The British Campaign in the Soudan. 153 Pasha, the dictatorship of England and France, and the pronunciamiento of Arabi-Pasha were known in the Soudan two weeks after they occurred, in spite of the official suppression of all adverse intelligence by telegraph. It is a significant fact that the first military rising that brought Arabi to the front took place in February, 1881, and that as early as July of the same year, Mohammed-Achmet proclaimed his mission. Raouf-Pasha, then governor of the Soudan, received at Khartoum, early in August, a message from him to this effect : “ Bismillah, er rachman, er raheem /—In the name of God, the gracious, the merciful! Blessings be on the Lord Mohammed and his race! . . . This is sent by the servant of the Lord, Mohammed-Achmet, the son of Abd-Allah. . . . God has said in His only book {the Koran]: ‘Oh ye that believe, I will show you a way by which you may be saved from great troubles ; only believe in God and in His messenger, and fight the Lord’s battles with your goods and your bodies. And know this and hold it fast: that God has called me to be a Caliph, and that the Prophet (whom God bless!) has proclaimed that I am the expected’ Mahdi, and has placed me upon his throne above princes and nobles. And God has strengthened me by His angels and prophets, and by the elect and believers among the Djinns [the genii or demons, some of whom the Mussulmans believe to have been converted to Islam]. And He has also said, God has given thee signs of thy mission, namely the moles on thy left cheek. And another sign He has given me, that out of the fire appears a standard which will be with me in the hour of battle, carried by the angel Azraél, whom God bless! And He has also told me that whoever does