ness of our Ministers. The destruction of General Hicks's army first brought the Mahdi into prominent notice; yet all the prestige he acquired by that victory did not enable him to concentrate against Khartoum, during the whole time that has since elapsed, more than 20,000 men, of whom, as General Gordon informed Lord Wolseley, not more than 3000 or 4000 were fighting men. Some of the most powerful of the Soudanese tribes – notably the Kabbabish, the Hawaweir, the Sowarab, and the Hassaniyeh – not only are no believers in the Mahdi's divine mission, but have a blood-feud with him, and are now actively helping us in providing camels and transporting stores. We cannot, however, hope to retain their assistance if we announce the intention of "scuttling" as soon as possible after the capture of Khartoum, and of leaving our allies to "stew in their own juice." Some people seem to imagine that "smashing the Mahdi" means that, after taking Khartoum, we should follow him to the burning wastes of Central Africa; but by the capture of that city the Mahdi will be smashed quite sufficiently for our purpose, for his power, like that of other impostors before him claiming to be "some great one," would melt away like a snow-wreath under the influence of a reverse to his arms that would entirely discredit his divine claims; provided always, however, the tribes should not believe that we were about to abandon the country.
Even now in many quarters the power of the Mahdi is much exaggerated. We have witnessed an easy belief in the rumours that he was marching to annihilate our troops, at the head of 60,000 men, &o., &c. Now we do not believe that the Mahdi could collect in any one spot 30,000 armed men, or that he could feed that number if collected; and the idea of his being able to move such a force to any distance is simply preposterous. An impression, too, seems to prevail that all the Mahdi's troops consist of fanatic Ghazis – men who eagerly court death to win the Mohammedan Paradise; whereas the fanatics are really only the steel-tip to the lance, and constitute a very small proportion of the whole, of whom the remainder have quite as tender a regard for their skin as people in general. Unhappily, besides the moral effect of the capture of Khartoum, the Mahdi's military power has gained a great material accession by the large supply of guns, rifles, and ammunition captured with the city. Our massive squares, though in our opinion an unintelligent and dangerous formation, could, barring such mistakes as happened at Tamai and Abu Klea, laugh at the rush of the Arab spearmen; but it will be a very different matter when the enemy can bring into the field, in addition to the fanatic spearmen, thousands of men armed with rifles as good as our own, who would make the massive squares pay dearly for that faulty formation, as indeed they did at the battle of Gubat.
We have not insulted the intelligence of our readers by formulating any argument to prove that Gordon's death was due to his desertion by our rulers; the fact is patent to all, even to the docile majority whose votes on the latest motion of censure have enabled the Government to drag on a little longer their dishonoured existence. But besides that great calamity, our rulers will be directly responsible for the increased losses our troops must sustain in action from the improved
