General Gordon’s situation was now extremely critical.  It was hoped that an army might advance from Suakin across the desert to Berber, and then ascend the Nile to Khartum.  In the meantime, Gordon urgently called for help, and, after interminable delays, in the autumn of 1884, an English army under Lord Wolseley started up the Nile to relieve him.  The troops of Wolseley were aided by a camel corps of one thousand men, who were organised to make a rush across the desert.  On the 16th of January, 1885, the camel troops came up with the enemy and fought the decisive battle of Matammeh.  The Mahdist troops were mown down by rifles and Gatling-guns as soon as they were within short range.  Immediately after the battle, Sir Charles Wilson determined to use the Egyptian flotilla to make an immediate advance.  The steamers were protected, and a small relief force started on January 24th.  They came in sight of Khartum on the 28th, but were fired upon from every side.  At this moment, a native called from the bank that the city had fallen, and that the heroic Gordon had been killed.

A history of Egypt would be incomplete without some account of that leader whose bravery, humanitarian views, and understanding of the Oriental character have made him famous among the pioneers of Christian civilisation in Asia and Africa.  Fresh from his laurels won in the service of the Chinese government in suppressing the Tai-peng rebellion, Gordon returned to England in 1871.  In 1874 he accepted a position from Egypt, with the consent of the British government.  He journeyed to Cairo and up the Nile to take up the command as governor of the Equatorial Provinces in succession to Sir Samuel Baker.  There he laboured with incessant energy to put down the slave-trade and to secure the welfare of the natives.  He established a series of Egyptian outposts along the Abyssinian frontier and made a survey of Lake Albert Nyanza.  Returning to Cairo in 1874, after some delay, he was appointed by Ismail Pasha as governor-general of the whole of the Egyptian Sudan.  A war followed with Abyssinia, and, after the army, led by Egyptian officers, had been beaten twice, Gordon went to Massowah to negotiate with the Abyssinian monarch, Atti Johannes.  He next proceeded to Khartum, and vigorously undertook the suppression of the slave-trade.

[Illustration:  207.jpg MOSQUE OF THE IBRIHAM AT DESUK]

Gordon’s death at Khartum, in 1884, is one of the greatest tragedies of modern history.  Supported neither by Egypt nor by the English army, of a different religion from all his followers, pressed on all sides by the Mah-dist forces, Gordon gallantly kept his few faithful followers at his side, and, with incessant activity and heroism, protected the remaining Egyptian colonists of the cities along the Nile, over which he still held control.  He had called upon the British government to send aid across the desert from Suakin via Berber, but this request had been denied