Show m THE mm present facts read like a medieval romance I 1 V I 1 I 1 DARKEST DARK CONTINENT tho the tribes great britain will encounter in its newly expedition the baladi and tho the dervishes will italy egypt and the congo conco rree free state unite to cipo out tho the DiSturb eis ISS IW G by pt cheller johnson it if tile the Atal maedl adl who wax wan by tit all accounts a merciful it if misguided roan man were living today he would perhaps repent in that lie hall had ever preached throughout the sudan the jehad or boly war raising those marvelous hosts of fanatical fuzzy buz acs ics which shriveled the puny armies is herewith the government of 0 egypt bolstered bolit cred up its power alone tile the upper N nile ile which a aich tell fell upon hicks flicks pashas lopoo men and blotted them ad out t 11 in a day anil and which swept away within a single year rear all the traces of 0 that civill bation which h had ad begun to do bo be much tor for equatorial africa more gore than fifteen years year have passed tanco tile the dominion ot of the mahe II 11 in the budan began and at this late date it Is for tile the first ume lime rumored with some like a show of 0 authority that 2 1 CT pt the puppet behind which ingland pulls the strings Is sel louly to advance for the purpose of conquer re ing the lost provinces this ir ie conquest suong ur r later Is lne liable the hie sooner the hie better belief tor for civilization and tile tu fu turc lure of africa but the power to carry ie i conquest to ft a issue r sia with egypt Is a question of 0 the baiger politico which 1 la 11 1 played in europe liuro pc and Is so BO entangled with questions of if european that it cannot be discussed save with fill reference to these roughly speaking the or Do donithen Donl nishen lule auto in the I 1 act i f marten africa a stretched along a portion of tile the bowel nile and along alone loth branches of 0 tile upper nile a thousand miles from past hit to lo adleat a thousand miles from coith noi ih to smith and inhabited by million of people ix ople within his vir tr ator Hoi years have soon seen groat great changes ch inges whose nature no moll inin in civilization exactly knows whole tribes have hem been wiped out liy by war famine and ante and oilier tier tribes tac haic changed cli anRed through in by r rH 11 lu loum fickling the matilta llono which pad known their fore in ers for centuries 1 nearly opposite the site of kit khartoum I lias has sprung up tip v alth fill A rapidity surpassing the growth of abie th boorn bom towns of the west a new city the capital of the chit and of ills his Om durman pace here where twenty years age affo was nettling hut but a huddle of buts marking a ferry aiom the bank of the ilia NIT to the low sand at the foot of khartoum ila liaa shiung up tip a town some pome three or of four miles in extent walled against invasion dotted N with ith the domes or of mosques and shining in the clear Sou Soudan danese tse still m alth glittering decorations of palaces at the heart of the town Is ill the I 1 new shrine of Sou danese the botial place where the late maadi was interred within a year arter after tile his great triumph over chinese gordnn at millar boum anum by ills ilia successor khalifa abdul lahl aho Is himself still inis called the I 1 lut whose real re il title Is Mun Alun tazer el at mahill or successor of the mahil cabill the khalifa was one of the tour four gene generals raJo of the late maedl and was by the latter proclaimed before his death as his successor lie ile ell disposed posed of all his rivals and of the relatives ot of the late mahill by the usual oriental method of slaughter or his favorite command when any ally of the tribes of dervishes or hil hallinen linen were suspected of dialing chafing under his authority has been to in send them orders to come into Om durman and the lite orders have seldom been disobeyed the result has bag been that the capital has become thron ped ed with men who were ivere once raising raisin dates and millet jr in the oases of 0 the tar far desert with the natural result that food in the sudan has hai fluctuated in prices greatly the last few years at times they have ilsen to liters literal famine rates and then the bodies of people who have died of starvation were as an common in emdur man itself not to speak of the deserted villages of the interior as ever they wore were in the most disastrous pestilences of tho the middle as no one knows what the population of the Sou danese e may now be lut but it Is not doubted that it has hal decreased CO 50 60 possibly even 75 per pat cent within two decades but though less in absolute size mie it is 1 far car more concentrated so that the khalifa still has at his command great armies of resolute men bound to him not less by interest than ly IT religious rell Blous fervor tor for while he has mercilessly chastised every clan that he h has even suspected acted of meditating i revolt he has loaded with rewards the strong military arll upon chose w hose devotion his empire rests and about afi low walled palace in the hoai healt t of om du durman dearman arman lie has drawn as a hat against attack or assassination many thousands of bosert warriors thus the khalifa Is trong strong but his Is of the sort that would yield readily to a