WARS OF THE NINETIES. 124 the Soudan, these extravagantclaims could not be admitted.

In the south Major MacDonald's expedition was reorganised and pushed into the Lake Rudolf region to secure effective occupation there before it was overrun by Menelek's Abyssinian and Galla raiders. The civil war in Uganda, which had crippled this advance the year before, had dragged on into the Having seen what was being done in the extrem; south and south-west of the Soudan during the summer, let us now glance at the eventsin theEastern Soudan on the Abyssinian side. Menelek was certainly anything but pleased with the Anglo-Egyptian occupation of Kassala. He expected that the fortress, if evacuated by the Italians,would come into his possession, and quite overlooked thelong-stand-MEW ON THE BAHR-EL-GHAZAL.

summer, but the rebels were repeatedly defeated by the troops of the protectorate, under Major Martyr,an officer who had served for some years with Kitchener in Egypt,and was onhis staffin the Dongola campaign. The Abyssinian expeditions to the southward appear to have been little better than plundering raids. The force destined to reach the Nile at Fashoda and hands with Marchand there had become disorganised, and the Abyssinian chiefs, though strongly urged on by the two French officers left with them by Bonchamps, showed very litt-e energy in their advance, and made but slow progress. The fact seems to be that for themen ing agreement between Italy and England, by which it was eventually to revert to its former possessor, Egypt. He had set up a vague claim to an Abyssinian sphere of influence extending to the east bank of theWhite Nile. Its northern boundary was to be the fifteenth parallelof north latitude, which crosses the White Nile about fifty miles south of Khartoum. Its southern boundary was to be the second parallel, which would give him all the east bank of this great river up to the point where it flows out of Lake Albert. Though there was little doubt that England and Egypt would be prepared to deal generouslywith him in the final settlement of