424 THE STORY OF THE KHEDIVATE.

Dervishes were allowed time to recover their strength.

Shortly after the battle of Ginnis, the Khalifa was occupied for some months in suppressing a local insurrection which had occurred in Kordofan, and also in carrying on a sort of tribal warfare between the Baggaras — a tribe to which both he and the Mahdi belonged — and other Soudanese tribes, who resented the special favour shown at Khartoum to the Baggaras. For the purpose of this narrative, it is sufficient to say that there were various raids during the three following years, all directed with the view of forcing the position held by the Anglo- Egyptian forces at Wady Haifa. The story of all these raids is much the same. The Dervishes were unable to quit the banks of the Nile for any length of time, owing to the impossibility of finding water and forage for a large body of troops, except in the close vicinity of the narrow strips oi cultivated land, which in this part of the Nile lie between the river and the desert. The consequence was that their advance northwards was barred by the garrison of Wady Haifa. All the stubborn courage and reckless gallantry of the Dervishes proved unavailing against the dead weight of the Egyptian gun-boats and artillery, which, under the direction of British officers, and with the co-operation of British troops, held the road leading to Egypt The last of these raids was terminated by the victory of Toski, in which the Anglo- Egyptian army, supported as usual by regular British troops, inflicted a crushing defeat on the Dervishes led by Wad-el-Nijami,