200 
Mohamed had appeared to him in a dream, and 
informed him, as from Allah, that he was the long- 
promised Mahdi; that the Turkish supremacy was at ~ 
an end, the reign of the Mahdi begun; requesting 
their assistance, and further predicting wars and 
insurrections for the Sudan. For himself, at the 
proper time, he proposed to go to Mecca to receive 
recognition from the grand sheriff. These predic- 
tions were circulated at Khartum a year before 
they came to the knowledge of the local authorities. 
Finally Ratif Pasha, governor-general, decided to 
send a deputation, headed by the famous Abu Suud, 
to confer with the new prophet. The latter was 
found in a large hut surrounded by his dervishes, 
but declined to go to Khartum or to perform mira- 
cles, the time for which, he said, was not come. Abu 
informed him that he would be forcibly taken to the 
governor if he did not come willingly; but, discover- 
ing several men with drawn swords in his rear, he 
retreated precipitately to his despatch-boat and to 
Khartum. He was sent back with two hundred 
soldiers, commanded by an adjutant-major, to bring 
the Mahdi forcibly. These soldiers landed at night 
in mud up to their middles, lost all courage, and, 
arriving at the hut, were confronted by a mob of 
whirling dervishes. One of these was shot by the 
commander as a signal for attack, when the remain- 
der, with thousands of Arabs who had remained in 
ambush, threw themselves upon the little troop, and 
exterminated them. The boat was next attacked, 
and was obliged to retreat to Cava. On the 20th of 
August, 1881, a large force was collected at Cava to 
crush the insurrection before it gathered strength. 
Meanwhile the Mahdi and his people left the Isle of 
Aba under the very eyes of troops who dared not 
oppose him, and made his way toward the mountains 
of Gadir. Here, in November, 1881, he was attacked 
by Rashid Bey and the king of the Shiluk tribe with 
five hundred soldiers, who were destroyed, almost to 
a man,in a few moments as it were. Rauf Pasha 
being superseded, Giegler Pasha, a European civil 
officer temporarily in charge, declared that he could 
preserve order with the troops at his command, and 
declined re-enforcements. In order to carry out this 
boast, he concentrated the garrisons of Kordofan, 
Kashoda, Sennaar, and Khartum, and despatched 
them from the latter place against the Mahdi, under 
command of Yusuf Pasha. ‘They comprised about 
seven thousand men, mostly untrained conscripts, 
with six cannon. 
Three days after their arrival at Gadir they were 
attacked by fifty thousand insurgents, commanded by 
the brothers of the Mahdi; and only about a hundred 
and twenty-four private soldiers escaped from the 
general massacre. The troops of the Mahdi suffered 
severely, and both his brothers were killed. Mean- 
while the other provinces, from which the garrisons 
had been withdrawn, began to rise against the au- 
thorities. Sennaar revolted: the few soldiers there 
were slain, with all the Europeans, and their goods 
looted. El Kerim Bey came to the rescue of the 
government with three thousand Arabs. He was 
killed, his men slain or dispersed, his villages were 
SCIENCE. 
burned, and all the inhabitants put to the sword, 
without regard to age or sex. 
At this juncture Abdelkader Pasha was named to 
the governorship; and the Mahdi marched on El 
Obeid, capital of Kordofan, putting the inhabitants 
of the villages on his way to the edge of the sword. 
A Catholic mission, consisting of two priests, two 
sisters, and two lay brothers, were taken prisoners by 
the Mahdi, and tortured for three days, in a vain 
attempt to force them to renounce their religion. 
In September the Mahdi attacked El Obeid with a 
hundred and ninety-two thousand insurgents. As- 
sisted by a trench, the defenders held their ground 
for two hours, after which the Mahdi retired, leav- 
ing twelve thousand of his men on the battle-field. 
He proceeded to invest the town, and in four months 
and a half reduced it by famine, on Jan. 17, 1883. 
All the Europeans were obliged to embrace Islamism 
to escape death. Their goods were confiscated. The 
mission was demolished; the missionaries, male and 
female, put to the torture. The archives were burned ; 
the merchants of the town, and all the principal func- 
tionaries, sold into the interior as slaves. The fe- 
males suffered rapine. 
Before this, thirty-seven hundred soldiers, com- 
manded by Ali Bey, had been sent to succor E]} 
Obeid. They were attacked by thirty thousand in- 
surgents under Mama, the grand-vizier of the Mahdi. 
A thousand escaped to Bara, where they capitulated 
to the rebels two weeks before El Obeid. But the 
career of victory was not wholly unchecked. Kar- 
kodi on the Blue Nile, the headquarters of the trade 
in gum and lentils, was captured by the rebels, and 
partly burned, Fourhundred soldiers and merchants 
were massacred. However, in thirty-five days, the 
rebels were driven out by the Egyptian troops, and 
order re-established. A revolt on the White Nile at 
two large villages, ten hours from Khartum, was 
crushed, with heavy loss to the rebels, and the death 
of their leader and his three sons. 
Up to this time the insurrection had cost more 
than a hundred thousand lives in the Sudan. At 
the time this letter was written, Hicks Pasha and his 
army were just arrived, and were expected to restore 
order. Their rout and massacre occurred later. At 
this date the Egyptian government, under pressure 
from England, is about to abandon the Sudan to the 
hordes of the Mahdi; and the unfortunates who are 
holding a few outposts in the faith of rescue will be 
left to their fate. The story reads like a page from the 
middle ages; and it seems hardly credible that such 
events can characterize any part of the nineteenth cen- 
tury. Unless the strong arm of Abyssinia intervenes 
against the forces of the false prophet, it is quite pos- 
sible that even for Egypt proper the end is not yet. 
THE GEOGRAPHISCHES JAHRBUCH. _ 
Vol. ix., 1882. 
16+ 719 p. 12°. 
Geographisches jahrbuch. 
Perthes, 1883. 
Tus jahrbuch, an outgrowth of Petermann’s ~ 
Geographische mittheilungen, was first pub-— 
aed in 
= Poe 
Gotha, 4 
[Von ILL, No. 54, 
