WARS OF THE NINETIES 4

SL.VJ'IN PASHA.

resources and plans of the Dervishes tor the

defence of their tottering power on the Upper Nile. They also gave Wingate the means of largely extending his relations with the tribes,

for both of them had made manyfriends during

their years of captivity. The account they gave of the brutal tyranny of the Khalifa,and the miserable condition to which he had reduced

the once-prosperous region of the Upper Nile, added strongly to the feeling that the time was come to rescue the country from its barbarous oppressors.

The movement was precipitated by events in the Italian colony on the Red Sea, which cul- minated in a terrible disaster to the arms of Italy, and threatened for a moment to revive all

the old fanaticism of the Dervishes. It was the defeat of Baratieri's army at Adowa in the Abyssinian highlands that started the Egyptian army on itsmarch into Dongola, the first stage in the victorious advance on Khartoum, which

was to avenge the failure of 1885 by the re- conquest of the Soudan.

Egyptian camel corps. One of these little ex- peditions ended disastrously in the surprise of a party by Dervish raiders near Ambigol, and the death of its gallant young commander, Lieutenant Pyne.

But this was not the only wayin which the new Egyptian army was preparing for the comingstruggle. The IntelligenceDepartment, under Major (afterwardsColonel) Wingate,had

through native agents establishedrelations with

the malcontents in the Dervish ranks. Owing to Wingate's carefully-arranged plans several of the European prisoners, who had fallen into the hands of the Dervishes in the revolt of Kordofan, were set free. The most notable of these were Father Ohrwalder, an Austrian Catholic missionary, who escaped in 1894, an&

Slatin Pasha, an Austrian officer, and one of Gordon's lieutenants in Darfur, who reached

Assouan after a marvellous desert journey in March, 1895. Ohrwalder and Slatin brought detailed information as to the condition of affairs at Khartoum and Omdurman and the