tention was to advance upon Mandugba. Zebehr was well aware that to have retreated at this time before Balali would have been to destroy his prestige forever, and to have given up his kingdom to ruin. He had sent reports to Khartoum of what Balali was doing, but had received no answer, and in the absence of instructions from headquarters, he was bound to take the responsibility of action upon himself. He accordingly prepared for war. Now you know the cause; say, did not that traitor deserve his death? "* The battle had lasted one hour. The death of Balali brought it to an end. Without a leader the blacks at once submitted. Zebehr freed the merchants whom he found in Balali's train, and collecting all their goods, he begged each man to point out his own. He then restored everything with the exception of arms and ammunition, which he considered to be a fair But his soldiers were distributed compensation for the service he had renthrough all the towns of his dominions. dered, and the merchants and natives reThe troops which he could at that time turned to their homes. All that belonged mobilize in Mandugba were outnumbered to the government in Balali's equipment by Balali's forces in a proportion of some- was collected and put on one side, and a thing like ten to one. Zebehr's men full report of the occurrence was sent to were, however, well armed and fairly dis- Khartoum. Zebehr expressed his willing. ciplined; Balali's army was a mere rabble. ness, at the same time, either to go up to The encampment which had been assigned Khartoum to answer for the action he had to Balali was to the south of Mandugba. taken, or to await a commission of inquiry A small stream flowed to the east of both at Mandugba, as the government might places; and east again of the stream the direct. In reply, Dafir Pasha sent down road by which Mandugba was approached Ali Bey, a Syrian, and twelve minor men, from the Bahr-el-Ghazal split into two with a commission to inquire into all the branches, one leading north to Mandugba, circumstances and to report to the govone south to Balali's encampment. The ernment. Zebehr laid everything open to pasha drew a plan of the position. their inspection at Mandugba, and Ali Bey When Balali was seen to be approach-reported to the government in Zebehr's ing, Zebehr drew up his men in three favor. The terms of the report stated blocks outside the city, determining to Balali to have been evidently a dangerous wait and see whether Balali would go and dishonest man, and a strong opinion peacefully to his own encampment, or was expressed that if Zebehr had acted whether he meant to attack. At the differently the whole country would have branching of the roads there was no longer been in disorder. In consequence of this any doubt. Balali marched at once upon report the government offered its thanks Mandugba, breaking up his army with the to Zebehr, and desired him to send in an intention to surround the town. Zebehr's account of all that he had spent on acmen were eager to begin, but he re- count of Balali's troops. By this time the strained them, allowing Balali to weaken expenses had mounted to £10,000. The his force by dispersion, till Balali him- government did not dispute the amount, self rode out from amongst his men, and but desired him to name an agent in Khar began the battle by firing at Zebehr, who toum to whom the money should be paid. was on horseback with the centre of the He was appointed governor of the prop force. He wounded Zebehr in the lowerince of the White Nile, and Balali's solpart of the leg, and was answered by a diers and arms were transferred to his volley from Zebehr's troops. Firing con- command. The Balali incident took place tinued for a few minutes very hotly, peo- in 1871. A few months of tranquillity ple in the station being wounded, as well followed, and then troubles began to arise as soldiers; then guns were flung away, and the battle was finished in a hand-to hand contest. "As for me," the pasha said, "I said in my heart, I have no quarrel with these troops. I will kill none but Balali.' Every one was mixed together, but I sought him out. His brother threw himself between us; I killed his brother. Another brother came between us, and I killed him. Then Balali ran away, but I galloped after him and killed him. My enemies have accused me that I killed Balali without a cause. in the north. New tribes of Bedouins had been coming in upon those with whom Zebehr had made the treaty of 1868, and internal quarrels were taking place, in which, amongst other things, the new-comers reproached My pale narrative does little justice to the vigor and animation with which the pasha told this story. The disgust at Balali's early treachery, the scorn of his when he ran away in battle, the candid satisfaction in later protestations, the bitter laugh at his cowardice his death, were not hidden by the interpreter's broken English; but on pain of falling into invention I must keep to the