A SLAVE CARAVAN IX THE SOUDAN. GORDON AND THE MAHDI

AN ILLUSTRATED NARRATIVE OF THE WAR IN THE SOUDAN

CHAPTEE I. womanwishes to bemarried to another she maybe, and then somethingcan be made out of the Soudan." Such was General Gordon's summary, to a high Egyptian official, of the state of things that he had undertaken

to assist inremedying. The wooingto which he referred was certainly arough one. It was Mehemet Ali, a ruler of greatgeniusandironwill,andthe originatorof all those reforms, both civil and military, which place Egypt far in advance of other Mahommedan countries,w*hoin 1819,

first conceived theidea of stretching out hishand across the sandy desert to the south of Cairo, and clutching the fertile lands beyond, where the cotton, styled by Pliny

The annexation of the Soudan.— Ismail Pasha's murder and Mehemet

Bey's vengeance.— Periodic rebellions.— Sir Samuel Baker's con- quests andultimate resignation.— The KhediveIsmail's civilizing rule in Egypt.— The Soudan slave trade.— Zebehr, chief of the great band of armed slave hunters.— The statemaintainedby him at Shakka.— His slaughter of the government troops, and sub- sequent conquest of Darfour.— Is created a Pasha.— Binds his allies withanoath.— His mission to Cairo, where he finds himself detainedincaptivity.

"The Soudan is a womanwho,until the present,has been married toEgypt;they are now divorced. If this

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