GORDON AND THE MAHDI. 31

andurging on the Shaiquies, whose late losseshadmade them bloodthirsty, by the promise of booty. Mahomed Ashera, the Shereefs village,lies, like Abu Harras, on the right bank of the Blue Nile. Between the village and the river there is a wood; on the left bank opposite is a small zereba which Sandjack Osman Aga occupied

with the recruits from the neighbourhood of Mesalamia in order to guard the ford of the river, whichwas near. The regulars fromGalabat took up a positionbefore the village,withtheir front to the river;behind them came Auad-el-Kerim and his cavalry, and the Shukuri, com- pellingthe soldiers to fight by the threat that any who

turned back would be speared by their lances. The Shereefapproachedthe troops on horseback at the head of hundreds of praying and screaming dervishes. The bullets thinned their ranks,but three times the ring of dervishes which surrounded Mahomed Taha like a wall

wasreformed:the corpses lay heaped upon each other, but the Shereef remained unwounded. Then the soldiers, overcome by superstitious fear, shouted, "The Shereef has a charm against bullets;he is invulnerable." If it had not been for the Shukuri spears they would certainly7 have fled.

"Round about the Shereefthe heapsof deadgrew con-

received at the siege of Senaar, was subsequently en- counteredand slainby Salah Aga, andhis followers were driven across the White Nile.

Abd-el-Kadcr Pasha, the newly appointed Governor- General,arrived at Khartoum on May 12. A capable administrator and a brave soldier, he might, inhappier times,have done much to benefit the provinces he was appointed to rule over. He began by drawing troops from Senheit and Gardaref, anddispatching themunder RashidPasha to Kordofan,where the Hassaneeyah Arabs

were plundering the caravans. He then set to work to organize about five thousand irregular troops, drawn from the Dongolawis, and Shaiquies, and collected at Khartoum. Two terrible moral blows, however, were dealthim inswift succession. The one was the news of the militaryrevolt in Egypt headed by Arabi, and the massacre at Alexandria. Theother was the intelligence

thatthearmy sentunder YussufPashaagainst theMahdi

atGebelGedir,hadencountered the rebels, andhadbeen almost totally7 annihilated. The battle, it seems, took place on June 7. The Egyptians had come upon the rebels in a densely woodedcountry,andbegan to forma

zereba or stockade,pending the completion of which the troops were drawn up in a square. In this formation they wereassailedbytheMahdi's followers,andthe square beingbroken werecut downalmost to a man.

The Mahdi now left the Tekele mountains, and ad- vancednorthwardintoKordofan,theimmediateconquest of which he confidently announced to his followers. The entire province was already rising in his favour. The Hamr Arabs had assailed a body of Egyptian troops under Bimbashi Nazin Effendi,and driven themout of

Abu HarrastoElObeid. At Shakka another detachment had been cut to pieces on June 20. Four days later Bara was attacked by 20,000 men, but the 800 troops

forming its garrison beat these back after slayingfour times their ownnumbers. The investmentof the town, however, continued,and the bulk of the Egyptian forces in the province concentrated themselves underIskender Bey at El Obeid. In August Shatt wasreported tohave been plundered and its inhabitants slaughtered, but an1 attack on Duem during the Same month by 20,000 Baggaras was repulsed with tremendous slaughter, the rebel loss being estimatedat from three to four thousand men.

tinuallyhigher and higher, for old and young, women and children,allowedthemselvesto be shotdown without givinganinch,as from oneminutetoanotherthe religious madness waxedhigher. The Shereef turnedhis horse to get free from the pileof slain,itstumbled and was falling,

whenabullet struck its stooping master on the top of hishead. A dreadful panic Seized the fanatics,and the Shaiquies,heatedbythefray andembitteredbytheirlosses inrecent fights,rushedupon themwithindescribablefury and wrought a terrible slaughter. __jseither women nor children were spared, in spite of all the efforts of the Pasha, whohimself carried the Shereefs wife and son to

the steamer, in order to save them fromthe rage of the Shaiquies. Manyfled to the Kubba, a name givento a saint's tomb, for safety,but the Shaiquies fired through the doors and small windows as long as anysound was heard within. The dead and wounded lay together in the huts of straw which were soon envelopedin raging, leaping flames. Those who fled to the river were shot down by7Osman Aga's men,andhere alone eight hundred rebels met their death. TheShereefs body, from which the headhadbeenhalf severed, was brought tothePasha on the back of a camel. Large numbersof enthusiastic horsemenin coatsof mail,galloped roundit asit advanced, rending the air with their deafening cries,and presenting a scene of wild picturesqueness and mad excitement. The Shereefs head was taken through the villages on the Blue Nile, and finally set up inthe market place at Khartoum."

Early in September, 1882, the Mahdi arrived before El Obeidwith 60,000 men, chiefly Baggaras and Has- saneej-ahs. The garrison consisted of 6,000 men;the town was well fortified, and the walls were mounted witlitwelvecannon. The rebels advanced to the assault on September 8, with their wonted enthusiasm, and, in spite of the loss inflicted by a continuous and well directedfire, succeededinenteringthetown, and engaged in a hand-to-hand fight with its defenders. At this juncture,IskenderBe}7 orderedgrape shot to be poured indiscriminatelyinto the mass of combatants, andby this means drove off the assailants, though at the same time mowing down a number of his own troops. On two subsequent occasions the assault was renewed,but with equalill success,the rebels losing altogether as many as 15,000 men, it is said. This was a severe blow to the Mahdi'sprestige, and numbers of his followersfell away, but he managed to retain his hold over the remainder, and convertedthe siege intoa blockade.

In this as in their preceding battles, therebels fought only7 withswords and lances. The dervishes and fakirs denounced firearms as heretics' weapons,though later on

whenEgyptian soldierswent overinbodies to the Mahdi, Bemingtonrifles becameplentifulamongst his followers, and were nolonger regarded withcontempt.

After this victory,the Vice-Governor pushedon with part of his force to the town of Senaar,but only to find that Salah Aga had already raised the siege. The regulars from Galabat, under Ali Kashef, and the' Shukuris set to work to clear the rest of the rebels out of theprovince, and afterdefeatingAchmet-el-Makashef, brother to Amr, and ten thousand of his followers at Teko, and overawing the Qoahles, who wereon the point of rising, succeeded in temporarily re-establishing peace. Amr-el-Makashef, who had recovered from the wound

Towards the end ofSeptember, Abd-el-Kader, whohad succeeded inrecruiting several thousandmen amongthe friendly tribes by promising them a year's exemption from taxation, besides £2 for every dervish slain, and £19 for the head of every rebel chief, dispatched a