On the whole, the Soudan is far more peaceful internally than it has ever been before. Nothing has had a more pacifying effect than the spectacle constantly witnessed of British officials roaming the country unarmed and unescorted. This visible confidence has done much more than years of campaigning could ever do. There have been, it is true, one or two occasions when troops have had to be employed. The Soudan is still full of combustible materials. Fanaticism and ignorant superstition combined are dangerous elements. But the Government has taken to heart the lesson taught by the rise of the Mahdi. When troops are sent, care is taken that they shall strike swiftly and effectively. A new Mahdi appears in the Soudan once or twice a year. Once a woman proclaimed herself, and gained a considerable following. Sometimes they die away of themselves, but all require to be carefully watched. Such an one a few months ago had to be put down by an expedition in Kordofan. His capture and defeat at once put an end to his divine pretensions. These petty outbursts are legacies from the unhappy past; under good government they will become less frequent and less dangerous. Every day the Pax Britannica grows stronger and more deeply rooted in every direction. Peace once established, the British officer finds his real work only begun. The restoration of order was comparatively simple, the kind of business for which he had been trained. His regimental duties may have given him some slight acquaintance with accounts and book-keeping, or the elements of military law and procedure. Every scrap of such knowledge must be beaten out and made to reach as far as possible, and so guide him in his financial and judicial duties. But where will he have learnt to make bricks, to measure land, to make roads, to pronounce on methods of gathering rubber or gum, or the diseases of cattle or dhurra? Yet all these things he will have to do, and many others in the course of his busy days. One of the great attractions of the Soudan is the splendid keenness of all these men, soldiers and civilians alike. From Wadi Halfa onwards the same spirit is observable in everyone you meet. Grumbling you will hear, but it is the grumbling of keen men. The Governor of one province is convinced that too much is being spent on the capital. If only some of that money were given to him, he would soon show startling developments. Another thinks his trade suffers because the railways or the steamers are not so good as they ought to be. Another is dissatisfied because he cannot get a schoolmaster sent him, and so on. All are not, of course, equally competent (that could not be), but there are no idlers. All are working heartily for the good of the Soudan and its people, and the honour of their own country. Many of the Governors and Inspectors of Provinces have fought in command of the black battalions against the Arabs. They learned to like the one and to respect the other.