238 HISTORY OF THE PROTECTORATE TERRITORIES 



included the work of the first railway survey under Captain (now Colonel) 

 J. I\. L. -Macdonald and Captain Pringle and the organisation of an armed 

 force under Major Cunningham. Tlie ease with which the brave 

 and steady Sudanese encountered and defeated large bodies of Banyoro, 

 Baganda, and I'ahinia ins})ired them with a great contempt for the })agan 

 or Christian natives of the I'rotectorate. They were fanatical ]Muham- 

 madans ; they secretly despised the white man as an unbeliever, and they 

 hankered continually after the founding of Muhammadan kingdoms of 

 their own in these fertile, easily conquered ccmntries. Occasionally, more- 

 over, their officers were not as well chosen as .Major Cunningham and 

 the late Major Thruston, who at any rate were able to converse witli 

 their men in Kgvptian Aral)ic. hhiglishmen of no great experience of 

 actual warfare, and of no knowledge of Araliic, were occasional ly placed in 

 command of these Sudanese, of whose intrigues they remained in alisolute 

 ignorance (through the linguistic barrier), and whose lovalty and affection 

 thev failed to secure by adopting a harsh and unsymjiathi't ic demeanour 

 towards them. 



Owing to the frightful transport difHcnhy wiiich attendetl the bringing 

 up of trade goods or specie from the east coast of Africa, the ad- 

 ministrative authorities were unable to pay these Sudanese good wages 

 at first, or even to pay the men punctually. Thus their ])ay got into 

 arrears. Then, owing to stress of circumstances — the flight of ]\Ivvanga 

 one day, the outbreak of the Xandi in the eastern part of the Pro- 

 tectorate soon afterwards — the Sudanese soldiers had to be hurried 

 hundreds of miles on foot from one part of the Protectorate to another. 

 They were apt to be tiresome about their wives. These negroes of the 

 Central Sudan are very polygamous ; even a common soldier is seldom 

 contented with one wife, while they require to have their wives with 

 them wherever they go. These women, it is true, do a good deal 

 towards carrying the private effects of their husbands, and act as cooks 

 and useful camp followers; but at the same time they are rapacious 

 locusts, and grab without scru])le wliatever they can lay hands on 

 amongst the indigenous native tribes. It became necessary, owing to the 

 enforced rapidity of military movements, to leave this rag-tag-and-bobtail 

 of women, children, and "boys" behind at some centre of administration, 

 so that the men were separated from their wives and children for perhaps 

 four or five months at a time. Serious discontent, therefore, was brewing, 

 and treachery was being plotted amongst the Sudanese when an event 

 occurred which precipitated the mutiny. 



Colonel J. R. L. Macdonald, who had ably conducted the first railway 

 survey to Uganda on behalf of the East Africa Company, returned to 

 Uganda in 1897. The advance on Khartum which the British Government 



