CHAPTER X. 



THE SOUDANESE. 



THE British Empire is, too vast, for every ratepayer to 

 know exactly what is happening in every one of its 

 distant outposts, or how the monev is spent which 

 his representative in Parhament has voted. He is 

 satisfied, and rightly, that " no news generally means good 

 news," and that the wisest policy is to "leave well alone." He 

 is confident, and with justice, that anything wrong or unusual, 

 should it happen, would soon be brought to his notice by the 

 Press, the trusted and trustworthy guardians of public interests. 

 Thus it came about that attention was directed in 1897 to 

 the Soudanese in Uganda, and then only because they had 

 mutinied. The mutiny, though absolutely insignificant when 

 compared with the momentous Indian Mutiny with its gigantic 

 interests at stake, had some resemblance to its prototype : in 

 arising from general discontent due to some apparently trivial 

 causes ; in black troops, armed and drilled by Europeans, 

 turning their weapons and their knowledge against their bene- 

 factors ; in brutal murders perpetrated with relentless and 

 undiscriminating ferocity against defenceless white men who 

 had fallen into the power of the mutineers ; finally, by the 

 prompt assistance rendered by the Home Government to sup- 

 press the mutiny and to remove its alleged causes. 



The Soudanese have proved that they are made of the right 

 fighting stuft", that they possess the two indispensable qualities 

 of obedience and courage, and that they are eminently suited 

 for the purpose for which Lugard selected them. No German 

 military officer can hold a more exalted opinion than a Sou- 

 danese, as to the immeasurable superiority of the military career 

 as a profession. His one ambition is to be a soldier. 



A Government Medical Officer in Uganda sees a good deal 



