THE FALL OF KHARTOUM. 385 European adherents. If our troops had advanced earlier, the agony of Gordon's last days might have been shortened. This is about all that can be said with any approach to certainty. • I deem it also probable that the assault may have been retarded by the personal terror which Gordon had undoubtedly inspired amidst the Soudanese during his campaign against the Arab slave-traders. Throughout the East, a man, who is not as other men are, is regarded as in closer communion with Allah than falls to the lot of ordinary humanity; and Gordon, whatever else he may have been, was unlike the vast majority of Europeans as known to the world of Islam. He was, if I am not misinformed, regarded in the Soudan very much as the " Mad Mullah" is regarded to-day by his followers in Somaliland. Only a short time before the fall of Khartoum, the Mahdi sent a message to Gordon, in the following terms : — " We have now arrived at a day's journey from Omdurman, and are coming, please God, to your place. If you return to the Most High God and become a Moslem, and surrender to His order and that of His prophet, and believe in us as the Mahdi, send us a message after laying down your arms and giving up all thoughts of fighting, so that I may send you some one with safe conduct, by which you will obtain benefit and blessing in this world and the next.

Otherwise, if you do not act thus, you will have to encounter war with God and His prophet. And know that the Most High God is mighty for your destruction, as He has destroyed others before you, who were much stronger than you, and more numerous." 2 c