ow
arrived.

After the capture of Dem Suleiman, Gessi began a pursuit which,
considering the difficulties of the route owing to heavy rain,
topographical ignorance, and the deficiency of supplies, may be
characterised as remarkable. Gessi took with him only 600 men, armed
with Remington rifles; but they could carry no more than three or four
days' provisions, which were exhausted before he came up with even the
rearmost of the fugitive Arabs. There the troops turned sulky, and it
was only by promising them as spoil everything taken that he restored
them to something like good temper. Six days after the start Gessi
overwhelmed one band under Abou Sammat, one of the most active of the
slave-hunters, and learnt that Suleiman himself was only twenty-four
hours ahead. But the difficulties were such that Gessi was almost
reduced to despair of the capture of that leader, and as long as he
remained at large the rebellion could not be considered suppressed.

Fortune played the game into his hand at the very moment that the
result seemed hopeless. In the middle of the night several men came to
his camp from Sultan Idris, one of the Arab chiefs, thinking it was
that of Rabi, the chief of Suleiman's lieutenants. Gessi sent one of
them back to invite him to approach, and at once laid his own plans.
He resolved to destroy Rabi's force, which lay encamped close by,
before the other band could come up; and by a sudden assault at
daybreak he succeeded in his object. The whole band was exterminated,
with the exception of Rabi himself, who escaped on a fast horse. Then
Gessi laid his ambuscade for Sultan Idris, who marched into the trap
prepared for him. This band also was nearly annihilated, but Sultan
Idris escaped, leaving, however, an immense spoil, which put the
Egyptian soldiers in good humour. For the disposal of this booty, and
for other reasons, Gessi resolved to return to Dem Suleiman.

At this point it was alone possible to criticise the action of the
energetic Gessi during the whole course of the campaign, and General
Gordon no doubt thought that if he had paid no attention to the spoil
captured from Rabi and Sultan Idris, but pressed the pursuit against
Suleiman, he might then and there have concluded the campaign. On the
other hand, it is only fair to state that Gessi had to consider the
sentiment of his own troops, while he was also ill from the mental
strain and physical exertion of conducting the campaign virtually by