GORDON AND THE MAHDI. 87 the bazaar as usual. Some wouldgamble with dominoes; some drink merissa, and the young men woulddress to please the younggirls— withcaneunderarmandcigarette inmouth. Bargains would be struck, andhouses sold, asif the end was not. Iam told it has been so with great citiesin time of siege. It was so, a Jewtold me, withhis city in Syria. Do not blame me when Idwell onthis:Iam a different man. HaveInot lost a wife —I hadonly one— andchildren ? With the younggirls, too, there wasplaiting ofhair andanointing withbutter, and ornamenting necks, ankles, and arms with gold chains and shells. They would sit in the bazaarselling onions and eggs and melons, and butter and sweetmeats up tothe dayIleft,and wouldlaugh andjoke withtheir admirers, and courtship would go on, like butterflies, heedless.

Abdullah. The devoted garrison comprised merely 2.300 men, with twosteamers and one gun. From statements subsequently made by some soldiers who escaped, it appeared that the rebels threw up earthworks around the town, and that skirmishes went on for several days. Finally, at three o'clock on the morning of May26, a generalassault took place. The northernlines werefirst attacked, and then under cover of the fire, the rebels " rushed" the south side,coming onmainly with sword and spear. The colonel of theBashi-Bazouks was among the first killed. His men, with the Egyptian infantry and the FagaraArabs, fought desperately for their lives, but they were soon overpowered by the swarming foe. It was statedat the time that they wereall mercilessly put to the sword, and that a similar fate overtook 2000 of the malecivilian population,the womenand children alone being spared. Subsequently, however,the Mudir of Dongola informed Major Kitchener that 600 officers and soldiers fromBerber were in the hands of the rebels, who treated them as slaves. These may have partly been the men who duringthe fight contrivedto cross the river under Said Bey, and who were compelled to lay down their arms after another week's resistance. The statements as to the conduct of the governor, Hussein Pasha Khalifa, were altogether conflicting. While the escaped soldiers declared that the town had fallen through his treachery, some civilian fugitives affirmed that he had been severely wounded in the leg, thrown intoprison,andbadly treatedthere. At the timeof the capture of the town he held, it appears, £80,000 of government money intended for General Gordon, and this was taken possessionofby the rebels.

The news of the fall of Berberranglikea warningnote though Europe, and but slight compensation was found in the intelligence that Admiral Hewett had succeeded on June 3,in negotiating a treaty withKing Johannes, who promised to relieve the beleaguered strongholds situated nearhis frontier. GeneralGordon had strongly deprecatedany such intervention,declaring that it was like a big boygettinga little one to fight his battles.

HoweverMason Bey telegraphed on June 16, that the Abyssinianmonarchhadpromised 30,000menoftheGallas tribe to make adescentalong theKhor Baraka;but in point of fact nothing came of it, and before long one learnt that Ghia,near the Abyssinianfrontier,had fallen into the hands of the rebels withits garrison. News of the surrender ofGadaveef speedilyfollowed.

Emboldened nodoubtby the fall of Berber, the rebels becamemoredaringin their attacks uponSuakim, where therehadbeen frequent alarmsthroughout the monthof May. On one occasiona numberof womenbelongingto a friendly tribe, were carried off by OsmanDigna's men, who, anothertime, swoopeddownfromtheir fastnesses in the hills about Tamai, and drove off a thousand head of cattle. These menacingproceedings led to the adoption of efficient measures for the protection of Suakim itself. The town is built partlyupon themainland, and partly on a low island occupied by the Government offices, merchants' storehouses and mosques, and connectedby a narrow causeway with theArabtown, wherea fewsquare flat-topped buildings rise up amid a number of huts. The ground beyond, enclosed in a semicircular line of earthworks, two miles long, is defended by some old redoubtsandby forts Euryalus and Carysfort, erectedby theBritish authorities. Commodore Molyneux, whocommandedthe squadron in May, originally had the Sphinx, theBriton, the Tyne and theMyrmidon,under hisorders, but thenight attacksbecame so frequent that the Albacore was dispatched to him from Alexandria as a rein-"Gordon's paper notes went round like cash. They were looked upon as money. They were mostly onepiastre notes;others for five and ten piastres (a real, or guinea) up to 500 piastres. All mine arc gone. Ispent themin the desert, where Iwouldbuy water,a cup for ten piastres. The schools went on as usual, Mohammedan; also at the Genesi, till the priests (Italian) left. We went to mosque, too, crowds of us, and the 'zikkah' was said (in remembrance). We pray for departed spirits— that they may be in luxury. Why not?"

Although GeneralGordon was at this periodquite able to resist the efforts of his assailants,the question of his ultimatesafety was attracting increasedattention on all sides. Zebehr Pasha, after fruitlessly suggestingthat he himself should be appointed hereditary Viceroy of the Soudan with the Khedive for hissuzerain— onwhichconditionhe engaged to "bringback Gordon safe and sound together with his suite to Cairo"— consented,at Mr. Egerton's request, to dispatch messengersto Khartoum, withletters insisting onGordon's immediatereturn, and he at the same time issued a circular note to the rebel chiefs asking them to allow the Generalandhis friends a free passage to Korosko. The French Governmentprofitedbythe departure of these messengersto sendletters of recall to their consul, M. Herbin,a former editor of the scandalousBosphore Egyptien, who had only been in Khartoumsince March.

Evidentlylittle confidence was feltin success resulting from Zebehr's mission, for more Egyptian troops were dispatched to Assouan, ostensibly for the relief both of Berber and Khartoum, and anEnglish navalexpedition was likewise prepared. The blue-jackets told off for duty wereby no means displeasedto exchange the somewhat monotonous lives they were leading at Alexandria for the excitementof a brush with the Arabs. Early in June, Commander Hammillof the Monarch,proceededin thedirectionof Wady Haifa, to report upon thecondition of the Nile, and Captain Bedford reached Assouan with two small steamers, each armed with a Gardner gun, intendedto act as akind ofnavalpatrolbetweenAssouan and Wady Haifa.

While these preparations for the relief of thebesieged towns were progressing in a desultory sort of way,the news suddenly burst upon the authorities that so far as Berber was concerned, the expedition would arrive too late. Beleaguered since the last week in April, the garrison had resisted the onslaughtof the rebels for a month. Major Kitchener had learnt thatthelarge force operating against the town formed part of the Mahdi's regular Dervish army, which was under the strictest discipline, and effectively organised; and other reports stated that it was commanded by the rebel Ameer 6 a