chapter 4 (London: Macmillan & Company).

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On the 21st of March, the Sirdar left Cairo for Assouan and Wady Halfa, and various Egyptian battalions were hurried up the river. Meantime, the forces already on the frontier had moved forward and taken the advanced post of the Dervishes, at Akasheh. From that point the Sirdar was ready to begin his advance early in June, and did so with two columns, a River Column and a Desert Column, the latter including a camel corps and a squadron of infantry mounted on camels, besides cavalry, horse artillery and Maxim guns. Ferket, on the east bank of the Nile, 16 miles from Akasheh, was taken after hard fighting on the 7th of June, many of the Dervishes refusing quarter and resisting to the death. They lost, it was estimated, 1,000 killed and wounded, and 500 were taken prisoners. The Egyptian loss was slight. The Dervishes fell back some fifty miles, and the Sirdar halted at Suarda during three months, while the railroad was pushed forward, steamers dragged up the cataracts and stores concentrated, the army suffering greatly, meantime, from an alarming epidemic of cholera and from exhausting labors in a season of terrific heat. In the middle of September the advance was resumed, and, on the 23d, Dongola was reached. Seeing themselves outnumbered, the enemy there retreated, and the town, or its ruins, was taken with only a few shots from the steamers on the river. "As a consequence of the fall of Dongola every Dervish fled for his life from the province. The mounted men made off across the desert direct to Omdurman, and the foot soldiers took the Nile route to Berber, always being careful to keep out of range of the gunboats, which were prevented by the Fourth Cataract from pursuing them beyond Merawi."

_C. Hoyle, The Egyptian Campaigns, new and revised edition, to December, 1899, chapter 70-71._

The Emir who commanded at Dongola was a comparatively young man, Mohammed Wad el Bishara, who seems to have been possessed by a very genuinely religious spirit, as shown in the following letter, which he had written to the Dervish commander at Ferket, just before the battle there, and which was found by the British officers when they entered that place:

"You are, thank God, of good understanding, and are thoroughly acquainted with those rules of religion which enjoin love and unison. Thanks be to God that I hear but good reports of you. But you are now close to the enemy of God, and have with you, with the help of God, a sufficient number of men. I therefore request you to unite together, to have the heart of a single man founded on love and unity. Consult with one another, and thus you will insure good results, which will strengthen the religion and vex the heathen, the enemies of God. Do not move without consulting one another, and such others, also, in the army who are full of sense and wisdom. Employ their plans and tricks of war, in the general fight more especially. Your army, thank God, is large; if you unite and act as one hand, your action will be regular: you will, with the help of God, defeat the enemies of God and set at ease the mind of the Khalifa, peace be on him! Follow this advice, and do not allow any intrigues to come between you. Rely on God in all your doings; be bold in all your dealings with the enemy; let them find no flaw in your disposition for the fight. But be ever most vigilant, for these enemies of God are cunning, may God destroy them! Our brethren, Mohamed Koku, with two others, bring you this letter; on their return they will inform me whether you work in unison or not. Let them find you as ordered in religion, in good spirits, doing your utmost to insure the victory of religion. Remember, my brethren, that what moves me to urge on you to love each other and to unite is my love for you and my desire for your good. This is a trial of war; so for us love and amity are of utmost necessity. You were of the supporters of the Mahdi, peace be on him! You were as one spirit occupying one body. When the enemy know that you are quite united they will be much provoked. Strive, therefore, to provoke these enemies of religion. May God bless you and render you successful."

EGYPT: A. D. 1895. New anti-slavery law.

A convention to establish a more effective anti-slavery law in Egypt was signed on the 21st of November, 1895, "by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, representing the Khedival Government, and the British diplomatic agent and consul-general. … This new convention will supplant that of August 4, 1877, which … was found to be defective, inasmuch as it provided no penalty for the purchaser of a slave, but for the seller only. An Egyptian notable, Ali Pasha Cherif, at that time president of the Legislative Council, was tried for buying slaves for his household, but escaped punishment through a technicality of the law hitherto escaping notice. … Under the existing regulations, every slave in the Egyptian dominions has the right to complete freedom, and may demand his certificate of manumission whenever he chooses. Thus, all domestic slaves, of whom there are thousands in Cairo, Alexandria, and the large towns, may call upon their masters to set them free. Many choose to remain in nominal bondage, preferring the certainty of food and shelter to the hardships and uncertainty of looking after themselves."

