THE SUDAN PAST AND PRESENT. 
677 
lowest degree. Such is the population at Berber, Khartum, Sennar, 
and most of the large towns, while the centre of the plains of Kor- 
dofan contains a nucleus of 800 or 900 villages, which excel all others 
in baseness; these villages contain a population of about 130,000, 
probably the most worthless in the world. 
They are over-ridden by a most shameless set of fikis or religious 
teachers, who are supposed to be invulnerable, supernaturally endowed, 
and able to work miracles. It can readily be imagined what an im¬ 
portant factor were these fikis in the Mahdi revolt. 
The fourth class may be designated as the great slave dealers of 
the Sudan ; these people inhabit the country below the 13th parallel, 
to the west of the White Kile ; here cattle replace camels, and to the 
south of Kordofan, and stretching away to the south-west and north¬ 
east are the tribes and innumerable sub-tribes of the Baggara, the 
Red Indian of the Sudan ; their geographical position places them in 
touch with the great negro supply to the south and the great retail 
market of Khartum to the north, and these are the great slave¬ 
forwarding agents of the world ; they are inured to war and in constant 
readiuess to plunder. 
Below the Baggara come the great cattle-owning negroes and 
negroids, who, like the second class, are a peacefully inclined people, 
and who for years have supplied the Khartum slave market. Indeed, 
whole tribes have been deported. Being heathen there is no one idea 
which appeals to the large masses of them. It was from this class 
that Zubeir Pasha and his son, Suleiman, raised armies; it was with 
these men that Sir Samuel Baker and General Gordon performed such 
prodigies; these are the men who form the nucleus of the army of the 
preseut ruler of the Sudan ; they are the races who supply the Egyptian 
Army with its black battalions, who have again and again proved their 
sterling fighting qualities, and these again are the men who will have 
to decide the struggle which will ensue when an advance is made on 
the Sudan. The value of this class of the population can hardly be 
over-estimated, and the European nation which sooner or later extends 
its sphere of influence over these distant lands will secure a recruiting 
ground for troops to whom for reckless bravery and endurance it would 
be hard to find an equal. This is a point worth bearing in mind by 
extensively colonising European nations desirous of obtaining auxiliaries 
who are less tied down by feelings of patriotism than perhaps any 
other class, and who have been truthfully described as creatures who 
“ eat, drink, and fight, but never pray.” 
With the above introductory remarks, the ground has been some¬ 
what cleared, and now we may proceed to a consideration of some of 
the military bearings of the Sudan revolt. 
General Gordon described the Sudan as “ larger than France, r Ger- 
many, and Spain together,” and it is as well to bear this fact constantly 
in mind in order to understand how entirely distinct were the various 
military operations which took place all over this vast extent of 
country ; but, distinct as they undoubtedly were, yet each separate 
centre of revolt largely depended on the success or failure of move¬ 
ments carried out in other parts of the country hundreds of miles 
distant, 