mere words I received. longer safe caravans would no longer pass that way, and that in grasping at more they would lose the subsidy which Zebehr paid. He pointed out also that they had a market themselves at Mandugba for their milk and butter and cattle; that the advantages were all on the side of peace. They were as unmanageable as other audi. ences who have made up their minds for an aggressive policy. They replied, "No; this man is too strong. After a time he will come against us and conquer us as he conquered the Bongos and the NyamNyams. It is better that we should fight him now." Braima continued to speak in favor of the treaty till they silenced him, saying: "If you are Zebehr's friend, go and live with him; but if you are a Bedouin, speak as a Bedouin, and act as we the older tribes with the compact by which | desires? He pays us a small sum; if we they were bound. The older Bedouin rob the caravans we get all." Braima tribes had settled down into comparatively pointed out that when the road was no peaceful habits of life, doing a very valuable trade in cattle and dairy produce with Mandugba. They received a constantly increasing subsidy from Zebehr for the right of way guaranteed through their country; they had shown themselves satisfied with their treaty, and they had kept it faithfully. Whether the sight of the numerous caravans which passed proved at last too much for their predatory instincts, or whether, in consequence of the infusion of wild races, the party of violence was suddenly strengthened in their councils, the result of their quarrels was that about the beginning of the year 1872, after four years of absolute peace, a big caravan was attacked and plundered. Many of the men accompanying it were killed, the remainder fled to Žebehr. He sent an embassy to the Bedouins to re-act." They took Zebehr's ivory and wrote monstrate, saying: "You remember our treaty. I have not failed in my part of it, and you have had your benefit. Since the treaty was made you have had money every year and you have traded with Mandugba. We have been at peace and you have been richer. Why, then, do you now break the treaty and kill and rob the people who are coming to me?" But they banded together and replied that they were tired of the treaty. The money they received in subsidies was less, they said, than they could get by attacking the caravans. They preferred to return to their old habits, which were more worthy of a warlike nation than to trade in butter, and they declared that they would be no more at peace with him. He reminded them of their oath. They replied that many rains had washed that away. Still, after much negotiation, they agreed to renew the treaty, on condition that their present offence should be wiped out. Shortly afterwards they again attacked a caravan. When Zebehr again remonstrated they sent as their spokesman one of their chiefs named Braima. This Braima was a very intelligent man. He saw, as Zebehr pointed out, that it was to the advantage of the Bedouins as well as of every one else to keep the road open according to treaty. He promised to try to bring the Arabs to a fresh agreement, and in order to test his power Zebehr sent six hundred pieces of ivory of his own to be passed through. Braima, returning with the ivory, called a council of Arabs. But they refused to agree to his proposals. "Why," they asked, "should we do as this man him a sealed letter: "Do not think that we will make a treaty with you again. If you are strong enough come out and fight us.' Zebehr wrote back to them that peace was better than war; that, for his part, he did not wish to fight, but to trade. He reminded them that he, too, was an Arab, and again proposed a treaty with them. They replied that if he was the strong man people called him, he was to come out and fight; if not, that they would go and attack him, and destroy his city out of the world. Then he gathered his army and went out. Before starting he appointed as his responsible agent in Mandugba the Idris Abtar whom he had lately freed from the power of Balali. He was an old man. Zebehr believed him trustworthy; but he proved to be one of those who are not to be trusted alone. "A good man," the pasha said, "can be left to act by himself; one who only seems good shows his nature when he is left to himself." The enemy came four days' march to meet Zebehr. They numbered about fifteen thousand, of which the greater portion was cavalry. Zebehr's army numbered forty-five hundred, chiefly on foot, but well armed. They met at four o'clock in the afternoon. Zebehr had trained his men to shoot lying on the ground, and when the enemy's cavalry advanced to the charge, they fell on their faces and fired. By this manœuvre, with which the Bedouins were unacquainted, the enemy lost an enormous number of cavalry. After half an hour's fighting they were repulsed, but rallied and attacked again. They were repulsed again, but again they rallied, and at nightfall Zebehr