To build aright on such foundations would have been difficult for a nation of born administrators. For the Egyptians it was impossible. There were among the Egyptian Governors of the Soudan honest and righteous men, but, amid a crowd of officials bred and trained in an atmosphere of corruption and slavery, their spasmodic efforts after good only gave fresh opportunities for evil. Military stations were established in various parts of the country for the sake of security, and they became fountains of slave recruits to swell the ranks of the army. The navigation of the White Nile was declared free, and it became the favourite route of the slave-traders. Khartoum, from a village of skins and reeds, rose to be a city of bricks and the capital of the Soudan, but also a convenient and central market for a huge slave-trade. The Abyssinians, who espoused the cause of the Sennar rebels, were beaten back into their mountains, but the savage methods of warfare only brutalized and demoralized the victors. It speaks volumes for the barbarous character of the times that when Adlan, the leader of the Abyssinians, was captured by Kurshid, reputed the best of the Governors of the Soudan, he was immediately impaled. The annals of these years are filled with stories of famine and rebellion, and, to add to the general desolation, cholera and other diseases constantly ravaged the country. But worse was to come. Down to 1853 the southernmost Egyptian station was only 120 miles south of Khartoum. The annexed provinces of Kordofan, Sennar, and Kassala (or Taka) groaned under oppression and tyranny, but the negro inhabitants of the Upper White Nile and the Bahr el Ghazal were still comparatively unmolested. In that year the English Consul in the Soudan started a trading expedition up the river. Other traders followed, who established stations far up the country. Peaceful trading soon succumbed to the temptations of the slave-trade. For the sake of protection, it began to be found necessary to employ bands of armed Arabs or Nubians. Gradually the European traders disappeared; by 1860 the last of them had sold their stations to their Arab agents. No greater curse was ever let loose upon a country than these human locusts, and the Egyptian Government was directly responsible. Under the shallow pretence of legitimate commerce, trading monopolies were leased to these traders in various districts. The fact that the Government had not a shadow of claim even by right of conquest to the territories leased was no obstacle. All the country south of Kordofan and Darfur along the White Nile or the Bahr el Ghazal was regarded as peculiarly suitable for these nefarious bargains. The Khartoumers, as they were called, because they had their headquarters in the capital, established themselves everywhere, and became practically independent potentates. With their armed bands of brigands they raided the native tribes, and even used them to fight against each other. Only the