The chief trouble comes from the entire inability of these worthy
people to understand that they are demanding things that are mutually
incompatible when they demand peace at any price, and also justice and
righteousness. I remember one representative of their number, who used
to write little sonnets on behalf of the Mahdi and the Sudanese, these
sonnets setting forth the need that the Sudan should be both independent
and peaceful. As a matter of fact, the Sudan valued independence only
because it desired to war against all Christians and to carry on an
unlimited slave trade. It was "independent" under the Mahdi for a dozen
years, and during those dozen years the bigotry, tyranny, and cruel
religious intolerance were such as flourished in the seventh century,
and in spite of systematic slave raids the population decreased by
nearly two-thirds, and practically all the children died. Peace came,
well-being came, freedom from rape and murder and torture and highway
robbery, and every brutal gratification of lust and greed came, only
when the Sudan lost its independence and passed under English rule. Yet
this well-meaning little sonneteer sincerely felt that his verses were
issued in the cause of humanity.
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