TME ■ECO/NQUEST orrhE SOUDAN.

CHAPTER I.

MAHDI AND KHALIFA

TOO

late!"—what a sense of hopeless failure and personal loss there was in every heart when the news came that Khartoum had fallen, that the heroic Gordon

was no more, that the desert march by Abu l\i. i and Gubat was allin vain— that rescue had come too late!

Then there arose the stern longing to avenge the death of Gordon by the recapture of Khar- toum, to wipe out the record of defeat with a victory that should win back the Soudan from his slayers. It was rightly felt that theMahdist

triumph was a terrible blow to British prestige, and a heavy loss to the cause of progress in

Africa. But though the first preparations were made for a renewed advance upon the Nile, the dangers and difficulties that threatened the Empire in other parts of the world forced us

to abandon for a while the idea of attempting so great an enterprise, and thus a vast region in Northern Africa was givenback to barbarism.

For the first time in recent history a semi- savage power waspermitted to establish itself,by rightof conquest,in lands that had foryears been easily accessible to the trader, the explorer,and the missionary. All theUpper Nile valley,from the great lakes to the Bayuda desert, became