In which case, on arrival of Lieutenant Stairs, I proposed to march with 300 rifles and 2,000 native auxiliaries through Melindwa to Mswa station, and thence to Tunguru, to employ force for the relief of the Pasha. But it was absolutely necessary that I should be clearly told what the Pasha wished. In his letter of the 27th January there was a disposition to be somewhat lachrymose and melancholic, quite contrary to what was expected in answer to the definite question given in the formal letter of January 17th, “Was he disposed to accept our escort and assistance to reach Zanzibar, or suggest to me any way by which I could make myself useful or lend effective aid.” If he stated his wish decisively then, then I promised “to strain every effort to perform service to him.”
Perceiving that neither my letter to Mr. Jephson—which was intended to be read to the Pasha—nor that my formal letter to himself was understood by him, I proceeded to write one after a purely business style, which I thought the dullest private in his army might understand, but when Jephson heard it read he affected to be aghast at it.
As there was no intention to wound the most super-sensitive susceptibilities of any person—least of all the Pasha—I wrote one after a style which probably Chesterfield himself would have admitted was the proper thing, which my friend Jephson pronounced was “charming,” and “nice,” and “exquisitely sweet,” and on the 8th sent the couriers down to the Lake with it.
Day by day, during conversation with Mr. Jephson—who was, “by the bye,” a pronounced Eminist—I acquired a pretty correct idea of the state of affairs. There was one confirmed habit I observed that Mr. Jephson had contracted during his compulsory residence with the Pasha which provoked a smile, and that was, while saying several crushing things about the Province, he interlarded his clever remarks with—“Well, you know, the poor, dear Pasha! He is a dear old fellow, you know. ‘Pon my word, I can’t help but sympathise with the Pasha, he’s such a dear good man,” &c., &c. They served to illuminate traits of character, and showed that, at all events, Jephson had a kindly heart, and what he had seen and heard only made him esteem the Pasha the more; but when he spoke of the Egyptians, the most portentous vocabulary was requisitioned to load them with abuse—“unmitigated scoundrels, depraved villains, treacherous dogs, unscrupulously vile,” &c., &c. The Egyptians were “animals with foxy natures,” the Soudanese were “brutishly stupid.” One chief clerk had falsified accounts at the Khartoum Arsenal, and had been the recipient of 1,500 stripes with the kourbash; another had been detected making huge profits by mixing powdered charcoal with the gunpowder, and filling Remington cartridges with it. A major had been convicted of trading in Government stores; others had been sent to the Siberia of the Equator as convicts, guilty of various felonies, arson, murder, &c.; others were transported thither for being concerned in Arabi’s rebellion, &c., &c.; and it became clear that whatever sanguine hopes the Pasha had cherished, he must often have distrusted his powers during his constrained intercourse with the penal outcasts placed under him. While there was a reserve of dominating power, and an overshadowing personality of stern justice in the figure of Gordon at Khartoum, the penal serfs were under some control, though Gessi Pasha, even as far back as 1879, was copious in complaints of Emin to Gordon, but when the news spread throughout the Province that Khartoum was taken, and the Governor-General slain, and all traces of Egyptian Government had vanished, the native unruliness of the Egyptians, and brutish stubbornness of the Soudanese found vent, and was manifested in utter disregard to orders, and perverse misconduct. Emin was now a Pasha in name and title only. Government was petrified, order was dead. Some men, in Emin’s place, would have become so disgusted, that after arming themselves with excuses for retreat by overt proofs of contempt of his authority, would have collected a few faithful men, or have retired to some small post like Mswa station at the remote South, reported frankly the events, and have applied for relief and instructions. Others, again, would have exacted performance of duty and discipline to the very end, regardless of consequences. Others, again, would have removed with such as were willing from the arena of perpetual discord, founded an empire or a kingdom, and have applied for assistance from the civilized world, which they would certainly have obtained. Others, like Emin did, would have temporised and hoped. Men, however, reap only what they have sown; as the seed is sown, so will be the harvest.
But while we were discussing the probable decision of the Pasha, and awaiting the arrival of Stairs’s column, events unknown to us were occurring, which decided the matter for us as well as for Emin.
The rebel officers, who were concentrated at Wadelai, while Jephson was on his way to us South of Tunguru, heard of our arrival on the Lake. Report had magnified our forces. We had several hundred Zanzibaris and allies, and we were armed with machine guns and repeating rifles. The Egyptian Government at Khartoum was dead, and in its place was a Khalif, with resistless armies fully established. There were Mahdist agents and traitors among them, the rest were indifferent. Emin was deposed, and a prisoner. To him who hath shall be given. Like a rolling snowball, power, when once established, attracts and grows; an isolated snowdrop melts. Emin was the snowdrop, the Khalif of Khartoum was the growing snowball.
It is easy, therefore, to understand the motives of the officers, who are declared rebels, who have traitors and Mahdists among them to influence their councils, and to predict what the natural outcome will be. They will curry favour with the Khalif by betraying their would-be rescuers and their former Pasha and his white companions into his hands, and win honour and glory by so doing. For the machine guns, repeating rifles and Remingtons, and a batch of white prisoners, the Khalif would reward them handsomely, and promote those chiefly concerned in their delivery to him to honourable and lucrative offices, and endow them with robes of honour. But there is a difficulty. How will they gain access to the camp of their rescuers when they have heard of the Pasha being imprisoned and their friend Jephson having been treated so cruelly? “Nothing easier,” says one; “let us send a deputation to the Pasha to humbly ask forgiveness, and promise to reinstate him in power, and Emin is so good-natured that he will readily condone our offences, and offer to introduce us to his friends as penitents, who, wearied with trouble, only now seek to prove their obedience and loyalty to their great Government. Once in the stranger’s camp, we may see for ourselves what further can be done, and if we then agree to capture the gang of whites and their followers, nothing will be easier, for all white men are soft-headed duffers. At any rate, it is wise to have two ways from which to choose. If the Khalif is relentless, and his Donagla pursue us with that fierceness so characteristic of them, and the door to his mercy is closed, we can fall back upon the camp of the white men, and by apparent obedience disarm all suspicion, make use of them to find us a land of plenty, and suddenly possess ourselves of their arms and ammunition, and either send them adrift as beggars, or slay the whites and make their followers our slaves.”