Egyptian Sudan 16 Assiut to Hussein Pasha Khalifa, Director of Berber, by telegraph, ordering him to inform the leaders of the country and its notables that he is the Governor of Sudan and that upon his arrival he will dismiss all Turkish and Egyptian officials and appoint rulers from the people of the country to restore the rule to what it was before the conquest, and that he has exempted the people of Sudan from the taxes of 1883 and permitted the slave trade. When he reached Kordofan, he sent a letter to the Mahdi stating that he had appointed him Sultan of Kordofan and Darfur. When he reached Berber, he addressed the people, stating that he had come to expel the Egyptian troops from Sudan and restore the rule to the Sudanese themselves. He then appointed a Shura Council to govern that region from the Sudanese and opened the road to Muhammad Ahmad, which had been closed. People began to flock to him after the victory over Gordon, increasing his strength, either out of fear of him or love for him. When he reached Khartoum, he did the same, and in addition, he gathered the financial ledgers and burned them in front of the public to increase the trust of the Sudanese and weaken the hearts of the Egyptians. Then he expelled the Egyptian soldiers from Khartoum and formed a council of Sudanese to govern the country. After that, he sent Pasha Stewart, his agent, to see how his actions had affected the country. He found that the revolt was general and leaderless, and that the Mahdi did not wish to negotiate with the English and reach an agreement with them, as he had hoped when he proclaimed him Sultan of Darfur and Kordofan. So he began to search for a strong man to appoint as ruler and make an agreement with. He requested Khair Pasha from Egypt and promised him the rank of Lieutenant General, the Ottoman Order, and an annual salary of 6,000 pounds, and that the Egyptian government would pay him two and a half million pounds annually for two years, and that it would leave him its weapons and ammunition, and that he would have the customs of Suakin. Khair Pasha did not accept, and did not surrender to the English, fearing that he would be like the Mahdi or join him. So they decided to postpone negotiations until they could regain control. But the position