PREFACE
war with each other in true Sudani fashion whensoever oppor-
tunity offered, the object of each being to capture as many slaves
and women and as much gold as possible, and to destroy the enemy and his country. The methods employed were always the
same, and seem to be inherent in the race. The accounts of the " wars " carried on by the petty kings of the Sudan during the
last three or four centuries strikingly resemble certain portions
of the annals of the Nubian king Nastasen, who defeated
Cambyses, and conquered the Sudan about B.C. 525.
An excellent, though brief summary of the history of the Sudan from 1504 to 1871, is contained in a little Arabic
manuscript which belonged to General Gordon and was presented by him in 1881 to the British Museum, where it is numbered
" Oriental 2345." It consists of 108 octavo pages, and was written, and perhaps also composed, by Muhammad Abu Bakr Makki Ahmad in 1879. Many of the facts recorded in it are to be found
in Naum Shoucair's Arabic History of the Sudan, but as a whole
the little work is valuable, and is worth editing and translating. On the first and last pages are impressions of the seal of " Gordon
Basha," and the volume seems to indicate that his interest in the
history of the Sudan was great. For those who study the
history of Abyssinia note should be made of " The Futuh al- Habashah," or " The Conquest of Abyssinia," by Imam A.hmad
ibn Ibrahim, a copy of which was also presented to the British Museum (No. 2409) by General Gordon.
From 1820 to the rise of Muhammad Ahmad, the Mahdi, the
history of the Sudan is comparatively well known, but it has been
thought necessary to summarize the chief events in this work. The authorities for the period are the works of Cailliaud, Hoskins,
Russegger, Selim, Barth, Speke, Sir Samuel Baker, Petherick,
Schweinfurth, Junker, and other travellers, and the facts which
they state reveal only too clearly the awful condition to which
the country had been brought by the policy of Muhammad 'Ali and his successors. Under their fostering care the clever Arab merchants in the SudS.n had brought the slave trade to a pitch of
perfection which it is now difficult to realize, and the rulers in
Cairo, aided by their representatives at Khartum, seconded their
exertions with such success that in 1880 the Sudfxn was literally
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