Of government and
society and the recent movement came in contact with civilisation and
the machinery of science. Recognising this, I do not share the popular
opinion, and I believe that if in future years prosperity should come
to the peoples of the Upper Nile, and learning and happiness follow in
its train, then the first Arab historian who shall investigate the
early annals of that new nation will not forget, foremost among
the heroes of his race, to write the name of Mohammed Ahmed.
CHAPTER II: THE FATE OF THE ENVOY
All great movements, every vigorous impulse that a community
may feel, become perverted and distorted as time passes, and the
atmosphere of the earth seems fatal to the noble aspirations of
its peoples. A wide humanitarian sympathy in a nation easily
degenerates into hysteria. A military spirit tends towards brutality.
Liberty leads to licence, restraint to tyranny. The pride of race is
distended to blustering arrogance. The fear of God produces bigotry
and superstition. There appears no exception to the mournful rule,
and the best efforts of men, however glorious their early results,
have dismal endings, like plants which shoot and bud and put forth
beautiful flowers, and then grow rank and coarse and are withered by
the winter.
