Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: July 2, 2025
This offensive action still further alarmed the Khedive Ismail, who was fully alive to the danger that might arise to his own position if a powerful military confederacy, under a capable chief, were ever organised in the Soudan. Instead of allying himself with the Darfourians, as would probably have been the more politic course, Ismail decided to invade their territory simultaneously with Zebehr.
Gordon knew that to leave a thing half done was only to invite the danger to reappear. Suleiman had retired with his 1500 men to Shaka, the followers of Zebehr from all sides throughout the province would flock to his standard, and in a little time he would be more formidable and hostile than before.
An interview between Gordon and Zebehr was therefore arranged for 26th January, the day after this memorandum was written. On 25th it should also be remembered that the Khedive had again made Gordon Governor-General of the Soudan. Besides the two principals, there were present at this interview Sir Evelyn Baring, Sir Gerald Graham, Colonel Watson, and Nubar Pasha.
With details of that event I am not acquainted, and I never saw the papers, for I went to Abyssinia. Gessi's orders were to try him, and if guilty to shoot him. This is all I have to say about Zebehr and myself. "Zebehr, without doubt, was the greatest slave-hunter who ever existed. Zebehr is the most able man in the Soudan; he is a capital general, and has been wounded several times.
The telegram reached England on February 18, and must at first have caused some of the Cabinet Ministers to think that Gordon had lost his head. The last that they had heard on the subject of Gordon's relationship with Zebehr, was the suggestion of the former that the latter should be sent as a prisoner to Cyprus, to get him out of Egypt, where he thought he might give trouble.
Some of the slave traders had become very rich, and one of them, Zebehr Rahama, now in captivity in Gibraltar, had become so powerful that even the Khedive dared not molest him.
But as they increased in numbers, wealth, and confidence in themselves and their organisation, the Khedive began to see in them a possible danger to his own authority. This feeling was strengthened when the slavers, under the leadership of the since notorious Zebehr Rahama, the most ambitious and capable of them all, refused to pay their usual tribute.
Also that with Zebehr, being a prisoner, it would be possible to make certain stipulations on the subject of slave-hunting. Moreover, it was Gordon's intention eventually to annex, for the Congo State, the great slave-hunting district, and to rule that himself, so that Zebehr could not interfere.
Thus perished Suleiman, the son of Zebehr, in whose name and for whose safety he had gone into revolt, in the very way that Gordon had predicted two years before in the midst of his brigand power at Shaka; and thus, with a remarkable combination of skill and courage, did Gessi bring his arduous campaign of twelve months' duration to a victorious conclusion.
"To do this I count on Zebehr; but if the addenda is made that I leave a satisfactory settlement of affairs, then Zebehr becomes a sine quâ non. "Therefore the question resolves itself into this. Does H.M.'s Government or Egyptian Government desire a settled state of affairs in Soudan after the evacuation? Do these Governments want to be free of this religious fanatic?
Word Of The Day
Others Looking