[53] See ante, note on page 39.—Ed.
[54] “The danger to be feared is not that the Mahdi will march northward through Wady Halfa; on the contrary, it is very improbable that he will ever go so far north. The danger is altogether of a different nature. It arises from the influence which the spectacle of a conquering Mahommedan Power, established close to your frontiers, will exercise upon the population which you govern. In all the cities in Egypt it will be felt that what the Mahdi has done they may do; and, as he has driven out the intruder and the infidel, they may do the same. Nor is it only England that has to face this danger. The success of the Mahdi has already excited dangerous fermentation in Arabia and Syria. Placards have been posted in Damascus calling upon the population to rise and drive out the Turks. If the whole of the Eastern Soudan is surrendered to the Mahdi, the Arab tribes on both sides the Red Sea will take fire. In self-defence the Turks are bound to do something to cope with so formidable a danger, for it is quite possible that if nothing is done the whole of the Eastern Question may be reopened by the triumph of the Mahdi.”—General Gordon’s views, as expressed to the Editor of the “Pall Mall Gazette.”—Ed.
[55] A town nearly opposite to Shendy, on the left bank of the Nile.—Ed.
[56] An old hot-bed of slavery on the White Nile.—Ed.
[57] “Ismail, the ex-Khedive, fully considered that to maintain his hold of the Soudan, he must improve his communications with it and Egypt proper. Unfortunately, in his wish to bring the Soudan trade down the Nile through Egypt proper, he was led to abandon its natural outlet by the route from Berber to Suakin, across the 280-mile desert, and determined to make a railway through the desert along the Nile past the Cataracts from Wady Halfa to Hanneck, a distance of 180 miles. Contracts were made, and some £450,000 were spent on the line; but financial difficulties arose, and in 1877 it came to a standstill some fifty or sixty kilometres south of Wady Halfa. It was evident that on this grand scale the continuation of the line could not be hoped for, so I studied the question. There was the line made from Wady Halfa for say fifty miles; and therefore 130 miles remained to be got over before this barrier of desert was passed. By the researches of Colonel Mason and Mr. Gooding, and also by my own personal examination, the river for this 130 miles was shown to be not continuously encumbered by rocks. There were, as it were, long strips of open, water between the ridges of rocks,—one of these strips was forty miles in length. Now steamers built in England had in full flood been hauled up every one of these ridges, and had thus been brought to Kartoum and had plied to Gondokoro. My idea was to bring up small steamers during high Nile, place them on all the open strips of water of any reasonable extent; and thus work them from ridge to ridge in these open spaces. I proposed further to have only one crew, and to ship them from steamer to steamer so as to save expense. At those places where the ridge was of any great length, I proposed to use tramways to get over the space between the debarking landing-place of one open water-way to the embarking wharf of the other open water-way. Thus, by using the water-way where open, and tramways where the river was encumbered, I should get over these 130 miles. I calculated that the cost of all this work, steamers, and tramways, &c., would be £70,000, while the railway, if carried, would have cost over a million and a half. However, the revolts, troubles of different kinds, and other things, prevented this being carried out, and the controllers would not take it up; so, after an expense of nearly half-a-million, the railway exists with its end en l’air, with its valuable stores perishing, while Egypt proper has no more hold over the Soudan than was had by Ancient Egypt.”—See “Colonel Gordon in Central Africa,” p. 315.—Ed.
[58] “On the 18th Feb., the day General Gordon arrived at Kartoum, he recommended in the strongest manner that Zubair should be sent up, and gave his reasons in detail.”—Egypt, No. 12, 1884. Enclosure in No. 114.
“On March 9, Sir Evelyn Baring recommended that Zubair should go up, such a recommendation being in harmony with the policy of evacuation.”—Egypt, No. 12, 1884, in 115 & 222.—Ed.
[59] This cannot be traced—Ed.
[60] Egypt, 1884, Nos. 201-56. See also Egypt, 1884, Nos. 35-166.
[61] Appendix F.