FROM CAIRO TO KHARTOUM WITH GENERAL KITCHENER.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIX, Issue 252, 25 October 1898, Page 3

FROM CAIRO TO KHARTOUM WITH GENERAL KITCHENER.

It is a long story, this tale of the Soudan, this tale of a desert waste whose parched lips are constantly quenched with human blood, only to dry again in feverish greed for more. It is a story full of horror, full of mysticism, and full of such heroism as the civilised world seldom wots of. It is a story which blends the savagery of Mohammedanism with the sublimity of British daring, the sort of daring that counts duty paramount to all else in the world, the sort of daring that makes heroes of men and makes history. It is a "long story, and one which, in the understanding of it, must necesarily lose much in the course of its condensation. And it is no extravagant praise to describe Kitchener as the greatest general of the present. He has surmounted obstacles in the burning sands of the Soudance such as might drive a Shatter to distraction. The swamps of Cuba are as nothing compared with the fever-infested Nile. American troops have died by the scores; his have died by the hundreds. And they were natives, most of them. He has built railroads across the desert, for he, like the lamented Gordon, is an engineer. It is no exaggeration to say that he builds railroads literally 'while you wait.' And it is interesting to note that there is an American locomotive running over there. He has mounted his guns on camels, and they constitute his artillery. He has taken his improvised gunboats up seemingly insurmountable rapids. Thousands of his black soldiers have literally hauled them through the torrents with stout ropes and chains. No such feat of warfare has ever before been accomplished. He has at his back a mongrel force of fighting men. The officers are young Britons who have won their spurs in the Egyptian army. Some of the men are Anglo-Egyptian soldiers, some are Arabs, anud some are black Soudanese, eager to fight and utterly fearless under fire, battling against their own people because they have been brought to realise that in the end there is but one result. TO AVENGE GORDON. Up the Nile, by land and by water, this intrepid commander has gone with his forces, conquering obstacles that seemed insurmountable, fighting his way inch by inch against bloodthirsty dervishes and more deadly fevers, gasping for breath and reeking with sweat, with the thermometer a hundred and thirty degrees in the shade. Kitchener is this man's name, this man who is now before Khartoum, and who has ever before him as an incentive to reclaim the honour of his Government, the pitifully tragic death of 'Chinese' Gordon. It is only right, even in this country, which knows no rank, save that designated by shoulder straps, to give him his full title—Sir Horatio Herbert Kitchener, K.C.M.G., Sidar of the Egyptian army, with the local rank of Major-gen-eral Sirdar, is equivalent to commander-in-chief, and he is the idol of the English people. And he is a young- man, is Kitcheneryoung as men go who achieve fame. He is a little past 47 now, but he has lived every day of his life. And to him has been entrusted the mission of bringing the Soudan to a realisation of British rule. But there is another incentive in this awful campaign, an incentive which involves the avenging of the hero Gordon, and the wiping out of a national stain of dishonour. The Soudan has been aptly termed a 'sink of blood.' Black in ignorance, black in crime, black in the hue of its people, the Eastern Soudan has for years defied invasion. The choicest blood in Europe has been poured upon its soil, millions of the treasured wealth of the civilised world has been expended upon it; and it has licked both up without leaving a trace, as the arid sands of the Sahara Desert would absorb a goblet of Water. Under nominal dependence to Egypt, its leaders spit upon the name of the Khedive. Menaced constantly by the arms of England, Turkey, Belgium, and France, it has as constantly beaten back its foes, and to-day it is virtually as independent as it was before the first white man set foot within its borders. No other country has so successfully resisted the march of civilisation. But it must yield sooner or later. That is inevitable, and the hopes of civilisation are centred in Kitchener and his mongrel army of blacks and whites, fighting together side by side, as though born of the same race. Tommy Atkins has come to have a high regard for 'Fuzzy-Wuzzy,' as Rudyard Kipling has set forth in one of his inimitable poems. PEOPLE OF THE SOUDAN. The Soudan is a vague region, according to maps and surveys. It begins somewhere—an indeterminate distance in the middle of the continent—and extends eastward to Abyssinia. Its northern boundary is the Libyan Desert.lts southern line is almost as indeterminate as its western. It is vast in area, resources and population. Its people, black and Arab, are for the most part Mohammedans, though in its depths all sorts of religions are practised and followed. There are many tribes in its boundaries, and the country is constantly astir over internecine quarrels. Before the advent of the white man each tribe maintained a quasi independence. Now all are united, or at least those in the eastern part, by a common cause. It has been said that the Soudan was under the nominal sway of Egypt. But this country occupies a peculiar position in the world. She is nominally a dependency of Turkey. As a matter of fact, she is controlled by England, though all the nations interfere in her affairs. As England holds the trump card in Egypt, however, it is but natural that the little island should play the most conspicuous European part in the drama of the Soudan. HOW IT ALL STARTED. The main trouble arose over the Khedives, who were to an extent, free agent*. Turkish and Circassian merchants were the pioneers among the tradesmen of the Soudan. And it was through their atrocities that the trouble began finally. They cheated, lied, robbed, and commited other aggressions until the tribes rose against them and drove them into Egypt proper. It was at this time that Egypt called upon England for aid. And England sent in response a soldier whose memory the whole world loves to honour and revere—Charles George Gordon. In 1874 General Gordon, already distinguished through his services in China, where he had effectualy crushed out the Tai-Ping rebellion and returned the tottering Emperor to his throne, was appointed by the Khedive Governor General of the Soudan.

Almost from the start he won the affection and confidence of the people whom he had been appointed to govern. With unerring instinct, he discerned the true cause of the troubles, and, co-opera-ting with the natives, drove the Turks from out his territory. His measures of taxation were calculated to produce the largest revenues with the least hardship, and he succeeded in restoring peace and order throughout the Eastern Soudan in a marvellously short period.

RISE OF EL MAHDI.

But failing to cope successfuly with the slavery question, General Gordon resigned in 1877, and the condition of affairs in the Soudan became worse than ever. Mohammed Achmet, of whose early history little is known, by one those singular circumstances that sometimes put men in greater prominence than their felows rose at a bound to be the the leader of the rebels in the Eastern Soudan. He called himself "El Mahdi," which, by, translation, is the "the Reformer," and preached deliverance from the yoke of oppression to his followers. He appealed to their religious prejudices, declared that he had been sent by Heaven to their aid, and in ashort time had rallied round him an armywhose numbers alone would have made it formidable.

But he had not numbers alone to rely upon. His men were armed with- rifles of the latest make, which English cupidity had supplied them. There were expert shots among them—Arabs who could kill a flying antelope. Moreover, they were quick to train their eyes over the sights of the guns which they captured in their first assaults upon the fortified camps. Lastly they were fired with religious hate by the dei'vishes, who formed no inconsiderbale portion of their numbers, and who rushed on death with the frenzy and fearlessness which have always been characteristic of the Mohammedan warriors.

Mohammed Achmet entered upon a career of pillage and worse. He seemed to bear a charmed life, and imbued his soldiers with the idea that he was possessed of supernatural powers. Tribe after tribe gave in its allegiance to him, and his control was almost supreme. Egyptian troops which were sent against him were butchered.