302 



EGYPT. 



ELECTRIC LIGHTING, PROGRESS OF. 



abandonment of the Soudan must disappoint 

 and alienate the only class on whose sympa- 

 thies the English counted, viz., the Khedive 

 and the court and Government circle in Cairo. 

 The movement started in the Soudan might 

 spread to the Arabs of Asia and threaten the 

 power of the Sultan; but it was certain, if 

 Egypt were now abandoned by the British, or 

 unless a line of military defense were drawn and 

 effective measures taken to check the Mahdi's 

 advance, to infect the discontented fellaheen of 

 Egypt, inflame their religious passions, and re- 

 sult in a new revolution and war far more des- 

 perate and sanguinary than that of Arabi. 



The measures proposed by Great Britain 

 were humiliating to the Khedive, but he bad 

 no other choice. They were to secure the alli- 

 ance of the King of Abyssinia by ceding to him 

 the port of Massowah, and to abandon a great 

 part of the Soudan, drawing the new frontier 

 and line of defense from Suakin through Ber- 

 ber to Khartoum. This line it was imperative 

 to hold for the present, for it was the only 

 way of retreat for the Egyptians in the Soudan. 

 Gen. Gordon was sent alone into the Soudan 

 to consolidate whatever well-disposed elements 

 there were remaining ill the Soudan, and re- 

 cede the western provinces to the former sul- 

 tans. 



Baker Pasha entered upon the campaign 

 without definite plans. Except a small sprink- 

 ling of Turks, he had no material in his army 

 on which he could rely for courage or fidelity. 

 The former soldiers of Arabi made up the bulk 

 of his command, and they had been driven into 

 the ranks at the point of the bayonet. The 

 black troops recruited by Sebehr were sus- 

 pected of sympathy with the False Prophet. 

 When they were sent to Suakin it was judged 

 advisable to remove Sebehr Pasha from the 

 command. Baker, who was given supreme 

 military and civil authority, hoped to trans- 

 form gradually this cowardly and mutinous 

 body by recruits from Turkey and the islands 

 of the Levant. The Abyssinians had made a 

 military demonstration against the coveted port 

 of Massowah, in connection with a revolt of 

 the Cassala tribes. Baker Pasha was empow- 

 ered to secure the alliance and military co- 

 operation of the King of Abyssinia by agreeing 

 to the cession of the port and adjacent terri- 

 tory. His general instructions were to pro- 

 tect the coast, relieve Sinkat, and reopen the 

 Suakin-Berber line of communication. The 

 rebels withdrew from Trinkitat on the arrival 

 of Baker's troops at Suakin ; but the besieged 

 garrisons of Tokar and Sinkat were in ex- 

 tremities. The slave-dealing Arabs of the coast 

 had no direct connection with the Mahdi ; they 

 constituted a separate military organization, 

 under the direction of Osman Digna. 



Baker Pasha advanced his line to Trinkitat, 

 and then sent an appeal to Cairo for rifles to 

 replace the obsolete muskets with which most 

 of his troops were armed. There were Rem- 

 ingtons in Snakin, but, owing to the neglect or 



treachery of the civil officers, they were not 

 delivered. Baker received, in reply to his dis- 

 patch, orders to advance at once to the relief 

 of Tokar, which had been thrice attacked. 

 The belief in the irresistible destiny of the 

 Mahdi prevailed among the troops, while Eu- 

 ropean and Egyptian officers were alike per- 

 suaded of the hopelessness of the operation. 

 Yet he set out from Trinkitat with 3,000 men, 

 and, on February 6, 1884, advices arrived in 

 Europe stating that a body of Osman Dig- 

 na's forces had routed this last Soudan army 

 not far from Tokar. The Egyptians made 

 no stand. In the confused flight to Trinkitat, 

 about 2,000 were lost. The remnant were got 

 on a transport by Gen. Baker, and escaped to 

 Suakin. British marines landed there to hold 

 the forts against an attack from without, or 

 from an insurrection in the town. A few hours 

 later the news arrived that 400 of the garrison 

 at Sinkat, which was now reduced to subsist 

 on herbage, in attempting to cut their way 

 through the line of the enemy, were over- 

 whelmed and the entire detachment destroyed. 

 On the 12th came the news of the annihilation 

 of the remaining 600 and their brave com- 

 mander, Tewfik Bey, who, when the final stage 

 of hunger was reached, spiked the guns, blew 

 up the forts, and sought death in battle at the 

 head of his troops. 



ELECTRIC LIGHTING, PROGRESS OF. Electric 

 lighting has now reached a condition in which 

 striking and fundamental inventions have 

 ceased to appear. The main lines along which 

 future improvement must go have been laid 

 down, and attention is now being given to 

 those matters of detail in the construction of 

 apparatus necessary to secure good working 

 and greater economy. Whatever may be the 

 improvements effected in the future, it is very 

 certain that the incandescent lamp has taken 

 its final form, namely, that of a strip of resist- 

 ing material inclosed in an exhausted vessel, 

 while it appears reasonably probable that the 

 regulator arc-lamp will maintain its ascend- 

 ency, though the combinations of parts which 

 may be made in this type of lamp can be so 

 greatly varied that it is difficult to pick out 

 with certainty the surviving forms. Hitherto, 

 the regulator lamp, having its carbons placed 

 end to end in a vertical line, has given the 

 best photometric results, and been most exten- 

 sively used. Its extreme unsteadiness, and the 

 fact that, for most uses, it furnishes too strong 

 a light at one center, renders, however, its pros- 

 pect of permanence less certain than that of 

 the incandescent lamp. Whether the regula- 

 tor will give place to lamps which obtain in- 

 creased steadiness by the interposition of a re- 

 fractory material in the arc, such as the sun- 

 lamp, or to those giving a light due partly to an 

 arc and partly to incandescence, such as open- 

 air incandescent lamps, the future can only 

 decide. With incandescent lamps progress 

 must consist in the improvement of the light- 

 giving body, so that they will be able to stand 



