GORDON AND THE MAHDI. 158 famine and dissensions. In March, Muley Hassan Ali, the anti-Mahdi,had made a triumphant entryinto El Obeid, mountedon a whitehorseandholding inhishand a drawnsword, whichhe declared hadbeengivenhimby the Prophet Mahomet, to slay the Mahdi anddrive the infidels out of Egypt, and a little later his followers inflicted a severedefeat on MahomedAhmed'stroops,and slewtw-oofhislieutenants. TheUrbatribeshadrevolted, and the garrisons of Sennaar andKassalanot onlyheld out but had inflicted severelosses ontheir besiegers.

CHAPTER XX.

What the abandonment of the Soudan is likely to lead t<— Consensus of opinion in favour of the restoration of the Khedive Ismail— General Gordon's estimate of the latter— His last letter and accompanying decoration to theKhedive. Despite the Mahdi's death the Soudan continues to present an involved andthreatening political problem, its abandonment by theBritish Governmenthaving left it apreyto internaldissensions arisingfrom the warring claims ofhis successors, and at the same time astanding menace on the Egyptianfrontier. Such a condition of things offers a free scope for the renewalof the detested slave trade. Markets have already been establishedfor the traffic inhuman flesh,and all the energeticefforts of Sir SamuelBaker andGeneral Gordon, at the instance of the Khedive Ismail,to bring about its extinction,will have been thrown away. This, however, pales before the danger menacing the budding civilization of North Africa. So long, too, as Egypt remains subject to an irruption of frenetic Arabhordes, the peaceof theMoslem world, which the whole of Europe is interestedinmaintaining, willbe continuallythreatened.

To hope that the existingeffete governmentof Egypt, fetteredas it is by extraneousand conflicting influences, willbe able to cope with the difficult}- which the British abandonment of the Soudan has prepared for it is of course out of the question. Althoughthe Mahdi's death mayhave temporarily checked the pretensions of Arab fanaticism, who can say that they may not speedily revive, and Egypt be placed in a position of extreme peril. The true solution of the problem is to give Egypt a strong government and to place at its heada firm and ableruler, whennot only wouldit be betterin every respect for Egypt herself, but she might thenbe left to stem the tideof such fanaticism withoutany fear as to the result. It is certain that no False Prophet would have been allowed to attain to power in the Soudan whilst it was ruled by such an energetic proconsul as General Gordonproved himself to be. Under existing circumstances it is the opinion of those who have studied the subject most carefully, that political expediencyandpoliticaljustice alike demandthe restoration of the Khedive Ismail, andin this view all the most eminent authorities on Egypt, English and foreign, coincide. These include Sir Samuel Baker, Sir Julian Goldsmid, M. de Lesseps, Dr. W. H. Russell, Dr. Nachtigal, Mr. Marriott,M.P., Mr. A. M. Broadley, and last,but most important of themall, the late lamented General Gordon. Mr. A. M.Broadley, whose thoroughknow-ledge of this phase of the Eastern difficulty is.basedupon close study of the countriesin which England has cometo be vitally interested,has something very pertinentto say upon the point in his valuable work "A Story of Egypt and the Egyptians." In this able andentertaining volume, Mr. Broadley remarks:— The Mahdi had establishedhimself with about 6,000 menat Omdurman, where he is described as wearing a whiteshirtand trousers, and gold embroidered sandals. He was concentrating troops for the invasion of Egypt, andhadreceivedOsmanDigna,whocame to congratulate him on the retreat of theBritish, and to whom he presenteda swordof honour. He sickened onJune 19, and was carriedby hisown desireto atent outside the camp. No doctors wereavailable,but two captivemissionaries, who weresupposed to have some knowledge of medicine, were called in and declared that he was sufferingfrom small-pox and was beyond help. On learning this the Mahdi called in his nephew, gave him his sword and appointedhimhis successor.

On thefollowing day, his condition growing worse,he took leave of his relatives, enjoining them to prosecute the war against the Christians. He died at about five o'clock the same evening and was buried immediately, his tent being burnt. Abdullah Kalifa-el-Taishi,one of the four Khalifs formerly appointed by him, claimed to succeedhim,but his authority was not generallyacknowledgedandmuch dissensionensued.

After the Mahdi's burial,Abdullah left the camp at Omdurman with the treasure collected by Mohammed Achmet and proceeded to Khartoum, and took up his quarters in the Government House. He entrusted the guardof the city and of hisownperson to theBaggarah tribe, to which he belonged,and refused to hand over any portion of the Mahdi's treasure to the troops at Omdurman, on the ground that he wantedit for continuinghostilitiesagainst the infidels. A few days later an ;affray tookplace betweenhis Baggarahfollowersand the townspeople,who were reinforcedby some of the troops, .and Abdullah,on attempting to restore order by going amongst the combatants, Koraninhand, was stabbed in the abdomen and removed in a dyingcondition to the palace. His followers, however, routed their opponents ■andcontinuedto hold the city.

Anarchy and famine prevailed in Kordofan, whilst the retreat of theBritish troops was followedby a corresponding advance of the fanatics, some 4,000dervishes "occupying New Dongola. It was reported, too, that Kassala hadat lengthbeen obligedto capitulate,but its garrison was said to havesucceeded inobtaining friendly terms from the Hadendowas, greatly, it was said, to Osman Digna's annoyance.

Some excitementwas createdby M.Henri Rochefort's reiteratedstatements, bothin print and on the platform, that OlivierPain, the Frenchman already spoken of on page 118, had been assassinatedby order of theEnglish Military Staff. This gratuitous falsehood was warmly welcomedby a certainsection of the Parisian public as a lever againstthe existing government of France, which they alleged was remiss in not making the matter one for diplomatic intervention. The evidence of Father Bonomi, an Italian missionary, who escaped from the Mahdi's camp,with that of other disinterested witnesses, plainly established that Olivier Pain diedat Omdurman ■considerablybefore the date of his allegedmurder.

"Ithas beensaid that the absent are always in the wrong; andso it has happened with the Khedive Ismail, whohaslivedlongenough,notonly tohear himselfspoken illof by his former friends, but to witnessthe unedifying spectacle of one whom he has especially benefited miblushingly take credit for having systematically undermined him with a view to his overthrow. Ismail committedmanymistakes, but he will make abetter figure in history than either Tewfik or Nubar. He went too rapidly and too recklessly ahead in his wild career of developingEgypt by what he called European contact; his plan of concentrating commercial enterprise in his own person was an error of the first magnitude,but the