Once more the day of punishment for the guilty had dawned. In the disasters and defeats inflicted by the Mahdi, in the horrors of the sack of Khartoum and many another town, Egypt had paid the penalty for her sins against the Soudan. In blood and shame she had reaped a full harvest. But the unhappy Soudanese had only thrown off the yoke of one master to find themselves under that of one much more terrible. Even before the Mahdi’s death plunder and success had corrupted the new faith, and dimmed the first glow of religious fervour. The Khalifa, under the guise of religion, had developed into a cruel and bloodthirsty tyrant. He and his principal supporters, Arabs from Western Darfur, regarded themselves as conquerors in a foreign land. Especially since he had brought his own tribe, the Taaisha, to settle in Omdurman, he had made it his policy to depress the power of the Nile Valley tribes like the Jaalin and the Danagla. On them fell the brunt of his military expeditions. Executions, massacre, and confiscations, were the order of the day. The inhabitants of whole districts, especially in the once-populous country along the Blue Nile, were forced to come and live at Omdurman, which grew into a city of 400,000 inhabitants. This concentration, by at once creating a great demand and withdrawing the agricultural population from their proper occupation, produced the most terrible famines. Everything was sacrificed to the supremacy of the western Arabs. In ten years more damage was inflicted upon the country by this pack of human wolves than in all the sixty years of Egyptian dominion, bad as it was. Slatin Pasha estimates that 75 per cent. of the population perished. Great as the abominations of the slave-trade had been before, they were never greater than under the Khalifa’s rule. The export of slaves was forbidden, but from all parts of the country they were brought in droves to the market at Omdurman.

The slave-dealing tribes had been the principal instrument of vengeance upon Egypt. It was now their turn for chastisement. The Egyptian Sirdar, Sir H. Kitchener, who fought with the railway as well as with troops, advanced to Dongola in September, 1896, and the banks of the river were again occupied up to Merowe. Next year Abu Hamed and Berber were taken, and the new railway laid from Wadi Halfa across the Korosko desert. Early in 1898 the battle of the Atbara was won by the Anglo-Egyptian troops. In September the great battle of the campaign was fought at Kerreri, Omdurman was taken, and the Egyptian flag was once more flying at Khartoum, this time with the British flag beside it. By the end of the year the authority of the new rulers was established, after some difficult and troublesome campaigning, throughout the Eastern Soudan as far south as Fazokhl and Famaka; gunboats, though blocked in the Bahr el Gebel, had proceeded up the Bahr el Ghazal and hoisted the flags near Meshra el Rek. Before the end of 1899 the Khalifa and the remnant of his supporters still in the field had fought their last fight. In the hour of their downfall the dervish chieftains displayed a splendid courage worthy of their race. Proudly disdaining to be fugitives in the lands they had ruled, they perished to a man with their faces to the foe.

But of far greater importance than the final destruction of the Khalifa were the events that followed on the fall of Omdurman, which are inseparably connected with the name of Fashoda. Since the time when the Khedive Ismail was pursuing his wild career of annexation without attracting any particular attention except from the natives of the countries annexed, the whole position of affairs had entirely altered. In every direction European Powers had appeared upon the scene. In the east Massowah had been handed over to the Italians in 1885, and they had inflicted several severe defeats upon the dervishes. In 1893 a British Protectorate had been declared over Uganda and Unyoro, and in 1895 the British flag was hoisted at Duffile. The Belgians from the Congo Free State had pressed on to the Nile, and in 1897 an expedition under Chaltin was successful in taking Rejaf, which had long been the southernmost dervish post on the river.

Most serious of all was the French movement from the Upper Ubanghi district of French Congoland into the Bahr el Ghazal province. The Belgians had already made considerable expeditions in this quarter, and had penetrated as far north as Hofrat-en-Nahas in Southern Darfur. In 1894 they made over their claims to the French. The French Governor of the Upper Ubanghi, M. Liotard, immediately began to lay his plans with great energy and forethought for the solid establishment of French power in the Valley of the Nile. At the end of 1895 he crossed the Congo-Nile watershed, and seized Tembura on the river Sueh, an affluent of the Bahr el Ghazal. He also occupied Dem Zubehr, on the Bahr el Homr. Captain Marchand arrived with reinforcements from France in 1897, and after spending some time in consolidating his position by occupying posts throughout the country, he set out on the final stage of his journey. After great difficulties and some fighting with the dervishes, he reached Fashoda just eight weeks before the fall of Omdurman.

The French preparations had not escaped the attention of those responsible for Egypt. As far as the Khalifa was concerned, the advance of the Anglo-British troops might have been delayed for some time; but in view of the French advance it was absolutely necessary for Egypt to reassert her rights in the Soudan emphatically and at once. Immediately after the occupation of Omdurman Lord Kitchener hastened on to Fashoda, and found Marchand already there. The situation was grave. For France it was galling in the extreme to be foiled just in the moment of success, but for Egypt the question was vital. The stake at issue was not the possession of a few acres of swamp, but the control of the summer water-supply. Marchand’s mission was by no means the mere freak of an adventurous traveller, anxious to hoist his country’s flag. It was undertaken as part of a policy skilfully planned and deliberately pursued.

It was no mere coincidence that in the previous year the Bonchamps Expedition had set out from Abyssinia, and endeavoured, though vainly, to join hands with Marchand from the east. Firmly based in the Bahr el Ghazal, masters of the Upper Nile Valley, and joining hands with Abyssinia, the French would have been in the end complete masters of the fate of Egypt. If the French had insisted, there must have been war. Happily, they gave way, and by the agreement of 1899 withdrew all their posts in the Bahr el Ghazal. The boundary of the Soudan was fixed along the Nile-Congo watershed.

Thus the Soudan emerged at last, and finally, it may be hoped, from her ordeal of blood and fire. Her history will be no longer a record of tyranny, rebellion, war, and famine, but of steady progress under a just and civilized government. The work of Baker and Gordon is bearing fruit at last. Great as were the joy and relief with which the downfall of the dervish tyranny was hailed throughout the Soudan, it was largely due to faith in the word and just dealing of Englishmen—a faith that was first established by them and those who worked with them—that the whole country settled down so quickly.

Among all the pioneers of good government in the Soudan one name stands out conspicuously. Most of the ease and success with which the present government works is due to the realization of the reforms recommended in Colonel D. H. Stewart’s Report on the Soudan. The rulers of the Soudan are the first to acknowledge their obligation to that masterly document, an epitome of keen observation and practical wisdom. Fortunate is the country that is served by such men as he. A few months after he had completed his report he returned with Gordon to Khartoum. He, at least, had no delusions as to their prospects of success. And yet he went as cheerfully and lightly as though

“Tendens Venafranos in agros

Aut Lacedæmonium Tarentum.”