GORDON AND THE MAHDI. 29

very littleheart in his work, and in lieu of tracking his prey to his lair, wasted time at Kawa, and finally re-

turnedhome onthe pleathat theNile wasrising.

A man of better mettle, Rashid Bey, the Kurdish Mudirof Fashoda,hadalready twiceappealedin vain to the authoritiesat Khartoum for permission to assail the Mahdi. Finally,in spite of orders to the contrary7, he got together 400 regular troops and 1000 Shillook negroesunder their Melek,Kaikun Bey,and startedfor GebelGedir,accompaniedbyBerghoff, a Germanholding

thepost of slave inspector at Fashoda. After amarch of fourteen days, on December 8 he came in sight of the Mahdi's forces,andat onceorderedanattack. Thebattle

was brief and bloody. Rashid, Kaikun,Berghoff, with almostthe wholeof theregulars, andmostofthe Shillooks

were speedily stricken down by the lances of the fierce Baggaras constituting the bulk of the Mahdi's levies,and a rich booty, in the shape of Remington rifles and ammunition,fell into the hands of the victors. Fashoda laydefenceless, and moreover the Shillooks, exasperated by their Melek's death, threatened revolt. Rebellion was indeedeverywhere in the air. Dervishes went about preachingto the Arab chiefs aholy war. Darfour, filled

with theoldslave-driving leaven, hadalreadyrisen. The powerful Kababeeshin the north of Kordofan and the

Bishari between Suakim and Berber, the Abu Roof in Senaar, and several tribes on the Blue and the White Nile, werebuzzinglike wasps. Messenger aftermessenger

of illtidings reachedRaouf Pashaat Khartoum, but ere he could form any plan to avert the coming tempest he

was,earlyin 1882, recalledfromhis government.

Sheikh Amr-el-Makashef,a relativeoftheMahdi. Feeling strong enoughto drive themoff he appliedfor permission to do so,whichwas granted. Accordingly atbreakof day on April 7, he sallied forth at the headof the garrison, but was speedilybeaten back by the Baggaras, whosuc- ceeded in following the troops into the town. The garrison rallied in the barracks and government build- ings, from the roofs of which they managed to keep up such a fire as at length forced the assailants to retire, but notbefore theyhadslaughtered a number of foreign

and native merchants in addition to over a hundred soldiers, andhadplunderedthetown. The telegraphoffice stood close to the government buildings, and up to the last moment the operators stuck to their post,describing how street after street was occupied,and man after man struck down,tillthe Baggaras tookpossession of theplace anddestroyedtheapparatus,givingthoseinKhartoumthe impressionthat all was lost. Indeed,in the confusion,it

was probablethat the Baggaras would have forced their way into the buildings of the Mudireh, thecourtyard of which they actually gained, had it not been for the wounding of their leader. This caused them to retreat, and thetroopsrecoveringheartpouredin such a fire from theroof as obligedthe rebels tokeeptheir distance. For sevendays, however,they maintained a stateof siege, and the news that they had takenSenaar spread through the country,bringing such numbers to the scene of action that it was estimated that there were forty7 thousand men camping inand around the town. Karkhodj, lying some sixty miles above it, was obliged to capitulate, and a heavy ransomwas exacted there in the form of plunder.

Giegler Pasha faced this ill-news with energy. A company of irregulars from Sawa, and about three hundred gallant Shaiqui Arabs, under Sandjack Salah

Aga wereordered to start at once for Senaar, the Pasha himself leaving on April 15 with two hundred of the Khartoum garrison on board two steamers. His confi- dence was far from being shared by the Europeans in Khartoum, who organizedthemselves for defence against

an attack from without or a rising from within, and fortified and garrisoned the strongly built Catholic Mission House. The whole of Kordofan, where fighting was alreadygoing on between soldiers J-on their way to join Yussuf Pasha's expeditionto GebelGedir, and small bands of Arabs, was in a ferment. The roads were all rendered unsafe by robbers, the telegraph between

Khartoum and El Obeid was cut in several places, and in the latter town a panicreigned,the shops beingclosed,

the houses barricaded, and the inhabitants prepared for a siege. The risinginDarfour, too, grew daily more for- midable, and soonallintercourse withthat province was

cut off, andhas remained so to this day.

Meanwhile aShereef namedMahomed Taha, whocalled himself the Mahdi's vizier, and had received from the latter a sword in token of his appointment, estab- lishedhimself in the village of Mahomed Ashera,about

two hours' journey from the banks of theBlue Nile, just below Abu Harras. Arrivingabreastof this spot inhis steamers, Giegler Pasha, after vainly7 summoning the shereef to surrender, dispatched the Sandjak Yussuff-el- Melek with fifty Shaiquies and a hundred soldiers to bring him inby force. Thisdetachment was assailedby an overpowering horde of fanatics armed only with

swords and lances, and after a desperate resistance was cut off to a man, the women and girls of the village joiningin the fight with savage fury, and mangling the Egyptian soldiers with their teeth. Giegler Pasha was

obliged to go on to Abu Harras with his steamers, and

CHAPTER VI.

Abd-el-Kader Pasha appointed Governor-General of the Soudan.—

The Mahdi's adherents attack and almost capture Senaar.—

Rising in Kordofan and Darfour.— A series of desperate conflicts with Shereef Mahomed Taha, the Mahdi's vizier.— He is eventually slain and his head sent to Khartoum. — Abd-el-Kader's well-directed efforts weakened by Arabi's revolt and by the suc- cesses of the Mahdi's followers.— The Mahdi enters Kordofan and attacks El Obeid.— The besiegers repulsed after heavy slaughter.— Failure of an attempt with new levies to relieve Bara.—

Khartoum fortified.— More troops arrive in the Soudan on the collapse of Arabi's rebellion.—Abd-el-Kader defeats the rebels inSenaar.— Baraand El Obeid capitulate to the Mahdi.—

Abd-el-Kader recalled to Cairo.— Alladeen Pasha succeeds him. — General Hicks takes command of the troops at Khartoum.

Abd-el-Kader Pasha, abrave,and as theresult showed, a skilful commander, was appointed to succeed Raouf Pasha in the Soudan. Pendinghis arrival at Khartoum he entrusted the government to GieglerPasha, the Vice- Governor,and a native of Bavaria,and gave ordersfor the equipment and despatch of a new expedition against the Mahdi. It consisted of thirteen companies of regular Egyptian troops collected mainly from Kordofan and Darfour, with 1500 irregulars recruited

from Arabtribesremaining true to the Government and fromtheDongolawis,and wasplaced under the command of Yussuf Pasha, originally a Dongolawi slave-dealer. Well equipped,amplyprovided witharms and provisions, and accompanied by a thousand baggage camels, this army started for Gebel Gedir, but had scarcely7 left Khartoum before 500 Dongolawis deserted to the Mahdi, their countryman.

Early in April,Hussein Bey Shukri, Mudir of Senaar, the richest and most important of the Soudan provinces and the granaryof Khartoum, sent word by telegraph to GieglerPasha at Khartoum, thatthe town ofSenaar was

threatened by upwards of a thousand Baggaras under