The Khalifa Abdullah had been declared by the Mahdi’s latest breath his successor.  He determined to have the choice ratified once for all by the popular vote.  Hurrying to the pulpit in the courtyard of the mosque, he addressed the assembled multitude in a voice which trembled with intense excitement and emotion.  His oratory, his reputation as a warrior, and the Mahdi’s expressed desire aroused the enthusiasm of his hearers, and the oath of allegiance was at once sworn by thousands.  The ceremony continued long after it was dark.  With an amazing endurance he harangued till past midnight, and when the exhausted Slatin, who hard attended him throughout the crisis, lay down upon the ground to sleep, he knew that his master’s succession was assured; for, says he, ’I heard the passers-by loud in their praises of the late Mahdi, and assuring each other of their firm resolve to support his successor.’

The sovereignty that Abdullah had obtained must be held, as it had been won, by the sword.  The passionate agitation which the Mahdi had excited survived him.  The whole of the Soudan was in a ferment.  The success which had crowned rebellion encouraged rebels.  All the turbulent and fanatical elements were aroused.  As the various provinces had been cleared of the Egyptians, the new Executive had appointed military governors by whom the country was ruled and taxed, subject to the pleasure of Mohammed Ahmed.  His death was the signal for a long series of revolts of all kinds—­military, political, and religious.  Garrisons mutinied; Emirs plotted; prophets preached.  Nor was the land torn only by internal struggles.  Its frontiers were threatened.  On the east the tremendous power of Abyssinia loomed terrible and menacing.  There was war in the north with Egypt and around Suakin with England.  The Italians must be confronted from the direction of Massowa.  Far to the south Emin Pasha still maintained a troublesome resistance.  Yet the Khalifa triumphed over nearly all his enemies; and the greatest spectacle which the Soudan presented from 1885 to 1898 was of this strong, capable ruler bearing up against all reverses, meeting each danger, overcoming each difficulty, and offering a firm front to every foe.

It is unlikely that any complete history of these events will ever be written in a form and style which will interest a later generation.  The complications of extraordinary names and the imperfection of the records might alone deter the chronicler.  The universal squalor of the scenes and the ignorance of the actors add discouragements.  Nor, upon the other hand, are there great incentives.  The tale is one of war of the cruellest, bloodiest, and most confused type.  One savage army slaughters another.  One fierce general cuts his rival’s throat.  The same features are repeated with wearying monotony.  When one battle is understood, all may be imagined.  Above the tumult the figure of the Khalifa rises stern and solitary, the only object which may attract the interest of a happier world.  Yet even the Khalifa’s methods were oppressively monotonous.  For although the nature or courage of the revolts might differ with the occasion, the results were invariable; and the heads of all his chief enemies, of many of his generals, of most of his councillors, met in the capacious pit which yawned in Omdurman.