If An Emir Rose To Great Influence
And Wealth, He Became A Possible Rival, And Suffered Forthwith Death,
Imprisonment, Or Spoliation.
If a tribe threatened the supremacy of the
Taaisha it was struck down while its menace was yet a menace.
The
regulation of classes and tribes was a far more complicated affair than
the adjustment of individuals. Yet for thirteen years the Khalifa held
the balance, and held it exact until the very end. Such was the
statecraft of a savage from Kordofan.
His greatest triumph was the Abyssinian war. It is not likely that
two great barbaric kingdoms living side by side, but differing in race
and religion, will long continue at peace; nor was it difficult to
discover a cause of the quarrel between the Dervishes and the Abyssinians.
For some time a harassing and desultory warfare disturbed the border.
At length in 1885 a Dervish - half-trader, half brigand - sacked an
Abyssinian church. Bas Adal, the Governor of the Amhara province, demanded
that this sacrilegious robber should be surrendered to justice. The Arabs
haughtily refused. The response was swift. Collecting an army which may
have amounted to 30,000 men, the Abyssinians invaded the district of
Gallabat and marched on the town. Against this host the Emir Wad Arbab
could muster no more than 6,000 soldiers. But, encouraged by the victories
of the previous four years, the Dervishes accepted battle, in spite of the
disparity of numbers. Neither valour nor discipline could withstand such
odds.
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