273 CHAPTER VJI.

FROM 1900 ONWARDS.

The new year opened auspiciously by the capture of Osman Digna on the 18th January by Captain F. Burges, 1900. Mamur Mohammed Bey, and a police patrol, in the Warriba Hills, some 90 miles south-west of Suakin. This notorious Emir was sent to Rosetta to join the other Dervish prisoners, and is now (1904) at Damietta.

All the rivers were exceptionally low during the winter of 1899-1900, and the various expeditions and survey Smld and parties which were now started off had much difficulty in getting through to their posts. Survey • • *'ooox cxTJCGii ions Major Peake commenced clearing the sudd on the last day of December, and succeeded in opening a channel in the following April {vide p. .304). Sir W. Garstin also came up to study the Bahr el Jebel and Bahr el Ghazal rivers.

At the end of February parties of English (Uganda) (under Captain Gage), French (under Lieutenant Tanquedec), and Congolese (under Commandant Henry) troops arrived at Omdurman, having been found by Major Peake trying to cut their way through Block 3. The Uganda and Congolese parties were sent back, and the French (who were evacuating the Bahr el Ghazal) continued their journey to Europe.

With the object of coming to an arrangement with Abyssinia regarding the frontier between that country and Abyssinian the Sudan, two surveying expeditions were sent out towards the end of 1899, under Major Austin, D.S.O., and Frontier. Lieutenant Gwynn, D.S.O., respectively. The former, with Lieutenant Bright, surveyed up the Sobat and Baro Rivers to Gore, and thence in a southerly direction to the Gelo, returning via the Pibor River to Nasser. Owing to obstruction on the part of local Abyssinian chiefs Major Austin was unable to penetrate to Lake Rudolf, but the geographical results of his expedition were most useful. Lieutenants Gwynn and Jackson started up the Blue Nile to Famaka, thence south along the edge of the Abyssinian plateau, and across the Sonka to the Garre river, whence they returned via Nasser, after doing much valuable survey work.

On 22nd December, 1899, Sir R. Wingate was appointed Sirdar and Governor-General, vice Lord Kitchener, called to South Africa.

In January, 1900, an increasing sect in Omdurman, which was dubbed " the Millenniumists," and might have led to Millennium trouble, was suppressed. '*'®-In April Rabeh Zubeir was attacked near Lake Chad by three converging French columns ; he himself was killed, Rabeh and his kingdom absolutely destroyed. /ubeir.

The rest of the year was mostly occupied in the Government settling down to its work, organising the exhausted country, etc. ; no events of any importance took place till the end of the year.

A Sudanese post was established in November at Kiro, on the left bank of the Upper Nile, a few miles north of the Kiro.

Belgian post, about 5° 30' north lat. This post, finding in Apiil, 1901, that it was just south of 5° 30', crossed the river to Mongalla, where it established itself permanently.

On November 29th, 1900, an expedition under Lieut -Colonel Sparkes left Omdurman in steamers in order Occupation to occupy the Bahr el Ghazal. It consisted of five British and 13 native officers, 82 regulars, and 266 irregulars, with qi,'j necessary stores, transport, etc.

The party arrived at Meshra el Rek on 14th December, 1900, and patrols were sent out to reconnoitre. Tonj was quickly fixed on as temporary headquarters (1st January, 1901), and small expeditions were made by Colonel Sparkes to l-""-Wau, Fort Desaix, Rumbek, Amadi, Kiro, Shambe, and back to Tonj, whilst the remainder of the party consolidated its position and made friends with the natives. Lieutenant Fell, R.N., started cutting the sudd in the Jur river, with the object of opening up a waterway from the Bahr el Ghazal river, but his arduous labours, lasting for the next 15 months, were not crowned with success till June, 1902. Major W. Boulnois meanwhile conducted a patrol to Deim Zubeir. Telgona, Faroge (Forga), and Chamamui, meeting with a most friendly reception from the chiefs of these districts, and returned to Tonj on 10th April. Shortly afterwards the same officer proceded to Rumbek and chastised some raiding Nuers, with the effect of bringing the Agars and other Dinkas in at once to acknowledge Government authority.