was surrounded. The enemy enclosed him on all sides in a long oval. In the night he and two of his chief officers took off their clothes and went naked and silent round the enemy's lines till they knew which was the weakest position. Then they roused their army, and before dawn they attacked. The enemy was completely taken by surprise, and fled, leaving Zebehr master of the position, with six hundred horses and other spoils. He began to form a cavalry corps. After this followed seven months of fighting, at the end of which Zebehr was master of Shekka. Three-fourths of the Bedouins submitted to him. The other fourth fled to the sultan of Darfour, and offered themselves to him, entreating him to espouse their cause, and to attack Zebehr. Zebehr in the mean time fortified himself in Shekka, and wrote to offer his conquest to the government at Khartoum. The governor was no longer Dafir Pasha but Ismail.* Zebehr begged him to take over the new country for the khedive. For his own part, he said that he was a merchant, that he had much to attend to in his own country, and that he preferred to confine himself to his business. "I am," he said, a subject of the Egyptian government. I was obliged to fight these people, but I have no wish to take the country for myself. Send down a governor. I have too much to do to govern the country, but I will do all that I can to help anybody else. Only attend to this matter at once. It is most important that there should be no delay." At that time the pasha said this letter candidly expressed his views. His business at Mandugba had become very extensive. It was flourishing, it filled his hands, and he had no thought of becoming anything but the merchant governor of that province. Upon the receipt of Zebehr's letter Ismail Yacoub referred the matter to Cairo. From Cairo the answer came that Zebehr was the only man competent to govern those wild countries, that their possession would embroil the government in perpetual little wars, and that the best course was to let Zebehr pay tribute for them, and remain otherwise independent, fixing his own taxes and governing as he pleased. Ismail Yacoub fixed the tribute at £15,000 a year. Zebehr accepted the proposal, and a formal agreement was entered into. In the mean time the sultan of Darfour, listening to the representations of those Bedouins who had fled to him before Zebehr, had made up his mind to fight the new conqueror. He protested against the compact between Zebehr and the Egyptian government, claiming Shekka as part of his territory, and denying the right of the Egyptian government to dispose of it. He summoned Zebehr to evacuate it. Zebehr replied: "This country has been subject to you for thirty-six years. During the whole of that time slave-hunting has continued here, and the roads remain unsafe. You have not the power to keep order. No one can but I. Several times before me you have tried and failed. Now you want me to leave it, but I will not. I am determined to assure the safety of these roads." The reply of the sultan was to declare war, but letters still passed between them. In all there were eight letters upon this subject.* Zebehr endeavored to reason with him, and offered to submit the question to a council of wise men, promising on his part, if free discussion were allowed, to accept the arbitration of the council. The sultan's final answer was: "I am a king and you are nothing. I will not reason with you; and he commenced operations of war. The army which he sent against Zebehr was supposed to number forty thousand, including nine thousand cavalry and twentythree cannon. It was under the command of a man named Shakta, one of the wisest councillors of the sultan. Zebehr's army now numbered nearly nine thousand, including some cavalry but no artillery. referred in the course of his narrative existed at the These letters and all documents to which the pasha time of his arrest by the English. They passed out of his possession at that time. Since my return to England copies of them have been placed in my hands, and an Arabic correspondent has kindly summarized the contents for me as follows: "The first despatch is addressed by Zebehr to Ibrahim, sultan of Darfour, asking him to send a contingent to Bahr-el-Ghazal to join Zebehr's soldiers in fighting the brigands and marauders who close the roads. In the second, Zebehr warns Sultan Ibrahim to guard himself against the insidious insinuations of Alian Hamed and Manzel, the two leaders of the brigands, who, after being defeated by Zebehr's troops, escaped and took refuge with their Zebehr complains of Sultan Ibrahim for having taken zbehr, contrary to the laws of the Prophet. In the the part of the marauders, and made up to fight against fourth despatch Zebehr informs Sultan Ibrahim of his triumph, and of the defeat of the contingent sent by Ibrahim to fight against the khedive's troops, and makes him responsible to God for all the bloodshed. The fifth despatch was addressed