A SUMMONS FROM THE MAHDI. 463 however, in the interests of my people and of Junker, not despair of a favourable solution to all these complications in the end. I believe I told you about Lupton Bey’s last letters, in one of which he announced that the Mahdi’s men, several thousands in number, were encamped six hours’ march to the west of him, and that he was resolved to fight and die. Another followed directly after with the news that, being left in the lurch by all his men, he had surrendered his province, and was going to Kordofan—he hoped also to see me shortly. Together with this letter I received a despatch from the ‘ Hmir Keremallah,” commander of the army of the Mahdi on the Bahr-el-Ghazal, summoning me peremptorily to join him at once in Assuan with my men, and submit to the Mahdi. The whole of the Sudan had done so, Khartum was besieged, General Hicks and his troops, Alaéddin Pasha, and all the higher officials were slain, and, if I delayed, all my communications both by land and water would be cut off, so I had better make haste.

Now just think of my position. For fourteen months I had had no communication with Khartum, or news from there, the magazines were quite empty of cloths, soap, coffee, &., and though I had repeatedly pressed by letter for a consignment of a couple of hundred Remington rifles and a sufficient supply of ammunition, I had not received them; the whole of Makraka, Rol, and part of Monbuttu were full of armed Danagla; in Lado itself there was a rabble of drunkards and gamblers, most of them fellow-countrymen of the rebels—the clerks of my divan. The prospect was not brilliant. My soldiers, of little account under any circumstances, were scattered over a wide extent of territory, and their withdrawal had to be accomplished with the greatest circumspection.

Accordingly, I asked my officials here, in open council, whether they considered it more desirable to submit or to prepare to fight. There could be no doubt what the answer would be—the purport of it was submission. A letter in that sense was therefore drawn up, and then we consulted as to who should deliver it. The choice fell on myself, the Kadi, the schoolmaster, and a few other men of this place, among them one of my clerks, whose family possesses great influence