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With this force he started up the Nile and struck across the desert to El-Obeid, where his troops were decoyed into a ravine, and after three days' fighting his whole army was annihilated by the Mahdist army numbering about 300,000 men. The entire Sudan then revolted against Egypt.
Nor is the iron industry confined to the Sudan. About the Great Lakes and other parts of Central Africa it is widely distributed. Thornton says, "This iron industry proves that the East Africans stand by no means on so low a plane of culture as many travelers would have us think.
On several occasions these conflicts had been forced upon him; on other occasions Baker Pasha was the aggressor, owing to his fixed determination to extend on all sides the limits of the Egyptian Sudan. With all the rulers, however, who treated him well, he remained on terms of loyalty and friendship; and, in time, he inspired them with respect for his fairness and liberality.
Peace has come only as the sequel to the armed interference of a civilized power which, relatively to its opponent, was a just and beneficent power. If England had disarmed to the point of being unable to conquer the Sudan and protect Egypt, so that the Mahdists had established their supremacy in northeastern Africa, the result would have been a horrible and bloody calamity to mankind.
It was an adventurous thing to trust one's self to the mercy of the Italian highway in the untrustworthy little cars of those days, but Stephen Bennett insisted on our joining his brother, and as I was travelling back to England with him after a hard year in the Sudan I consented.
At Cairo he had an interview with Sir Evelyn Baring, and was appointed by the Khedive Governor-General of the Sudan. The firman of Jan. 26 contained these words: "We trust that you will carry out our good intentions for the establishment of justice and order, and that you will assure the peace and prosperity of the people of the Sudan by maintaining the security of the roads," etc.
The bazaars of Cairo and even Assuan seemed tame and sophisticated compared to this wild market of the Sudan, where half the men, and all the bread-selling women who were old enough, had been the Khalifa's slaves.
The British Government, which was now responsible for Egypt, was in a difficulty. The Sudan must either be conquered or evacuated, for the Egyptian garrisons were still at Khartum and at several places even down to the equator. The Government decided on evacuation, and Gordon was sent to perform the task of withdrawing all the garrisons. He accepted the mission and set out immediately for Cairo.
Most of the pictures purported to have been taken in the Sudan, and showed decapitated negroes. Some I am convinced were pictures of the Armenian massacres that the Turks had themselves taken and in a thrifty moment put to this useful purpose. This pamphlet was printed at the press in Kirkuk. There were a number of excellent buildings mainly workshops and armories, but the best was the hospital.
The newspapers became full of articles on the Sudan, of personal descriptions of the Mahdi, of agitated letters from colonels and clergymen demanding vengeance, and of serious discussions of future policy in Egypt. Then, at the beginning of the new year, alarming messages began to arrive from Khartoum.
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