EGYPT. 



EGYPTOLOGICAL RESEARCH. 255 



from the insurrection. The claims were ap- 

 praised at $10,000,000 for property plundered 

 and destroyed at Alexandria, $7,500,000 for 

 buildings burned in the city, and $5,000,000 

 for losses in other localities. 



Arabi Pasha and the other members of the 

 provisional government were brought to trial 

 before a military tribunal. Arabi was allowed 

 English counsel and the English authorities in- 

 terested themselves to save him from death, 

 Avhich is usually the fate of the leaders of un- 

 successful political movements within the Turk- 

 ish Empire, after it was proved that he had no 

 complicity in the June riots nor in the sacking 

 of Alexandria. Moreover, it would have been 

 inconvenient to the British Government to 

 publish the correspondence which was discov- 

 ered, showing the connection of the Sultan 

 with the Egyptian revolution. Arabi, on the 

 advice of his counsel, pleaded guilty to the 

 charge of " rebellion." Sentence of death was 

 pronounced against him and his colleagues, 

 which, according to a previous understanding, 

 was commuted by the Khedive to perpetual 

 banishment. The British colony of Ceylon 

 was designated as the place of exile, whither 

 Arabi, Mahmoud Sahmi, and Toulba were con- 

 veyed and maintained in safe retirement. 



THE FALSE PROPHET. While the Egyptian 

 revolution was being suppressed with British 

 arms, another revolution was enacted in the 

 remote provinces of the Soodan. The inhabit- 

 ants of these provinces have suffered greatly 

 under Egyptian rule from the oppressive taxes 

 of the Government, and still more from the 

 corrupt officials and* farmers of the taxes. They 

 are negroes, with an occasional mingling of 

 Arab blood. These dark races are fanatical 

 Mohammedans. They make brave and hardy 

 soldiers, and have furnished the only good ma- 

 terial for the Egyptian army. A man named 

 Mohammed Achmet, a boat-builder by trade, 

 born in the region of Dongola, on the western 

 bank of the Nile, proclaimed himself the ex- 

 pected Mehdi, or successor to the Great Proph- 

 et and deliverer of the people. He soon ob- 

 tained a large following among these supersti- 

 tious people who had felt oppression. A small 

 force of soldiers attempted to dislodge him 

 from the island of Abbas, 200 miles south of 

 Khartoom, but were slain to the last man be- 

 fore they fired a shot. The pretended prophet 

 withdrew after this exploit to a safe position 

 in a wild mountain about ninety miles north- 

 west of the penal colony and military station 

 of Fashoda. The Baggara Arabs, the former 

 slave-hunters of the White Nile, joined his 

 standard in great numbers. A new Governor 

 of Fashoda attempted to distinguish himself 

 by leading an expedition against the rebels. 

 He and all but 70 of his 800 soldiers were 

 killed. In June Giegler Pasha, who succeeded 

 Raouf Pasha as governor-general, sent the 

 largest force that he could muster, 3,500 Egyp- 

 tian regulars, against the Mehdi. They met 

 him at the head of 7,000 men near Kordofan. 



Although the rebels were mostly armed with 

 spears, the Egyptian troops could not stand 

 their onset. They threw down their arms and 

 fled, the greater part of the force was destroyed, 

 and the victorious Mohammed Achmet marched 

 upon Sennaar. For several months he was sole 

 master of the Soodan. After the British con- 

 quest an expedition was organized and sent to 

 the White Nile to put down the pretended 

 Messiah. The strong places on the eastern 

 side of the river were recovered. The Mehdi 

 suffered a severe repulse with losses reported 

 to be over 15,000, when attempting to besiege 

 Obey ad, the capital of Kordofan. He then 

 laid siege to the town, but afterward withdrew 

 to Birkeh, where, in December, he was reor- 

 ganizing his troops and awaiting re-enforce- 

 ments from Bahr-el-Gazal and Darfoor. 



EGYPTOLOGICAL AND ASSYRIOLOG- 

 ICAL RESEARCH. Our knowledge of re- 

 mote antiquity and of the primitive condition 

 of the historical nations has been vastly en- 

 larged, and is still being enriched at a rapid 

 rate, by the examination of the ruins of the 

 ancient cities and monuments of Egypt and 

 the Mesopotamian empires resources which 

 were wholly unknown to our ancestors, and 

 the value of which had hardly begun to receive 

 adequate appreciation a generation ago. These 

 investigations have received a powerful im- 

 pulse within the last two or three years by the 

 publication of discoveries of great importance 

 which have been made in Egypt, Assyria, Baby- 

 lonia, and Syria, and are now prosecuted with 

 more vigor and intelligence than ever before. 

 The work was hardly interrupted by the war 

 in Egypt, which, coining in the idle season, 

 when active out-of-door operations were not 

 practicable, caused at most a temporary appre- 

 hension that the stores of relics and records 

 accumulated at Boolak might be in danger of 

 pillage by the insurgents. Happily, these fears 

 were not justified ; and since the war was 

 closed, the museum at Boolak has been reno- 

 vated, enlarged, and rearranged, and now has 

 double the capacity it had before, and a vastly 

 increased value. Work in the cabinet has in the 

 mean time gone on without intermission ; and 

 excavations have been begun again, on a liberal 

 and systematic scale, from which further dis- 

 coveries of value may be anticipated. Before 

 describing the results of the latest investiga- 

 tions in the fields of prehistoric research, it 

 will be proper to review the conclusions 

 which had already been reached respecting 

 the periods and conditions of the most ancient 

 empires. 



EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY. The results of the 

 investigations in Egyptian antiquities are such 

 as to establish, according to, the most moderate 

 calculation, the existence of the Egyptian mon- 

 archy 1,500 years at the least, but probably 

 more than 2,000 years before the birth of Moses, 

 which is placed at 1,571 years before the Chris- 

 tian era. But 1,500 years before Moses, who 

 was 1,571 years before Christ, who was 1,882 



