LETTER TO THE MAUDE 145 and it was reported that a reign of terror existed at Obeid, where the false prophet was in fear both of the townspeople and the tribesmen; but little dependence could be placed upon reports of this kind, and it soon became evident that the Mahdi was only biding- his time before sending his swarms of Arabs to take both Berber and Khartum. The letter which Gordon had sent to the Mahdi, with the present of a belt, turban, and robes, was translated as follows : — " I salute you. Let us have the road open between us. Give up your prisoners. I make you sultan of West Darfiir. I remit half the taxes of the Soudan. I allow the slave-trade to be carried on. Why should you fight? If you wish to fight, I am ready. Wait ten months. I will then either declare war against you or leave the Soudan to you with fixed boundaries." At all events the answer that came on March 2 2d was not conciliator)'. Gordon himself reporting it said: — "The man who took my letter to the Mahdi came back to-day. He says Mahdi received the letter; he assembled his councillors; and discussed the matter for ten days, then wrote an answer and tore it up.

He then talked over matter for ten days more, and wrote another letter which he tore up; after another three days he wrote an answer, and sent it by two of his men, who are now waiting outside town. The Mahdi's messengers have come in with the letter, which proposes that I should become Mussulman. He says he looks alter the European prisoners; he asserts his claim to be Mahdi, so he is not likely to stop short at Khartum, but will push his pretensions beyond that. I answered that I had received his letters, styled him Sheikh Mohamcd Achmet — thus cancelling his sultanship — and said there was an end of negotiations. Mahdi sent me a dervish's dress, which I sent back. lie returned tindress I sent him. The demeanour of Mahdi's emissaries was exceedingly cheek)-. When they pertinaciously kept putting the bundle containing the dervish's dress before me I did not know what it contained, and getting cross I threw it across the room; it was only after they left that my clerk, who gave it back to them, told me it was a filthy patched dervish's coat. The)- refused to Vol. ill. CO