200 miles broad, from the Red Sea to the Sahara, and as long from
north to south. The whole country was in a state of unrest. The Khedive
had carried on an unsuccessful war against the Christian King of
Abyssinia, and the Mohammedan states of Kordofan and Darfur were in
revolt against Egypt. There half-savage Beduin tribes were scattered
about over the deserts, and there some of the worst slave-dealers had
their haunts.

In May, 1877, Gordon mounted his swift dromedary to set out on a journey
of 2000 miles. He wished to visit the villages and camps of the
slave-dealers in distant Darfur. The hot season had set in. When the sun
stood at its meridian altitude the shadow of the dromedary disappeared
beneath the animal. A dreary desert extended on all sides,
greyish-yellow, dusty, and dry.

The White Pasha skims over the desert mile after mile. He has the finest
dromedary in all the land, an animal that became famous throughout the
Sudan. Some hundreds of Egyptian troopers follow him, but he leaves them
all far behind and only a guide keeps up with him. He rushes over the
desert like the wind, and suddenly and unexpectedly draws rein at the
gates of an oasis before the guard can shoulder their arms. After giving
his orders in the name of the Khedive, he disappears as mysteriously, no
one knows whither. At another oasis, perhaps 300 miles away, the chief
has been warned of his coming and has therefore posted watchmen to look
out for him. Round about lies the desert, sandy and yellow, with a
surface as level as a sea, where the approach of the White Pasha can be
seen from a long distance. The watchman announces that two black specks
are visible in the distance, which, it is supposed, are the Pasha's
outriders, and some hours must pass before he arrives with his troops.
The two specks grow larger and come rapidly nearer. The dromedaries
swing their long legs over the ground, seeming to fly on invisible
wings. Now the men have come to the margin of the oasis. The watchers
can hardly believe their eyes. One of the riders wears the
gold-embroidered uniform of an Egyptian pasha. Never had the Sudan seen
a Governor-General travelling in this way--without flags and noisy
music, and stripped of all the display appropriate to his rank.

And as he came so he flew away again, mysteriously and incomprehensibly.
Again and again he lost his armed force. In some districts he closed the
paths leading to wells in order to bring the refracto