Khedive. The writer advocates the evacuation of the Soudan upon any terms, even if such withdrawal would result in anarchy—always provided that Great Britain is not prepared to exercise a protectorate over it—and then he goes on to recommend the construction of the Suakim and Berber railway under any circumstances, with the view of opening the road to Khartoum, and giving us access to the heart of Africa. He seems to consider that the people of the Soudan would, after a time of anarchy, form good governments. It is asserted, on the contrary, that the country, at present a productive one, would revert into barbarism, and, after a scene of murder, rapine, and plunder, would become the resort of slave-hunters,[49] who would carry on raids into all the surrounding provinces. The writer does not say where the money is to come from for the construction of the railway, or how it is to be maintained. When he speaks of the garrisons of Sennaar and Kassala being withdrawn through Abyssinia, he apparently forgets the extreme hatred that exists between the natives of the Soudan and the Abyssinians. He seems to have forgotten the thousands of people whom General Gordon was sent to remove. Putting on one side the Egyptian garrisons in the Bahr-el-Gazelle, and at the equator, and other places, Colonel Coetlogen states[50] that the people to be removed from Khartoum and Sennaar alone consists of from 40,000 to 50,000 persons, and is of opinion that the evacuation would take two years to carry out, and could only be carried out at great risk, and with much bloodshed. It is very difficult to explain the meaning of the proclamation of February 26,[51] wherein General Gordon speaks of having sent for British troops who would in a few days be in Khartoum. It would seem as if the proclamation had been promulgated under some misapprehension or misunderstanding open to explanation. General Gordon is not an Arabic scholar, and his interpreter may have inserted words that he did not use. Again, General Gordon may have intended to allude to Graham’s force proceeding to Suakim,[52] since the proclamation is addressed to the inhabitants of the Soudan generally, of which Suakim is an integral part; or he may refer to the 200 Indian troops that on the same day (February 26) he requests[53] may be sent to Wadi-Halfa. As this incident has nothing to do with the future of the Soudan, nor with the slave proclamation, it would seem quite unnecessary for the writer of the article in the _Fortnightly Review_ to go out of his way to charge General Gordon, an absent officer, with having proclaimed an untruth.