_United States, Consular Reports, March, 1896, page 370._

EGYPT: A. D. 1897. Italian evacuation of Kassala, in the eastern Sudan.

See (in this volume) ITALY: A. D. 1897.

EGYPT: A. D. 1897 (June). Census.

A census of Egypt, taken on the 1st of June, 1897, showed a population of 9,700,000, the area being Egypt up to Wady Haifa. In 1882 an imperfect census gave six and three-quarter millions. Twelve per cent. of the males can write, the rest are totally illiterate. There are, it is said, about 40,000 persons not really Egyptians, but who come from other parts of the Ottoman Empire. The Bedouin number 570,000, but of these only 89,000 are really nomads, the rest being semi-sedentary. Of foreign residents there are 112,500, of whom the Greeks, the most numerous, number 38,000. Then come the Italians, with 24,500. The British (including 6,500 Maltese and 5,000 of the Army of Occupation) are 19,500; and the French (including 4,000 Algerians and Tunisians), 14,000. The Germans only number 1,300. {197} The classification according to religion shows nearly 9,000,000 Moslems, 730,000 Christians, and 25,000 Jews, The Christians include the Coptic race, numbering about 608,000. Only a very small proportion profess the Roman Catholic and Protestant faiths. Amongst the town populations Cairo contains 570,000, Alexandria 320,000.

EGYPT: A. D. 1897-1898. The final campaigns of the Anglo-Egyptian conquest of the Eastern Sudan. Desperate battles of the Atbara and of Omdurman.

"The winter of 1896-1897 was passed, undisturbed by the enemy. The extended and open front of the Egyptian army imperatively called for fresh guarantees against a Dervish invasion. The important strategic position of Abu Hamed was then held by the enemy, to dislodge whom was the objective of the 1897 campaign. The railway was boldly launched into the Nubian Desert; the rail-head crept rapidly and surely towards the Dervish post, until within striking distance of Abu Hamed: when the river-column, by a forced march, through difficult country, delivered an attack on 7th August. Abu Hamed was taken by the Egyptian army under Major-General (now Sir Archibald) Hunter, with trifling loss: and the effect of this victory caused the precipitate evacuation of Berber. The Dervishes withdrew: the Egyptians—not to lose so favourable an opening—advanced. Berber, the key to the Sudan, was promptly re-occupied. The railway was hastened forward; reinforcements were detrained, before the close of the year, at a short distance from Berber: and the Anglo-Egyptian authorities gathered force for the last heat. British troops were called up. In this final struggle [1898] nothing could be risked. An Egyptian reverse would have redoubled the task on the accomplishment of which, having deliberately accepted it, we had pledged our honour. Mahmud, the Dervish emir, and that ubiquitous rascal Osman Digna, with their united forces, were marching on Berber. They, however, held up at the confluence of the Atbara, and comfortably intrenched themselves in a 'zariba.' Here the Sirdar came out to have a look at them. The Dervish force numbered about 19,000 men. The Anglo-Egyptian army was composed of 13,000 men. The odds were good enough for the Sirdar: and he went for them. Under the demoralization created by some sharp artillery practice, the Anglo-Egyptians stormed the 'zariba,' killed three-fourths of the defenders, and chased the remainder away. This victory [April 8, 1898], which cost over 500 men in killed and wounded, broke the Dervish power for offence and seriously damaged the Khalifa's prestige. With reinforcements, bringing his army up to 22,000 men, including some picked British regiments, the Sirdar then advanced slowly up the river. It was a pilgrimage to the Mahdi's tomb, in sight of which Cross and Crescent combined to overthrow the false prophet. This sanguinary and decisive engagement [before Omdurman] took place on 2nd September, 1898. The Khalifa was put to flight; his forces were scattered and ridden down. On the same evening, the Sirdar entered Omdurman, and released the European captives. Subsequently, the British and Egyptian flags were hoisted together at Khartum; and divine service was celebrated at the spot where Gordon fell."

