while living near the island of Abba in the Nile, he put forward his
claim to be the Messiah or Prophet, foretold by the founder of that
creed. Retiring with some disciples to that island, he gained fame by
his fervour and asceticism. His followers named him "El Mahdi," the
leader, but his claims were scouted by the Ulemas of Khartum, Cairo, and
Constantinople, on the ground that the Messiah of the Moslems was to
arise in the East. Nevertheless, while the British were crushing Arabi's
movement, the Mahdi stirred the Sudan to its depths, and speedily shook
the Egyptian rule to its base[377].

[Footnote 377: See the Report of the Intelligence Department of the War
Office, printed in _The Journals of Major-General C.G. Gordon at
Khartum_, Appendix to Bk. iv.]

There was every reason to fear a speedy collapse. In the years 1874-76
the Province of the White Nile had known the benefits of just and
tactful rule under that born leader of men, Colonel Gordon; and in the
three following years, as Governor-General of the Sudan, he gained
greater powers, which he felt to be needful for the suppression of the
slave-trade and other evils. Ill-health and underhand opposition of
various kinds caused him to resign his post in 1879. Then, to the
disgust of all, the Khedive named as his successor Rauf Pasha, whom
Gordon had recently dismissed for maladministration of the Province of
Harrar, on the borders of Abyssinia[378]. Thus the Sudan, after
experiencing the benefits of a just and able government, reeled back
into the bad old condition, at the time when the Mahdi was becoming a
power in the land. No help was forthcoming from Egypt in the summer of
1882, and the Mahdi's revolt rapidly made headway even despite several
checks from the Egyptian troops.

[Footnote 378: See Gordon's letter of April 1880, quoted in the
Introduction to _The Journals of Major-General C.G. Gordon at Khartum_
(1885), p. xvii.]

Possibly, if Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues had decided to crush it in
that autumn, the task might have been easy. But, far from doing so, they
sought to dissuade the Khedive from attempting to hold the most
disturbed districts, those of Kordofan and Darfur, beyond Khartum. This
might have been the best course, if the evacuation could have been
followed at once and without risk of disaster at the hands of the
fanatics. But Tewfik willed otherwise. Against the advice of Lord
Dufferin, he sought to reconquer the Sudan, and that, too,