INTRODUCTORY.—REVIEW OF FIELD. 7

was given out that the Mahdi’s spirit had been called to

Heaven for a space but would soon return to lead his hosts to fresh triumphs and further fat spoils. A tomb was erected over the place where his body lay, and the legend of his mission was taken over by Abdullah,

who also in due season had visions and communicated reputed divine ordinances to the dervishes. Abdullah, who was ignorant, illiterate and cruel, far beyond his dead master—‘‘the cruellest man on earth,” Slatin

Pasha dubbed him,—by his exactions and treacheries soon overreached himself. Events were hastening to the overthrow of Mahdism. Sheiks and tribes fell away from the Khalifa and returned to the fold of orthodox

Mohammedanism. By 1889, as an aggressive force seeking to enlarge its boundaries, Mahdism was spent.

Thereafter, stage by stage, its power dwindled, although Omdurman, the dervish capital, remained the head- quarters of the strongest native military power that

North Africa has ever known.

Lord Cromer has been blamed for many things he did, and much that he left undone, during the earlier days of Mahdism. A fuller knowledge of the whole circumstances justifies my saying that, as custodian of British interests, he acted throughout with singular

prudence and great forbearance. It was not with his wish or approval that several of the untoward expedi- tions against the dervishes were undertaken. It is permissible to regret that, from a variety of causes, the

British Government engaged in more than one ill- considered and irresolute campaign for the destruction of Mahdism. Much treasure and countless thousands