A PRETENDER DEPOSED 165 



el Ghazal province, that the Sultan of the Bingos 

 was dead, and that that tribe was split up between 

 other Sultans, he came down to Gila, and assumed 

 the sultanate on the grounds that his father, a distant 

 scion of the royal house, had been wazir to the late 

 Sultan, and that the Bingos had preferred any yoke to 

 that of Abu Zergal, the rightful heir. He then marched 

 off to greet Sparkes Pasha at Wau. An emir of the 

 Khalifa was, as one can well understand, a graduate 

 at a high school of tact. Moreover, at the time, all 

 claims were recognised, as were those of small 

 lairds in the '45 by the Hanoverians. Armed with 

 a formidable-looking document which stated that the 

 Government came to bring peace and plenty to the 

 country, he came back to Gila. Here he described 

 the proclamation as a patent of nobility and recogni- 

 tion of his claim by Government, who, he said, had 

 asked his permission to come to the province (some- 

 what contradictory !), The dependants of the old 

 Bingo Sultan rushed back to him. Musa Hamed and 

 Said Baldas, from whom they seceded, did not know 

 what to make of it. His knowledge of the Omdurman 

 merchants brought a stream of rifles into the district 

 and a ready market for ivory. He had become a 

 factor to be reckoned with. He treated orders from 

 Fell with respect when in his presence, with contumely 

 when out of it. When he came to meet the Sirdar 

 he was confined and deposed. As to the sentence, 

 there is little doubt of its justice, and the benefit to the 

 district by his removal. 



In appearance Dardug was rather grey, with a 



