To be pruned down if published.
C. G. GORDON.
[JOURNAL.]
October 21.—Steamers left this morning for Shendy. To-day is New Year’s Day of the Arabs, 1302. I think the Mahdi speculated on a rising in the town, but that the arrests[137] have put him out in his calculations.
New Year’s gift this morning, in arrival of Mahdi at Omdurman. Not much display. It is reported that he will occupy Kerowé and Halfeyeh at once; so it is as well I got the steamers off before he got his guns down to river bank. They will be safe with you,[138] and very useful.
Two men came in from Saleh Bey of Galabat with the post. They were thirty-two days en route. They brought a letter from Mitzakis, the Greek Consul, from Adowa, dated 17th August (which told me as much, or more, than Kitchener’s letter of 31st August!).[139] Saleh Bey is all right; he has been attacked. Spies say the small steamer Mahomet Ali, captured by the Arabs, is now on the Blue Nile, at Abou Haraz. Sennaar is all right.
Mitzakis writes to the Greek Consul here to say that a treaty has been made between Her Majesty’s Government and Abyssinia, to give Abyssinia Kassala, Galabat, Katarif, and Bogos! and that the King is preparing an army to go and take possession.[140] What an action. These lands (except Bogos) are entirely Mussulman, have held their own, and are in no way threatened, and we go and send a wild so-called Christian people (who have nothing to do with the quarrel) against these peoples, who have held their own against the Mahdi.