tion of a railway from
Suakin to Berber, or what, perhaps, would be more advisable, to
Shendi, on the Nile. The completion of this enterprise would at once
change all the elements of the problem."

Disaster to Hicks Pasha.

The immense responsibilities involved were most imperfectly understood
by the British government. Egyptian sovereignty in the Sudan dates from
1820, when Mehemet Ali sent a large force into the country, and
ultimately established his authority over Sennar and Kordofan. In 1865
Suakin and Massawa were assigned to Egyptian rule by the sultan, and in
1870 Sir Samuel Baker proceeded up the Nile to the conquest of the
Equatorial provinces, of which General Gordon was appointed
governor-general in 1874. In the same year Darfur and Harrar were
annexed, and in 1877 Gordon became governor-general of the Sudan, where,
with the valuable assistance of Gessi Pasha, he laboured to destroy the
slave trade and to establish just government. In August 1879 he returned
to Cairo, and was succeeded by Raouf Pasha. Misrule and oppression in
every form now again prevailed throughout the Sudan, while the slave
traders, exasperated by Gordon's stern measures, were ready to revolt.
The authority of Egypt was represented by scattered garrisons of armed
men, badly officered, undisciplined and largely demoralized. In such
conditions a leader only was required to ensure widespread and dangerous
rebellion. A leader appeared in the person of Mahommed Ahmed, born in
1848, who had taken up his abode on Abba Island, and, acquiring great
reputation for sanctity, had actively fomented insurrection. In August
1881 a small force sent by Raouf Pasha to arrest Mahommed Ahmed was
destroyed, and the latter, proclaiming himself the mahdi, stood forth as
the champion of revolt. Thus, at the time when the Egyptian army was
broken up at Tell-el-Kebir, the Sudan was already in flames. On the 7th
of June 1882, 6000 men under Yusef Pasha, advancing from Fashoda, were
nearly annihilated by the mahdists. Payara and Birket in Kordofan
quickly fell, and a few days before the battle of Tell-el-Kebir was
fought, the mahdi, with a large force, was besieging El Obeid. That town
was captured, after an obstinate defence, on the 17th of January 1883,
by which time almost the whole of the Sudan south of Khartum was in open
rebellion, except the Bahr-el-Ghazal and the Equatorial provinces, where
for a time Lupton Bey and Emin Pasha were able to hold t