158 The British Campaign in the Soudan.

and his power would suddenly collapse. But this expectation was totally disappointed. The Mahdi’s forces were repeatedly defeated, but he seemed to gather new strength after each repulse. On the 24th of June he attacked Bara, near El Obeid, and was driven off with great slaughter. On the 28th of August his relative and heutenant, Amr-el-Makashef, attacked Duem on the Nile above Khartoum, with fourteen thousand men. The town was well fortified and garrisoned by five hundred Egyptians. The attack lasted four hours, until three thousand rebels had fallen under the withering fire of the Reming. ton breech-loaders. The remnant of this force retreated to Sennaar and was again defeated by Salah-Aga, and Amr-el-Makashef was killed; but the main body sueceeded in crossing the White Nile and joining the Mahdi who had invaded Kordofan after the destruction of Yussuf-Pasha’s army.

On the 8th of September, 1882, the Mahdi re-inforced by the accession of the Hassaneeyeh and Kababeesh tribes, appeared at the head of sixty thousand warriors _ before El Obeid which had been well fortified and was defended by a garrison of six thousand regulars, and twelve pieces of artillery. A furious attack was made at daybreak of the 9th. The rebels’ charge upon the outer works was so desperate that the soldiers gave way and retreated upon the inner line. The enemy rushed after them in hand-to-hand fight and would have entered the place pell-mell with them; but Iskander-Bey, the Egyptian commander, exhibited rare coolness and decision. He concentrated a heavy fire of rifles and artillery upon the struggling mass of the enemy and of his own soldiers, killing three hundred of the lat-