XIV INTRODUCTION. of Abyssinia to the remote confines of Darfur, scenes wild and bloody were about to be enacted. Face to face with the invincible Mahdi and his fierce general Osman Digna were now to appear successively Hicks Pasha, Baker Pasha, General Graham, and Admiral Hewett; in his turn should follow General Gordon, the hero satis peur et sans reproche; and then finally a second British army under the command of the renowned Lord Wolseley, the victor at Tel-el-Kebir. And so for three years along the Nile there ensued a series of terrible struggles, of brilliant, sanguinary, yet futile engagements, of which the eventual results were alike disastrous to the cause of civilisation and damaging to English prestige. The drama came to an end. When Baker was worsted, Khartoum captured, Gordon massacred, Wolseley in retreat, and the Soudan abandoned to the hands of the Mussulman and slave-hunter, it seemed as if civilisation was arrested, the hope of years was extinguished, inasmuch as not an individual remained who could give effect to the counsels of Europe. The Khamsin, which at the bidding of a fanatical leader had arisen in the desert, had made all things retire before it, and