From The Mountains Of The North-West Frontier
The General Was Ordered To Bombay, And In A Stubborn Struggle With The
Bubonic Plague, Which Was Then At Its Height, He Turned His Attention From
Camps Of War To Camps Of Segregation.
He left India, leaving behind him
golden opinions, just before the outbreak of the great Frontier rising,
and was appointed to a brigade at Aldershot.
Thence we now find him hurried
to the Soudan - a spare, middle-sized man, of great physical strength and
energy, of marked capacity and unquestioned courage, but disturbed by a
restless irritation, to which even the most inordinate activity afforded
little relief, and which often left him the exhausted victim
of his own vitality.
By the end of January a powerful force lay encamped along the river
from Abu Hamed to the Atbara. Meanwhile the Dervishes made no forward
movement. Their army was collected at Kerreri; supplies were plentiful;
all preparations had been made. Yet they tarried. The burning question of
the command had arisen. A dispute that was never settled ensued. When the
whole army was regularly assembled, the Khalifa announced publicly that he
would lead the faithful in person; but at the same time he arranged
privately that many Emirs and notables should beg him not to expose his
sacred person. After proper solicitation, therefore, he yielded to their
appeals. Then he looked round for a subordinate. The Khalifa Ali-Wad-Helu
presented himself. In the Soudan every advantage and honour accrues to the
possessor of an army, and the rival chief saw a chance of regaining his
lost power. This consideration was not, however, lost upon Abdullah.
He accepted the offer with apparent delight, but he professed himself
unable to spare any rifles for the army which Ali-Wad-Helu aspired to lead.
'Alas!' he cried, 'there are none. But that will make no difference to so
famous a warrior.' Ali-Wad-Helu, however, considered that it would make
a great deal of difference, and declined the command. Osman Sheikh-ed-Din
offered to lead the army, if he might arm the riverain tribes and use them
as auxiliaries to swell his force. This roused the disapproval of Yakub.
Such a policy, he declared, was fatal. The riverain tribes were traitors -
dogs - worthy only of being destroyed; and he enlarged upon the more refined
methods by which his policy might be carried out. The squabble continued,
until at last the Khalifa, despairing of any agreement, decided merely to
reinforce Mahmud, and accordingly ordered the Emir Yunes to march to
Metemma with about 5,000 men. But it was then discovered that Mahmud hated
Yunes, and would have none of him. At this the Khalifa broke up his camp,
and the Dervish army marched back for a second time, in vexation
and disgust, to the city.
It seemed to those who were acquainted with the Dervish movements
that all offensive operations on their part had been definitely abandoned.
Even in the Intelligence Department it was believed that the break-up of
the Kerreri camp was the end of the Khalifa's determination to move north.
There would be a hot and uneventful summer, and with the flood Nile the
expedition would begin its final advance.
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