determined attack the of the followers of the aih ell dl himself volan fifteen years ago they hurled their naked bodies against the lines ties of the well nell drilled soldiery has declined doc lined with the discovery that the promised victory over all the world orld has rot not come to pass there Is discontent too among amon the tribesmen whom the khalifa ling has turned from their homes among the river boatmen whose da daha babelas belas lie he has box d under tinder the name of taxation among the merchants ot of the arab race whose former business along alone tile great caravan lines linel loading adane I fram rm khartoum to assouad As cassala Kas sala lower egypt and the laci itce seft sea ho he has almost entirely destroyed floii reaches its height in tho the distant armies which from dongola Doi iKola the northern province of at the dervishes s confront the an advance at wally wady haifa tribes nrc are charged quite as much with the duty of allowing no one to leave as of allowing allot ing no one to enter the Soudan because sale such has hren tile the misrule of the Khall faI and tile the suffering it has council caused that a large proportion of his subjects nelld nol ld if permitted gladly leave the country for tilts tills reason reabon a resolute advance made mad by the armies of egypt might encounter fighting ni for a time but it if they were successful la in ing doccola Don Dol cola igola the I birthplace of the mah III dl I 1 and now DOW the 1 of the he tk it Is ablo able that dwi doi lions would he numerous and that veolo albes of harried desert dwellers would go oer 01 er in ili masses to tile egyptians tho situation I 1 Is not what hat it was nix tomi teen yeara ago then tho the people of tho fir soudan were nore irritated by tile minor millor mistakes bich the EgY rAlan lain giai ai mad P now low they have hare an un ity ty lo 10 a sw sei how much worie than ahin even I 1 perfect colo 1 ani nn r chy with rith a krand grand center of dep depoole pole power with walli broken telegraph wires ind nd stranded is with caravan roads used for a thon thousand sand yeorg cars in the iho past iott ties nearly my deserted with fulner it laffa LK 0 it dotting citing the giblant dania as far ani ali the borders bf of tha congo free sai with stiles on every hand A and net droppel pro I 1 ty only al a memory in the minds of the utopia old enough to recall what egypt man rule really was for although U gy 1 t did not do nil all things for the soudan arill ami many of its minor officials keic and incompetent x it 11 did too much find the older soudan ese es I 1 must munt appreciate that thai fact had the mabell lived it 1 in alivie ie that hat I 1 the he t power po or of the dervishes might now low I 1 be more N strongly entrenched for or to considerable ability the 2 inabit added a reasonable degree decree of human kindness for his h successor Bucco shor tile Kh khalifa allta no ito word of excuse can be uttered his hla chara oter as aa it liaa has been painted ra td by slaten pasha lathar lath t or pr don dan joseph valder and oo one 00 or i two we 0 thor european prisoners who havo have escaped to calla calio and na as it has boon been irmo led by hla his wholesale murders hla his shameless private life ikc and hla 1118 lack of otell inary intelligence Is utterly and irredeemably bad ju ili order to ic move tile the least excuse which devout edans firlit adze upon pon to leave ill the 0 country the I khalifa ha ban de dc breedi that it Is no longer the duty of the faithful to make to alecea tl ecea iut but to the tonal tomb of ill tin maedl it small hexagonal il structure iuie tuie crowned with a dome it velch stands in ili t the lie heart of Om Oni durman durnian itself about a coun country itry newly neaily a an large ni as the united states state east cast of the 2611 liver tile der have drawn a cordon within with which no traveler can safely enter enior and out ot of which not even non news a can pass so much for the situation in the kou dan itself it may be assumed that its ro re conquest would 0 le o almost its as easy now as lis its arul defence fifteen years azo would havo have been difficult dinic uit the only obstacles to the return of alv ahr Sou dancso to io decort government and the enjoyment of at least saml sc mt a tion tire arc political ana they ailse not DAL in egypt itself but in faraway far ra tawa away europe tile whole sItua situation tinn lit in tho the soudan soud in problem was waa changed anti ami it vas v as a hopeful change when titan the it atall if I 1 in it aln fill astry foil fell on account of 0 the abyssinian victory at add it tile the llull nl cabinet in nelsn no an binl patriotic it rally lifter latter a show how of until the war fever I 1 11 sniffed stiffed in intili lateef ikpe f make peace on easy terms ith king liten elek lek ani and it tit ll 11 him attack the from the I 1 rast cast menelik Me would be very M it to do this ihla ills hla have iwen been chrls chris tiana lon gilar than any european Bur nation save the italians italian and they eliell li und dking hatred toward the dans clans ho tor for a thousand years entirely surrounded their country 9 it dom the rest oc at christendom their ha more recent causes m when the rower power wigs was at its helgath lt it has declined materially in tile