THE RECONQUEST OF THE SOUDAN. 187 he had won high distinctionunderLord Charles Beresford in 1885. Alter the fight he went 011 board the old ship, and her Dervish captain (who was now quite friendly and none the worse for having been exposed to the bombardment that blew up his boiler) pointed out on the plates, which were still intact, thepatch put on by Engineer Benbow, R.N., when he repaired the boilerunder fire off the Mahdist fort at Wad Habeshi.

conveying a force of European and Egyptian troops. The letter was written in French. Nextmorning,whilesteamingtowardsFashoda, the flotilla was met by a small steel boat, with a black crew dressed in red caps and jerseys and blue knickerbockers, wdio were propelling it withroughly-made wooden paddles. A French flag was flying from the stern, and the boat wasin charge of a black sergeant of Senegalese tirailleurs. The sergeant came on board the Daland handed over a letter from the commander of the party at Fashoda to the Sirdar,in reply to his messageof the night before. It was writtenby Captain Marchand. He hadbeen on the Upper Nile since the beginningof July.

Said Sogheir was among the prisoners who surrendered to the landing party. He told the Sirdar that he had been sent by the Khalifa with 500 men and two steamers to collectgrain in the Shilluk country, but on August 25th,on approaching Fashoda, he had had a fight with someEuropeans entrenchednearthe oldGovernment buildings at Fashoda. He had withdrawn to Dem Zeki and sent down to Omdurman for reinforcements; and if he hadreceived them he meant to have attackedFashoda again.

The latter began with courteous congratulations to the Sirdar on his recent victory. "I have heard," wrote Captain Marchand, "with the greatest satisfaction of the occupation of Omdurman by the Anglo-Egyptian army, the destruction of the forces of the Khalifa, and final disappearance of Mahdism from the valley of the Nile. Ishall no doubt be the first to offer the very sincere congratulations of a Frenchman to General Kitchener, whose name has for so many years embodied the struggle of civilisation, to-day victorious, against the savage fanaticismof the partisans of theMahdi." The letter went on to inform the Sirdar that by orders of the French Governmentthe writer had occupied the Bahr-el-Ghazal, the Shilluk country, and the left or west bank of the Nile as far as Fashoda, which his expedition had 1.-nil red on July 10th. The letter continued:— On the evening of September 18th (three days after the fight) the steamers tiedup for the night at the villageof Babiu, twelvemiles north of Fashoda. "Here," writes the Sirdar, " we were met by a large number of Shilluks, including the uncle,brother, and son of the Mek (Chief). In answer to my inquiries regarding Europeans at Fashoda, they informed me that they believed them to be a small body of our Government troops that had come from the west, but, as they had no Shilluk interpreter and didnot go outside theoldEgyptian Government buildings, they knew very little about them. They were utterly astonished when told they were not Government officials, and reiterated their great desire that we should stay and administer the country. They expressed great delight at the destructionof theKhalifa's army."

No wonder these poor negroes were delighted, for the Shilluk country had for years been the scene of the Khalifa's slave raids. His flotilla used to comeregularly fromOmdurman to carry off grain for his storehouses,men for his slave battalions of Jehadia, and women for the slave market. All this was gone for ever now that the Sirdar hadbroken up the robber stronghold theMahdi's tomb.

" On August 25thIwas attacked at Fashoda by a Dervish expedition, consisting of two steamers, having about 1,200 men on board, with artillery. The engagement began at 6.40 a.m. and ended at 5 p.m. by the flight of the 'tenners, whichgot away down stream with all the men on board of them. Most of the large barge! which they were towing were sunk. As a sequel to this engagement, the first result of which was the liberation of the Shilluk country (from the Dervishes), Isigned, on September 3rd, a treaty with the Sultan Kour Abd-el-Fadil, the principal chief, placing the Shilluk country on the left bank of the White Nile under the Protectorate of France, subject to ratification by my Government. Isent copies of the treaty to Europe, first by way of the Sobat and Abyssinia, and then by the Bahr-el-Ghazal and Meshra-er-Rek, where my steamer, the Faidherbe, is at present, with orders to bring me reinforcements. These Iconsidered From the Shilluk village a runner was on with a letter addressed to the chief of the Europeans atFashoda, whoever hemight be. in this letter the Sirdar informed himof the capture of Omdurman and the dispersion of the Dervish party at Renkh,andendingby saying that he wouldshortly reachFashodawith five steamers