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Before he laid down the reins of power, at the end of 1879, he had completely broken up this body, and as effectually relieved the Soudanese from their military tyrants as he had freed them from the whip. Having put all these matters in trim, Gordon left Khartoum in the middle of the summer of 1877 for the western province of Darfour, where a number of matters claimed his pressing attention.
The gravity of this danger admitted of no delay. Not a moment could be spared to either punish an incapable lieutenant or to crush the foe Haroun, whose proceedings were the alleged main cause of trouble in Darfour. Gordon returned with his bodyguard as fast as possible, and, leaving even it behind, traversed the last eighty-five miles alone on his camel in a day and a half.
Police inspectors also might be appointed, and adequate measures taken to root out the abuses which prevail in the prisons. "With regard to Darfour, I should think that Nubar would probably send back the family and the heir of the Sultan of Darfour.
During one week, on his way from Oomchanga to Toashia, he thinks he must have taken about six hundred slaves, and he puts down the number that had lost their lives in the last four years from the cruelty of the dealers to have been at least one hundred thousand in Darfour alone.
On the other hand, the preservation of the Khedive's sovereign rights through our instrumentality will carry with it the responsibility of providing the unhappy peoples of Darfour, Dongola, Kordofan, and the adjacent provinces with an equitable administration and immunity from heavy taxation.
'I do not believe in the advance of the mahdi, says Gordon a few days later; 'he is nephew to my old guide in Darfour, who was a very good fellow, and on several occasions he shows that he had no idea as yet of the task that lay before him, and considered the mahdi a mere puppet in the hands of the slave-owners, who had joined him to a man.
Seeing the hopelessness of his position, Gordon decided to waste no more time over the question, more especially as he had not yet been to Khartoum, the capital of his huge province, to take up his duties, and all the time there was a revolt going on in Darfour, on the extreme west of his dominion.
If subsidized by the Government, and sent back with Sir Samuel Baker, he would not have much difficulty in regaining possession of the kingdom of Darfour, which was formerly one of the best governed of African countries.
The Mahdi learnt in good time of the extensive preparations being made for this expedition, but he was not dismayed, because all the fighting tribes of Kordofan, Bahr Gazelle, and Darfour were now at his back, and he knew that he could count on the devotion of 100,000 fanatical warriors.
D'Eichthal develops at great length his theory, that the Foulahs are descended from some Eastern people of strong Malay characters, who found their way to their present site through Madagascar, along the coast, to Cordofan, Darfour, and Haoussa. They are bronzed, or copper-colored, or like polished mahogany, the red predominating over the black.
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