_A. S. White, The Expansion of Egypt, pages 383-384 (New York: New Amsterdam Book Company)._

"The honour of the fight [at Omdurman] must still go with the men who died. Our men were perfect, but the dervishes were superb—beyond perfection. It was their largest, best, and bravest army that ever fought against us for Mahdism, and it died worthily of the huge empire that Mahdism won and kept so long. Their riflemen, mangled by every kind of death and torment that man can devise, clung round the black flag and the green, emptying their poor, rotten, homemade cartridges dauntlessly. Their spearmen charged death at every minute hopelessly. Their horsemen led each attack, riding into the bullets till nothing was left but three horses trotting up to our line, heads down, saying, 'For goodness' sake, let us in out of this.' Not one rush, or two, or ten—but rush on rush, company on company, never stopping, though all their view that was not unshaken enemy was the bodies of the men who had rushed before them. A dusky line got up and stormed forward: it bent, broke up, fell apart, and disappeared. Before the smoke had cleared, another line was bending and storming forward in the same track.

"It was over. The avenging squadrons of the Egyptian cavalry swept over the field. The Khalifa and the Sheikh-ed-Din had galloped back to Omdurman. Ali Wad Helu was borne away on an angareb with a bullet through his thigh-bone. Yakub lay dead under his brother's banner. From the green army there now came only death-enamoured desperadoes, strolling one by one towards the rifles, pausing to shake a spear, turning aside to recognise a corpse, then, caught by a sudden jet of fury, bounding forward, checking, sinking limply to the ground. Now under the black flag in a ring of bodies stood only three men, facing the three thousand of the Third Brigade. They folded their arms about the staff and gazed steadily forward. Two fell. The last dervish stood up and filled his chest; he shouted the name of his God and hurled his spear. Then he stood quite still, waiting. It took him full; he quivered, gave at the knees, and toppled with his head on his arms and his face towards the legions of his conquerors. Over 11,000 killed, 16,000 wounded, 4,000 prisoners,—that was the astounding bill of dervish casualties officially presented after the battle of Omdurman. Some people had estimated the whole dervish army at 1,000 less than this total: few had put it above 50,000. The Anglo-Egyptian army on the day of battle numbered, perhaps, 22,000 men: if the Allies had done the same proportional execution at Waterloo, not one Frenchman would have escaped. … The dervish army was killed out as hardly an army has been killed out in the history of war. It will shock you, but it was simply unavoidable. Not a man was killed except resisting—very few except attacking. Many wounded were killed, it is true, but that again was absolutely unavoidable. … It was impossible not to kill the dervishes: they refused to go back alive."

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The same brilliant writer gives the following description of Omdurman, as the British found it on entering the town after the victory: "It began just like any other town or village of the mean Sudan. Half the huts seemed left unfinished, the other half to have been deserted and fallen to pieces. There were no streets, no doors or windows except holes, usually no roofs. As for a garden, a tree, a steading for a beast—any evidence of thrift or intelligence, any attempt at comfort or amenity or common cleanliness,—not a single trace of any of it. Omdurman was just planless confusion of blind walls and gaping holes, shiftless stupidity, contented filth and beastliness. But that, we said, was only the outskirts: when we come farther in we shall surely find this mass of population manifesting some small symbols of a great dominion. And presently we came indeed into a broader way than the rest—something with the rude semblance of a street. Only it was paved with dead donkeys, and here and there it disappeared in a cullender of deep holes where green water festered. … Omdurman was a rabbit-warren—a threadless labyrinth of tiny huts or shelters, too flimsy for the name of sheds. Oppression, stagnation, degradation, were stamped deep on every yard of miserable Omdurman.

"But the people! We could hardly see the place for the people. We could hardly hear our own voices for their shrieks of welcome. We could hardly move for their importunate greetings. They tumbled over each other like ants from every mud heap, from behind every dung-hill, from under every mat. … They had been trying to kill us three hours before. But they salaamed, none the less, and volleyed, 'Peace be with you' in our track. All the miscellaneous tribes of Arabs whom Abdullahi's fears or suspicions had congregated in his capital, all the blacks his captains had gathered together into franker slavery—indiscriminate, half-naked, grinning the grin of the sycophant, they held out their hands and asked for backsheesh. Yet more wonderful were the women. The multitude of women whom concupiscence had harried from every recess of Africa and mewed up in Baggara harems came out to salute their new masters. There were at least three of them to every man. Black women from Equatoria and almost white women from Egypt, plum-skinned Arabs and a strange yellow type with square, bony faces and tightly-ringleted black hair, … the whole city was a huge harem, a museum of African races, a monstrosity of African lust."

_G. W. Steevens, With Kitchener to Khartum,