wild rumours spreading over the
country and reaching to Egypt and Suakin of the advent to power of an
opposition mahdi. Abu Gemaiza attacked a portion of Osman Adam's
force, under Abd-el-Kader, at Kebkebia, 30 m. from El Fasher, and
almost annihilated it on the 16th of October 1888; and a week later
another large force of Osman Adam met with the same fate at the same
place. Instead of following up his victories, Abu Gemaiza retired to
Dar Tama to augment his army, to which thousands flocked as the news
of his achievements spread far and wide. He again advanced to El
Fasher in February 1889, but was seized with smallpox. His army,
however, under Fiki Adam, fought a fierce battle close to El Fasher on
the 22nd, which resulted in its defeat and dispersion, and Abu Gemaiza
himself dying the following day, the movement collapsed.

In 1891 Darfur and Kordofan were again disturbed, and Sultan Abbas
succeeded in turning the dervishes out of the Jebel Marra district.
Two years later a saint of Sokoto, Abu Naal Muzil el Muhan, collected
many followers and for a time threatened the khalifa's power, but the
revolt gradually died out.

_The Bahr-el-Ghazal._--The first outbreak in favour of Mahdism in the
Bahr-el-Ghazal took place at Liffi in August 1882, when the Dinka
tribe, under Jango, revolted and was defeated by Lupton Bey with
considerable slaughter at Tel Gauna, and again in 1883 near Liffi. In
September of that year Lupton's captain, Rufai Aga, was massacred with
all his men at Dembo, and Lupton, short of ammunition, was forced to
retire to Dem Suliman, where he was completely cut off from Khartum.
After gallantly fighting for eighteen months he was compelled by the
defection of his troops to surrender on the 21st of April 1884 to
Karamalla, the dervish amir of the province. He died at Omdurman in
1888.

In 1890 the Shilluks in the neighbourhood of Fashoda rose against the
khalifa, and the dervish amir of Gallabat, Zeki Tumal, was engaged for
two years in suppressing the rebellion. He got the upper hand in 1892,
and was recalled to oppose an Italian force said to be advancing from
Massawa; but on reporting that it was impossible to invade Eritrea, as
the khalifa wished him to do, he was summoned to Omdurman and put to
death. The country then relapsed into its original barbarous
condition, and dervish influence was nominal only. In 1892 the Congo
Sta