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Having fulfilled their object, which was to retain Mahmud at Metemmeh by showing him that, if he advanced against Merawi and Dongola, we had it in our power to occupy the town; and so cut off his retreat, and prevent reinforcements or stores from reaching him from Omdurman, the gunboats returned to Berber.
His arrival had been hailed by the population, but it was soon evident to him that, unless aided by England with something more than words, Khartoum must finally fall. But his requests for aid were slighted. He had asked that two regiments should be sent from Suakim, to keep open the route to Berber, but Mr.
Gladstone, who was himself strongly moved by the death of General Gordon, whose work and character he highly esteemed. The Prime Minister was, however, equal to the emergency, and announced that it was necessary to overthrow the Mahdi at Khartoum, to renew operations against Osman Digna, and to construct a railway from Suakin to Berber with a view to a campaign in the fall.
A handsome old man entered, bearing a staff surmounted by a golden cross. After kneeling at the altar, he invited the strangers to his house to have coffee. Grant says that he never saw a finer face than that of this venerable Copt, Gabriel by name, who is at the head of the Coptic Church at Khartoum. They left Khartoum on the 15th of April, and continued their journey down to Berber by water.
The troops in Berber would have to draw their supplies by a long and slender line of camel communication, winding along all the way from Merawi, and exposed, as a glance at the map will show, throughout its whole length to attack. More than all this: to advance to Berber must inevitably force the development of the whole war.
The Berber began, under the aegis of Rome, to feel himself the equal or even the superior of the Phoenician; Carthaginian envoys at Rome had to submit to be told that they were aliens in Africa, and that the land belonged to the Libyans.
As may be imagined, the government of Morocco soon fell into their more capable hands: they amalgamated more or less with the Arabs and Berbers their own kith and kin and the country became known to Europe as Morocco. A Berber and an Arab may easily be distinguished from each other. Berbers, taken as a whole, have square frames, high cheek-bones, small eyes, and are great walkers, not horsemen.
Mahmud's plan was to march along the Nile to Ahab, then to cross the desert to Hudi, at an angle of the river; whence a direct march, of twenty-five miles, would take him to Berber, and in this way he would avoid our strong position at the junction of the Atbara and the Nile.
To rule over tumultuous Arab and Berber tribes in a poor country formed no fit ambition for a man of his capacity. Egypt, its wealth, its commerce, its great port, and its docile population these were his dream. For two years he had been digging wells and building rest-houses on the road to Alexandria.
You say you are willing to go in her if I think you can do so with honour. You can go in honour, for you can do nothing here, and if you go you do me service in telegraphing my views." The Abbas started together with two other steamers on the night of September 9th, and having shelled Berber proceeded on her way to Dongola, the two other vessels returning. On the 18th the Abbas struck on a rock.