Day by day, during conversation with Mr. Jephson--who was, “by the bye,” a pronounced Eminist--I acquired a pretty correct idea of the state of affairs. There was one confirmed habit I observed that Mr. Jephson had contracted during his compulsory residence with the Pasha which provoked a smile, and that was, while saying several crushing things about the Province, he interlarded his clever remarks with--“Well, you know, the poor, dear Pasha! He is a dear old fellow, you know. ‘Pon my word, I can’t help but sympathise with the Pasha, he’s such a dear good man,” &c., &c. They served to illuminate traits of character, and showed that, at all events, Jephson had a kindly heart, and what he had seen and heard only made him esteem the Pasha the more; but when he spoke of the Egyptians, the most portentous vocabulary was requisitioned to load them with abuse--“unmitigated scoundrels, depraved villains, treacherous dogs, unscrupulously vile,” &c., &c. The Egyptians were “animals with foxy natures,” the Soudanese were “brutishly stupid.” One chief clerk had falsified accounts at the Khartoum Arsenal, and had been the recipient of 1,500 stripes with the kourbash; another had been detected making huge profits by mixing powdered charcoal with the gunpowder, and filling Remington cartridges with it. A major had been convicted of trading in Government stores; others had been sent to the Siberia of the Equator as convicts, guilty of various felonies, arson, murder, &c.; others were transported thither for being concerned in Arabi’s rebellion, &c., &c.; and it became clear that whatever sanguine hopes the Pasha had cherished, he must often have distrusted his powers during his constrained intercourse with the penal outcasts placed under him. While there was a reserve of dominating power, and an overshadowing personality of stern justice in the figure of Gordon at Khartoum, the penal serfs were under some control, though Gessi Pasha, even as far back as 1879, was copious in complaints of Emin to Gordon, but when the news spread throughout the Province that Khartoum was taken, and the Governor-General slain, and all traces of Egyptian Government had vanished, the native unruliness of the Egyptians, and brutish stubbornness of the Soudanese found vent, and was manifested in utter disregard to orders, and perverse misconduct. Emin was now a Pasha in name and title only. Government was petrified, order was dead. Some men, in Emin’s place, would have become so disgusted, that after arming themselves with excuses for retreat by overt proofs of contempt of his authority, would have collected a few faithful men, or have retired to some small post like Mswa station at the remote South, reported frankly the events, and have applied for relief and instructions. Others, again, would have exacted performance of duty and discipline to the very end, regardless of consequences. Others, again, would have removed with such