Hardly had the new Vali reached his post, when he found himself confronted with some difficult problems of quite a different order from those he had dealt with on the Danube, but of a not less serious description. The question of recruiting was the most urgent, and called for immediate solution. The Arab tribes, turbulent and independent by nature, had always shown themselves refractory to enlistment, and were now in open revolt against its enforcement. One of the difficulties of the situation consisted in the fact that the military authority in the province was separated from the civil, and was in the hands of the commander of the 6th Army Corps, Samih Pasha, whereas the situation required all authority, military as well as civil, to be concentrated in the hands of a single strong central authority. Midhat did not hesitate at such a crisis to assume the full responsibility of this concentration, and took immediate military steps to suppress the insurrection by force. He ordered the city of Bagdad to be surrounded by cavalry, and sent infantry and artillery to protect the foreign Mission Houses and the non‐Mussulman quarters from the fanaticism of the Arabs. He at the same time ordered the bridge over the Tigris to be cut, so as to prevent intercommunication among the rebels; and when these energetic measures had fairly intimidated the Arabs, he offered them a general amnesty on condition of immediate surrender. These conditions were now accepted, and the insurrection suddenly collapsed, and no further resistance was offered to the recruiting. The promptitude with which this dangerous rebellion was suppressed was appreciated by the Porte, and a telegram was received from Constantinople approving the measures he had taken, and placing officially the supreme command of the 6th Army Corps in his hands. The next serious difficulty was connected with the levying of taxes. This had always been a difficult operation among the nomad tribes, of which the population in a great measure consisted, and was the cause of continual disputes and insurrections. Matters had, however, now reached a crisis, for a colonel at the head of a battalion of regulars sent to Divanie and Dogara to collect the tithes was surrounded by tribesmen to the number of ten thousand men, and himself killed and his troops killed or dispersed. The new Vali seized at once the seriousness of the situation, for the encouragement which this success afforded the tribesmen threatened to give rise to a general insurrection of all the surrounding nomads.