Preface.

ix negro chief, and through a thousand difficulties of climate, being obliged to march almost continuously in inundated lands and pestilential marshes, — by his genius and energy succeeded not only in conquering but exterminating the enemy, causing Suleiman and all the slave-traders to be shot, and completely quelling, by this salutary example, the rebellion in those provinces.

Having concluded the war by the capital execution of the chiefs, our hero set to work to organize the country reconquered for Egypt. He opened canals, constructed boats on the numerous rivers which

intersect this rich territory, discovered forests of caoutchouc, and instructed the natives in the method of collecting it, established schools, and organized an army of blacks, sending away the Arabian troops who were friendly to the slave traders. The Government nominated him Pasha, but his enemies, interested in the rebellion, and jealous of so much glory, were powerful at Cairo and Khartoum, and the exterminator of the infamous rebellion was recalled. This recall was the cause

of the tragic death of this extraordinary man.

And here I can only repeat Avhat I wrote in the Et>ploratore (Vol. vii. p. 146) after the death of my friend : —

" The history of the Mahdi will tell, more clearly than we can, what were the consequences of the system hitherto pursued by the Egyptian Grovern- ment of the Soudan. It will tell, better than we can, to what prosperity these fertile provinces would have risen if the hatred of the Mussulman and some

traders who bore unworthily the name of Christian had not persecuted Gessi by the vilest means. This implacable hostility was the true cause of his death, and that of four hundred of his followers." But we will leave to Gessi himself the description of this disaster.

To Gessi as Pasha, after the retirement of Gordon,