The copper pit near Shaka was made a fortified post by Gordon, and he placed a garrison there. This was a large copper mine from which the Mahdist Shakir emerged during Gordon's era. Then his orders were followed by his successors. The garrison was strengthened, and the Mahdi's Khalifa, Abdullahi al-Ta'aishi, extracted a lot of copper from it. He also discovered a lead mine and an antimony mine from which he extracted a lot. In Shaka, there were two brothers from Dongola named Ahmed and Karam Allah Karghasawi. They visited the Mahdi after the White Nile fell into his hands and informed him of their ability to spread his call in Shaka, the copper pit, and the battleground. When he took Darfur, he sent them to Shaka with a force of fighters. There was also the Captain Mansour Effendi Hassan with about a thousand soldiers, most of whom were irregular soldiers called "Al-Matariya," meaning volunteers. He wrote to Al-Matariya. When Karam Allah Karghasawi approached Shaka, he sent them a message to join him in his call. They responded and gathered around him, about five thousand fighters from the Dongola copper miners. He wrote to Captain Mansour Effendi Hassan inviting him to surrender and join the Mahdi's call, and sent him a letter from Sultan Pasha informing him of his surrender to the Mahdiya and his acceptance of the Mahdi's call. This letter was written at the Mahdi's request. When Mansour Effendi saw the two letters, he hesitated to surrender. He and his men, about three hundred, refused to remain in Shaka. They agreed to surrender and wrote to Karghasawi asking for their safety and their families. He wrote to them and swore oaths of loyalty. They surrendered.