INFLUENCE OF THE MADHI. 229 CHAPTER X.

CONCLUSION.

Tlie Sualiim Expedition. Contract for the Railway. Arrangements for Forces in the Summer.

Plan of the Campaign. Osman Digma : fighting near Suakim. Kassala. Skirmishes and Engagements. Hasheen. Tamai. Withdrawal of Troops from Egypt. Death of the Mahdi. His Successor. Change of Ministry in England. Results of the Suakim Expedition. Consequences of British Intervention in Egypt.

Though the present page commences with the arrangements made for commencing a new campaign in the Eastern Soudan and for concentrating fresh troops at Suakim, the story of the remarkable episode of our intervention in Egypt may be said to draw to a close. The fall of Khartum and the death of Gordon had been a tragic solution of the problem that had so long engaged the attention of our government, and the original propositions for the protection of Suakim and the Red Sea territory against the hostile attempts of Osman Digma and the tribes who followed him, and were still occupying a portion of the desert country beyond Suakim, had been reverted to. That there would be considerable difficulty in inflicting a thorough defeat on this truculent lieutenant of the Mahdi had already been proved. He commanded a horde of savage fanatics, by whom life seemed to be held of little account when they once determined to make a furious onslaught, and the nature of the country made it exceedingly difficult for our troops to follow them when they retreated into the mountains or the wild and arid recesses of the desert.

There was considerable uncertainty as to the real power and influence of the Mahdi. His brother-in-law, who had been made prisoner at Esneh and taken down to Cairo, declared that Achmed would not fight Turkish troops, but would endeavour to make common cause with them for the expulsion of all foreigners; but he also denied that the Mahdi assumed any religious apostleship, and declared that he was only defending his country against exorbitant taxation and the suppression of the slave-trade.

This, of course, was false as far as the denial of religious assumption was concerned; but the question remained how far the English ministry was justified in carrying on the war in the southern provinces. It was obvious enough that members of the government and prominent representatives of the Liberal interest were strongly opposed to a continuance of the occupation of the Soudan by British troops. Mr. Courtney and Mr. John Morley had declared that though while Gordon lived it was our obvious duty to use every effort for his rescue, if he were dead we ought to return to the position contemplated when Lord Wolseley's instructions were drafted, and when he was ordered to take no further offensive