THE RISING OF THE MAHDI. 317 privilege. I suspect the Khedive and his Ministers knew beforehand that the decree was of the nature of a pious aspiration, and that their consent to its issue was dictated by the same wish to conciliate British public opinion as had led Ismail* Pasha to send Gordon to the Soudan with instructions to suppress the slave trade. Gordon, as I have already mentioned, had carried out his orders with an almost superhuman energy, and though he had not stamped out the slave trade, he had inflicted punishments on the Soudanese slave-traders — or, in other words, on all the leading chiefs of the country — which they were never likely to forget, or, still less, forgive. When, therefore, they learnt that the new Khedive had abolished slavery within his dominions, they regarded the intelligence as a warning that a fresh attack was to be made upon the trade, by which they not only earned their livelihood, but maintained their position as a ruling caste.

The Soudanese were thus ripe, now that Gordon . P' was gone, for insurrection ; and it is a curious coincidence that the issue of the decree, declaring the sale or purchase of slaves a penal offence in Egypt, should have been followed by the appearance of a Mahdi in the Soudan. In Mahometan countries such appearances are matters of common occurrence. All throughout Islam there is a belief, borrowed probably from Judaism, that sooner or later a Messiah, or Mahdi, will make his advent on earth to lead the followers of the Prophet to victory over the infidel.