288 Seven Years in the Soudan.

be obliged to push on to the copper-mine settlements. Cottu also assured me that at Baku two thousand rebels were already concentrated. If they offered serious resistance and I should be obliged to retreat, I should probably be unable to recommence the offensive.

All these considerations determined me to make a forced march to Dem Suleiman, there reinforce my ranks and organize a great expedition to push on to Kalaka and Shakka, where I knew that Suleiman intended to act, in the hope of being assisted by a vast insurrection in Darfour.

The old Ziber had been for a long time preparing this combined movement to the south and north of Balir-el-Arab, and the rich saddles covered Avith gold and siher ornaments, to the value of from 1500 to 2000 francs each, which were sequestrated at Khartoum, were without doubt intended for the influential Darfour chiefs. At Obeid there was also a hidden deposit of powder of about 1000 Egyptian Sultan Harum still occupied the Gebel Mara, and Avith five thousand rebels from the Bahr-el-Ghazal and those of Gebel Mara, Avould certainly greatly endanger the Egyptian rule in Darfour and Kordofan. The struggle might then be prolonged beyond the Bahr-el-Arab, and we must be prepared for every contingency.

While I was acting to the south of the river. His Excellency Gordon Pasha had arrived at Shakka and Kalaka. His first care was to remove all the Jelabba from the frontier of the Bahr-el-Ghazal, an exceptionally wise measure, for these men have aided the insurrection by frequent reinforcements of men ' The locality bstween Dar Feitit and Bahr-el-Arab had never before been traversed b}- a European traveller, and when Gessi was chasing the slave traders, he was at the same time exploring an unknown country.— Ed.