by Zebehr to the learned scholars and erudite doctors, and sheiks, dig chiefs in Sultan Ibrahim's dominions. In the third, nitaries, nobles, and notables of Darfour. In this despatch Zebehr denounces Sultan Ibrahim, and throws all the blame of the calamitous war upon him. The other three despatches are addressed by Zebehr to different chiefs and notables, and to Sultan Ibrahim; and Ismail Yacoub, known to us by his subsequent op- all of them bear on the same subject of opening the position to Gordon's plans of reform. roads and securing them for the safety of wayfarers." Zebehr had good powder from Cairo, and he had on his side another terrible arm more dreaded by the men of Darfour than any rifles - the teeth of his soldiers. All who fell in battle were eaten. The gain of this first victory was enormous, both in prestige and material. The pasha supplied his army from the enemy's stores, and mounted his cavalry upon their horses. When a second army was sent against him, under the command of a chief named Abouna, he was able to advance with confidence to meet it at Kalaka. A battle began at eight o'clock in the morning, and, after hard fighting, Zebehr was again victorious. Abouna was killed and seven of his sons taken alive, besides a great quantity of spoil and ammunition. Zebehr, however, fell back again upon Shekka, taking his prisoners with him. Twenty days later he was attacked by a third army, commanded by a chief called Noor, who was defeated and fled. After this third battle, the Bedouins who had given their allegiance to the sultan of Darfour, left him and transferred their services to Zebehr, thereby increasing his cavalry considerably. At this time also the government at Khartoum sent him a troop of three hundred and fifty soldiers. These soldiers were frightened by the enormous numbers of the Darfour armies, and reports reached Zebehr that they meant to desert. He sent for them and asked them, saying: "I am not dead yet. Why are you going to the sultan?" They denied it, and by degrees the greater number learned to have confidence in his success. Sixty-one of them, however, did desert. Upon hearing of the advance of the army | army, they were easily penetrable by the of Darfour, Zebehr marched out with five French rifles, with which Zebehr's men thousand men. It was in the month of were armed. Besides the better guns, July, 1873, that the armies met at a place twenty-four hours' march north-west of Shekka. They fought, and Zebehr was beaten, losing four hundred killed besides wounded. He fell back towards Shekka, but within six hours of the station he was overtaken and attacked by the enemy's cavalry. Fighting continued from three o'clock in the afternoon till nightfall, when, with great difficulty, he succeeded in making his way back to the fortified town. In the night Shekka was attacked by cavalry. In the morning the whole host of the enemy was drawn up before it. But Zebehr's position had improved. His troops were refreshed with food, his numbers were nearly doubled, and he was ready for the fight. The battle began at twelve o'clock. By a quarter to one victory had already declared itself for him. Shakta had fallen. A little later and the rout of the enemy was complete. They fled, leaving the whole of their artillery on the field. Besides the twenty-three guns, Zebehr captured on this occasion twentyseven camel loads of ammunition, two thousand breastplates, and three hundred steel shields, together with a great quantity of horses, small arms, and the larger part of the camp furniture. The cannon were of a very curious kind. Even in Darfour they were considered to be old fashioned, having descended from ancestors of the sultan, and they bore date of manufacture of four hundred and eighty years ago.* Twenty-one were made of pure copper, and two of iron. The bores were about three feet long, with a diameter of six inches in the larger guns, and four in the smaller. The heavy guns were mounted upon wooden wheels, and the lighter were carried upon camels. All were breech-loaders, having an opening on one side, which the pasha illustrated by holding his snuff-box on one side and opening the cover downwards. The bullets used were solid round shot of copper. The small arms of the Darfour troops were old Turkish flint-locks, and the powder made in Darfour was very bad. The three hundred steel shields had been newly made for the purpose of resisting Zebehr's bullets, but though they were perfectly efficacious against the bullets thrown by the flint-locks of the Darfour His army now numbered twelve thousand infantry and ten thousand horse, and he felt himself strong enough to advance upon Dara. He took that town and fortified it strongly, digging all round it a ditch which was twelve feet deep and twelve feet wide. Here he sustained a siege which lasted for four months and thirteen days. At the end of that time the sultan of Darfour came in person with fresh troops, and there was a great battle, in