A DEAD-LOCK. 4 I sheikh passed he pierced it with his lance, an Arab custom, that he might say he assisted in his death.

The report added that the Mahdi had a large standing army of 35,000 paid men, and could obtain 30,000 in three days when he called for them.

At the end of November, 1883, it was not easy to say whether there was any security against the rebellion anywhere above Assouan, Siout, or Minieh. The remains of the Egyptian troops were to be concentrated at Khartum, where Colonel Coetlogon had arrived with the movable column employed in clearing the White Nile bank as far as Duem. He calculated that when he had collected his whole force within the place the total of the available troops would be not more than 4000, in the only spot where Egyptian authority was likely to keep any footing, and where the success at El Obeid was already causing so much disaffection among the populace that the colonel was seriously thinking of attempting a retreat down the river to Berber, whence he thought that he might reach Suakim, although, as was afterwards known, the route from Berber to the sea would probably have been impassable to a body of disheartened troops, harassed at every step by a horde of enemies already exulting over the news of a victory over the army which had been annihilated at Kashgil on the 5th of November. The opinion of the military authorities at Cairo as represented by General Stephenson, Sir Evelyn Wood, and General Baker, who met to discuss the subject officially, was that the Egyptian government would find it impossible to hold the Soudan with the force at their disposal, and that it would be eventually necessary, after withdrawing the garrisons, to fall back from Khartum to Egypt proper; but that Khartum should, if possible, be held long enough to allow the more advanced posts and detached garrisons in the Soudan to rejoin, while the Egyptian government should try to render as much support as possible from Suakim. We have seen, however, that aid from Suakim became: impracticable, because of the extension of the insurrection to the Eastern .s udan, and the disasters which occurred there. Had it been practicable to keep open the route between Suakim and Berber, or had the