century, been supported by a powerful fleet, there is no
doubt that British colonisation would have suffered a severe setback. If
Major Marchand remained in Fashoda, the route to all the upper regions
of the Nile would be cut off from any English or Egyptian enterprise.
Accordingly, Lord Kitchener ran the risk of grave international
complications by advancing upon Fashoda to meet Major Marchand.
Fortunately, a temporary agreement was entered upon that the home
governments should decide the question at issue, and Lord Kitchener then
hoisted the Anglo-Egyptian flag south of the French settlement, and the
officers fraternised over glasses of champagne.

It is now believed that Russia would have aided France if it had come
to a war, but the French government thought the affair not of sufficient
importance to warrant an international struggle over the retention of
Fashoda, and the respective spheres of influence of France and Great
Britain were finally agreed upon early in the following year by the
Niger Convention, which left the whole of the ex-Egyptian provinces
under British protection, as far south as the Equatorial Lakes, and as
far west as the border line between Darfur and Wadai.

The calif was subsequently pursued from place to place in the desert,
and was at length overtaken by Colonel Wingate at Om Dubreikat. The
dervish leader fought a desperate fight; and, refusing to fly, was slain
with all his personal followers on November 26, 1899.

The total cost of these campaigns had been incredibly small, not
amounting in all to the total of $12,000,000, and the railroad, the cost
of which is here included in the expenditure, is of permanent value to
Egypt.

After the re-occupation of Khartum, it was again, as in Gordon's time,
made the seat of government, the dervish capital having been located
across the Nile at Omdurman. For a memorial to Gordon, $500,000 was
enthusiastically raised in England. The memorial took the practical
form of an educational establishment for the natives of the Sudan, the
foundation-stone of which was laid by Lord Cromer in January, 1900.
The school is intended to be exclusively for Muhammedans, and only the
Moslem religion is to be taught within its walls.

Though the Mahdism, of which the late califa had been the leading
spirit, had degenerated into a struggle of slave-traders versus
civilisation, the calif at least showed conspicuous courage in the
manner in which he faced his death. Fo