All others have displayed compensating virtues.
A high sense of personal honour has counterbalanced a low standard of
public justice. An ennobling patriotism may partly repair economic
follies. The miseries of the people are often concealed by the
magnificence of the army. The laxity of morals is in some degree excused
by the elegance of manners. But the Dervish Empire developed no virtue
except courage, a quality more admirable than rare. The poverty of the
land prevented magnificence. The ignorance of its inhabitants excluded
refinement. The Dervish dominion was born of war, existed by war, and
fell by war. It began on the night of the sack of Khartoum. It ended
abruptly thirteen years later in the battle of Omdurman. Like a subsidiary
volcano, it was flung up by one convulsion, blazed during the period of
disturbance, and was destroyed by the still more violent shock that ended
the eruption.
After the fall of Khartoum and the retreat of the British armies
the Mahdi became the absolute master of the Soudan. Whatever pleasures he
desired he could command, and, following the example of the founder of the
Mohammedan faith, he indulged in what would seem to Western minds gross
excesses. He established an extensive harem for his own peculiar use,
and immured therein the fairest captives of the war. The conduct of the
ruler was imitated by his subjects.
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