last ten years Abys abyssinia sinla WB was in a fair way to advance rapidly in civil ODI and prosperity but upon tile the king john of that day predecessor of the lie hinr john who died lit in the lie de fell ell nitia crushing crush lne folce oica dc boating his armies and claying the king himself although the he light was so ao idly ID ly 11 I 1 I 1 I 1 6 io I 1 0 1 tl it I 1 0 ili le fir zit IS 0 4 I 1 I 1 I 1 0 I 1 I 1 ak 0 4 11 1 W 0 O 6 rasha pasha contested conte eted that since that flint time the der have usually been filing to let the alone zing menelek has more than one hundred cheti thousand and nn men under tinder arms in the held field ant and tn lit garrisons he has arsenals and artifice rs whereas the khalifa hum has neither at least of any degree of and iila fits tribes must now flow be at leat least no lie better aimed than they ocie fifteen years year ngo neo not so go well there have been queer r stories afloat in europe of oc auslan ansha tance both of money and or arms extended to kins king mentloe Men they hate ha e been exaggerated the money menelek could undoubtedly use and the arms but he be has ha both in reasonable plenty yet the recent bocora ccora dc ora lion of oc menelek by tho ilia czar la Is cant the abyssinian present a strange combination of civilization ind and sav 1 gery or of paris gowns and tilles tables N without ith feiks or napery but they cun can ill lit as the ll Allana are abundantly alio able to testify it on an the ground fc round of common belief bailee in christianity tile tho italian babl net could reconcile public C f italy an alliance with their so recent roc botti both interest and inclination might prompt a 0 descent fl cent upon the Dervis jf ho H finin the gamt ia id t nd tile par llalon or D a coition or of ill UK territory between the detara tit almap aimle of ill the fo arcoe rii state hate haie been to ani poni LIMA aelese on the western rat borth in of tf ali ito faddist 4 domain 1 although tile fact long ID nl al m of europa in hp he diversion of publio to tho the other end of t tho b dark contin continent ont by jayne 0 ns r raid ad 1 an If with menel I 1 may DAL yet bia bf possible put there Is very tittle little doubt that flat the movement inov in tile the congo free state Is under in con concert ecart elih lilt egypt tier nor Is there any doubt that these to allies coal could with P off out t tile the It italians allans fall find th the e A b ss n make inako conquest or of till the so Sou u d danese a n C a I 1 1 ir r anu E acu rope would but hold Us its hand nil and lot et ill tho X same time be played out if there were no lie peace bete Pat italy and abyssinia tho the gotmer foi would ILL at taoist loist be assisted to hold bold kasala c against tho lite by it 11 diversion of their forces to meet attacks from other directions the only difficulty in th way Is that thai egypt although alili ough nominally an ind penitent power la Is the waid of great Drita ln Is it committed to a temporary occupation of tho the country for the goo d andl and 4 ing an a usual to find excuses for making that occupation permanent par prance nee which by withdrawing from the joint military occupation of J Jiffy kift pt foolishly loft left great britain lit in command con manI has hn never reconciled herself to tile the logical consequences of tier her own net ciul and Is accustomed to look with suspicion upon any plan ith respect to egypt ellich involves the extension of her power anil and posse possessions hut but the friendship of russia for tile in the event of an attack upon th Sou loudance dance reconcile france I to angla egyptian advance front from tile the north if biry can sug BUK any other corresponding bonding advance for france perhaps ho he has haa already Lg Iel uch in 1 I par far more likely lie he tills has lugt acted ted it in afilena itself when tho ille st pie pic la 14 cut there may be UP a slice to ull to the treat niger posses minns of tho the gallic republic TI there ere can bf be no doubt political eon con abde tivit thil the interest of the Sou danese and of egypt nio aio c losely bound up with the ic occupation of tile tl equatorial territory 1 y the christian pocas up to date atlie alic has been one of rell plon I 1 on a and of government it II will broome ft a question of livelihood itself the nile linb lifts been tto father faltum r of egypt but its waters are arc limited in quantity away tn in central africa about the headwaters of the all and along alone the upper bri nelDs and tributaries tributa ries of that liver the ae idallan clollie frum the a east easl and french arnch colonies front from the west may one daiy aty seek nok to divert tin ill upper writer waters of the rivet from egyptian use to such oil an extent ns nit to cnut t in the nih valley vf such dla dis evoi the ownership of the water necessary to lo redeem the debet deset t as have occurred occur cl on in a small scale lit in sume some of our own western wistern states even if the two throe three or four parties which are contemplating tho eon con fiust or of the haf soudan succeed in winning that country and it between them thus restoring it to eard its lost provinces and even in the lite lealou jealousy y of france Is placated for the time the there may etui be plenty of occasion carlon oc |