and cruel, far beyond his dead
master--"the cruellest man on earth," Slatin Pasha dubbed him,--by his
exactions and treacheries soon overreached himself. Events were
hastening to the overthrow of Mahdism. Sheiks and tribes fell away
from the Khalifa and returned to the fold of orthodox Mohammedanism.
By 1889, as an aggressive force seeking to enlarge its boundaries,
Mahdism was spent. Thereafter, stage by stage, its power dwindled,
although Omdurman, the dervish capital, remained the headquarters of
the strongest native military power that North Africa has ever known.

Lord Cromer has been blamed for many things he did, and much that he
left undone, during the earlier days of Mahdism. A fuller knowledge of
the whole circumstances justifies my saying that, as custodian of
_British interests_, he acted throughout with singular prudence and
great forbearance. It was not with his wish or approval that several
of the untoward expeditions against the dervishes were undertaken. It
is permissible to regret that, from a variety of causes, the British
Government engaged in more than one ill-considered and irresolute
campaign for the destruction of Mahdism. Much treasure and countless
thousands of lives were foolishly squandered and all without the
least compensating advantage. The barren results of the Soudan
campaigns directed from the War Office in Pall Mall form too painful a
subject for discussion. It is only fair to say, that the military
officials' hands may have been much hampered from Downing Street.

[Illustration: HEADQUARTERS, WADY HALFA.]

As I have stated elsewhere, it was not until 1896 that the serious
reconquest of the Soudan was begun. Before then there had been, as Mr
Gladstone after all appropriately termed them, "military operations,"
but not a state of war. He might have called them "blood-spilling
enterprises," for they were only that and no more. The re-occupation
of the province of Dongola in 1896, freed the Nile up to Merawi, and
gave the disaffected Kababish, Jaalin and riverain tribesmen a chance
of reverting to their allegiance to the Khedive. It also enabled the
Sirdar to pass his gunboats farther up the river. Another gain issuing
from the forward movement was that his right was secured from serious
attack. Then followed the building of the wonderful Wady Halfa direct
desert railway towards Abu Hamid, Berber, and Dakhala at the mouth of
the Atbara. It was the 1897 campaign which put all these place