ment than that with which they had previously been
acquainted. As soon as I had gone, the Turks and Circassians
returned in full force; the old Bashi-Bazouk system was
re-established; my old _employes_ were persecuted; and a population
which had begun to appreciate something like decent government was
flung back to suffer the vast excesses of Turkish rule. The
inevitable result followed; and thus it may be said that the egg of
the present rebellion was laid in the three years during which I
was allowed to govern the Soudan on other than Turkish principles."

There was a belief among the Mohammedans that the year 1882 would be an
eventful one for them. It closed the twelfth century of Mohammedanism,
and the popular expectation was that a Mahdi, or another prophet, would
arise to reform Islam, and to abolish the tyranny of the rich and
powerful. Predictions of this kind frequently bring about their own
accomplishment. Before the time stated, a man named Mohammed Achmet had
arisen, declaring that he was the long-looked-for Mahdi, and crowds
were flocking to his standard.[12] With a powerful governor, such as
Gordon, the movement would have been quickly stamped out; indeed, so
few abuses existed under his rule, that there was then no demand for
such a reformer. But with Raouf Pasha the case was reversed; not only
were there many abuses to be reformed, but there was a corresponding
want of ability to subdue such a movement. The Mahdi's forces grew
apace, for there existed plenty of material in the way of recruits.
Passing over smaller engagements in which the Egyptian troops met the
forces of the Mahdi, we come to one crowning disaster on the 5th
November 1883, when an Egyptian army, numbering something like 12,000
men, under the command of Colonel Hicks, a retired Indian officer, was
massacred on the road between Khartoum and El Obeid. No blame can be
attached to the commander on this occasion. Mr. Frank Power, the
_Times_ correspondent at Khartoum, writes of him as follows: "I pity
Hicks; he is an able, good, and energetic man, but he has to do with
wretched Egyptians, who take a pleasure in being incompetent, thwarting
one, delaying and lying." The unfortunate men who composed his army had
been dragged from their homes in chains, and many of them had never
learnt to fire a shot, or to ride a horse. Mr. Power predicted, before
the army left Khartoum, that fifty good men would rout the whole l