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Updated: May 23, 2025
It was believed that Gedaref was only weakly held, and the opportunity of cutting the most powerful remaining Dervish army from its base was too precious to be neglected. But the venture was desperate. The whole available strength of the Kassala garrison was mustered.
Absurd and ridiculous as were these reports, they were not the less productive of great distress to the families and friends of the captives. During the five days we spent at Kassala, I am happy to say that I was able to relieve many sufferers; amongst them our host himself, and one of his guests, a young, well-educated Egyptian officer, laid at death's door by a severe attack of dysentery.
If I cannot, I shall retire to the Equator and leave you the indelible disgrace of abandoning the garrisons of Senaar, Kassala, Berber, and Dongola, with the certainty that you will eventually be forced to smash up the Mahdi under greater difficulties if you wish to maintain peace in, and, indeed, to retain Egypt."
It was, indeed, the very last testimonial any one in the slightest degree conversant with Abyssinian priesthood would ever have selected. As it is, the man started, and lived for months amongst the Arab tribes between Kassala and Metemma, on the strength of a certificate that described him as an ambassador and recommended him to the protection of the tribes that lay on his road.
Abdalla ate, and Dicky dipped his fingers in the basin before them, saying, as he lifted them again: "I will speak as to my brother. Ismail has staked all on the Soudan. If, in the will of God, he is driven from Berber, from Dongola, from Khartoum, from Darfar, from Kassala, his power is gone. Egypt goes down like the sun at evening. Ismail will be like a withered gourd.
There is nothing before them but to find their way across the desert to Omdurman, and I fancy that few of them will get there alive. "No doubt some will keep along by the Atbara, and others by the Nile. The latter will have the best chance, for the friendlies at Kassala will be on the lookout for fugitives.
Between Sabderat and Kassala, between that town and the Gash, we had for the first time seen some cultivation; but it was nothing compared to the immense vista of cultivated fields, beginning a day's journey from Sheik Abu Sin, and extending, almost without interruption, throughout the provinces of Kedaref and Galabat. Villages appeared in all directions, crowning every rounded hillock.
Meanwhile the retirement towards the main body continued and accelerated. Colonel Parsons and his force were now between two fires. The frontal attack was within 200 yards. The rear attack, flushed with success, were hurrying impetuously forward. The defeat and consequent total destruction of the Kassala column appeared certain.
It was a great victory, and a very important one; but it can hardly be said that it was glorious, as we outnumbered them by three to one. Still, it was a heavy blow to the Dervishes, and the fact that the Khalifa was obliged to send troops down to the Nile, to check an advance that had proved so formidable, must have greatly relieved the pressure on the Italians at Kassala.
In the autumn of 1864, De Bisson reached Kassala accompanied by some fifty adventurers, the scum of the outcasts of all nations, who had enrolled themselves under the standard of the ambitions Comte, "on the promised assurance that power and wealth would be, before long, their envied portion."
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