which Zebehr was completely victorious, and Sultan Hussein lost his life. Zebehr then sent embassies to Fascher, saying: "Come and submit to me. My soldiers are wild with victory. It is bet *This takes us back to within sixty years of the batter that I should not advance to you; send tle of Salado, in which, if I remember rightly, gunpowder is first mentioned as being used in Europe. out to me and save your city and your children, and those yet unborn." They listened to him and submitted themselves, and he became master of Darfour. At this point in the story the pasha paused and said: "Now all that I had done I did by my own energy and with my own resources. I never received a penny from the government, yet I had worked for the government, I had risked my life again and again, I had given my brain, I had spent my money. If an Englishman, or any other European, had done for his country what I had done for mine he would have been rewarded. For me the only reward was that the government became jealous of my power." Conqueror of Darfour and Shekka, ruler of Mandugba, commander-in-chief of an army of twenty thousand men, and possessed of a very large private income, Zebehr was indeed a power to be considered. He offered Darfour, as he had offered Shekka, to the Egyptian government, who accepted it, and wrote to Ismail Yacoub, governor of Khartoum, desiring him to take over the province. Ismail Yacoub was in Kordofan, at a place called Fodja, where he had been waiting to see how the war went. "Not giving any help," said Zebehr with a queer smile, "but waiting to see whether I should be killed or conquer." He was afraid to obey the orders of the khedive and go down to Zebehr, because his friends had persuaded him that Zebehr would be incensed that the Egyptian government should make Darfour subject to Khartoum, and that he would vent his anger on the person of the governor. In the mean time Zebehr had received private information of the feeling of fear which his rapid conquests had excited in Cairo. He had been told that the khedive dreaded to see him establish an independent empire on the borders of Egypt. As he did not contemplate this, and did not wish, for the sake of his family established near Khartoum, to embroil himself in any way with the government, he acquiesced at once in the orders received, sent for Ismail Yacoub, offering him a safe-conduct, together with all the assistance that it was in his power to give, and early in 1875 resigned the government of Darfour into his hands. producing country. All sorts of European corn are grown there and yield fine crops, and the pasha named besides these eleven sorts of grain of which the interpreter could only tell me the Arabic names. Wheat ears habitually reach a length of six and seven inches. Indian corn stands higher than a man's head. Cotton and indigo are also among the commonly cultivated and profitable crops. I was shown cotton sheeting grown, spun, and woven in Darfour, of which, although the manufacture did not come near the English in evenness or closeness of thread, the material appeared to be excellent. Some portions of the country are finely wooded. The most striking among the trees of which the pasha made mention are the hümmel trees, spoken of, I believe, by travellers as a kind of fig. They grow to a great size and height, measuring sometimes about twelve and fourteen feet in diameter, and are used by the natives as cisterns. If properly done the trunk can be hollowed without in any way injuring the tree. In the rainy season they are filled by hand, and the dense foliage keeps the water cool all through the summer. Along the caravan roads they are a source of riches to the natives, who fill them industriously in the season of the rains, and afterwards sell the water to the caravans. The asilik is another fine tree with an edible fruit, which grows abundantly round Fascher. The summut, of which the bark is used for tanning, is plentiful. The higleege was also named amongst the big trees. There is generally a great deal of fine and useful timber in the wooded districts. Other portions of the country appear to resemble American prairie land. The pasha described them as wide tracts of grass where the cattle range in herds, which are sometimes to be counted by thousands. The owners of the cattle treat it in very much the same manner as the Western ranchers treat theirs, taking no other care of it than to count the herds once a year. The reg ular rains cause the grass to grow without cultivation. The cattle-owners, however, make hay and store it for winter consump tion. Horses, cows, and camels, constitute the principal herds. In some of the pasture lands there is a very considerable trade in dairy produce. The soil of Darfour is rich, and the water supply is in some parts of the country very good, the land being irrigated by rain and not depending on the overflow of the rivers. The rivers are not known, and are therefore, of course, unmarked |