244 



EGYPT. 



ELECTIONS, LAWS, ETC. 



British decided to sanction the appointment 

 of another Frenchman in his place. 

 Affray between Natives and British Officers. A 



party of British military officers who were 

 shooting quail in March, 1887, near the Pyra- 

 mids gave offense to the villagers, as had often 

 happened, by trampling their crops, and one 

 of the Englishmen accidentally wounded some 

 natives, who were passing on camels. The 

 Egyptians rushed upon the party, and in a 

 hand-to-hand struggle one of the officers shot 

 and killed a native. The sportsmen were over- 

 powered, taken to the village in bands, and 

 subjected to indignities. A court, consisting 

 of the Mudir of the province, the Egyptian 

 procureur-general, and an English officer, went 

 to the village, and, after holding an investiga- 

 tion, condemned fourteen persons to fines and 

 imprisonment, and nine of them to be flogged, 

 which was done by the English military au- 

 thorities in the presence of the whole village 

 and of the officials of the district, and the regi- 

 ment to which the officers belonged, which was 

 drawn up to witness the expiation. 



The Soudan. The Government established by 

 the Mahdi is continued by Abdallah Tashi, 

 who calls himself the Khalifa, and has his seat 

 of government at Omdurman. Khartoum has 

 been abandoned, and the material of the houses 

 has been used as fuel for the steamers that 

 were taken to the tipper Nile by Gen. Gordon. 

 In the spring of 1887 the Khalifa's lieutenant, 

 Nejumi, had a force at Dongola, and incursions 

 of dervishes were feared in Upper Egypt. 



Osman Digma, who had been appointed the 

 Khalifa's Emir, was encamped near Galabat, 

 where he was scarcely able to hold his ground 

 against the Kabbabish and other Arabs that 

 were friendly to the Egyptians. Nejumi was 

 also hard pressed at times by the " friendlies," 

 and was reported to have been defeated in a 

 three-days' battle about the 1st of April. 



Abdallah sent envoys to Cairo, bearing let- 

 ters, dated March 15, addressed to the Khedive, 

 the Queen of England, and the Sultan. The 

 letter to the Khedive, which was filled with 

 texts from the Koran, said that God had sent 

 the Mahdi to restore his true religion, and 

 warned the Khedive not to listen to the false 

 sayings, but to embrace the teachings of the 

 Mahdi, or the Khalifa would come and slay 

 him. Abdailah declared that he had no desire 

 for worldly empire, for the Soudan and its 

 riches were his, and that pity alone induced 

 him to send a warning, which, if it were not 

 heeded, would be followed by the occupation 

 of Tewfik's country by the Mahdi's forces. 

 The document was returned to the messengers 

 without an answer, and the Queen's letter was 

 sent back unopened, but that addressed to the 

 Sultan was forwarded by Mukhtar Pasha to 

 Constantinople. 



The English troops having been withdrawn 

 from Upper Egypt, the frontier was defended 

 at Wady Haifa by Egyptian soldiers, blacks, 

 and fellaheen, commanded by British officers. 



The Soudanese, in the latter part of April, at- 

 tempted a forward movement, but when they 

 had occupied Sarras, Colonels Chermside and 

 Barrow marched from Haifa on April 28 with 

 300 black infantry and 200 cavalry, camel corps, 

 and irregulars, with two guns, surrounded their 

 position, and completely routed the 200 der- 

 vishes and 300 Dongolese that had been im- 

 pressed into the Mahdi's service, killing about 

 200, including the three leaders, though the 

 dervishes fought stubbornly, checking the first 

 attack. 



Osman Digma was no longer able to hold the 

 coast region against the Kabbabish, Hadendo- 

 wah, and other tribes who turned against him, 

 and when he retired to Knssala, he was sur- 

 rounded with enemies. In Sennaar and other 

 remote provinces the Mahdi's successor was 

 unable to maintain his authority. The friend- 

 ly tribes were reported as attacking Osman 

 Digma near Kassala in July, and a severe en- 

 gagement was said to have taken place, in 

 which 1,200 were killed. Another tight of 

 equal magnitude was reported in August be- 

 tween the Kabbabish and the dervishes in the 

 Baggara country. On the southeast the Mah- 

 dists were harassed also by the Abyssinians. 

 Abdallah, nevertheless, maintained his power 

 over a large population, and in October his der- 

 vishes again intrenched themselves near Sarras, 

 and threatened an inroad into Egypt. 



Release of Zebehr Pasha. Zebehr, who has 

 since 1882 been confined as a state prisoner at 

 Gibraltar, was set at liberty on Aug. 3, 1887. 

 He signed an agreement to remain in the place 

 that should be selected by the Egyptian Gov- 

 ernment, to submit to surveillance, and to ab- 

 stain from interference in any political or mili- 

 tary question. (See EMIN PASHA.) 



ELECTIONS, LAWS, CUSTOMS, AND THEORIES 

 OF. The antiquity of the ballot is very great. 

 As soon as men associated into bunds or com- 

 munities, it became necessary to determine the 

 opinions of the associators or of some of them. 

 Different methods of determining the senti- 

 ments of the voters were arrived at the 

 simpler being probably the earliest used 

 such, for example, as by acclamation (or viva 

 voce), by show of hands, by the counting of 

 polls, or by the casting of ballots. At Athens 

 several substances were used as ballots; the 

 Dikasts, in giving their verdict, generally used 

 balls of stone (psephi) or of metal (sponduli). 

 Of these, the ones pierced in the center, or 

 black, signified condemnation ; and those un- 

 pierced, or white, signified acquittal. Shells, 

 stones, and beans of different colors were like- 

 wise used by the Greeks ; marked shells (os- 

 trakori) were used to drive persons into exile, 

 and from this custom is derived the word 

 " ostracism." The method of voting at Syra- 

 cuse was by olive-leaves appropriately marked 

 by the voters. At Rome the ballot (meaning 

 thereby the expression of the voter's will by 

 the casting of a designated substance into a 

 designated receptacle) was regulated by the 



