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 Matter 
 
 THE M^HDI ^ 
 
 PAST AND PRESENT 
 
 Br JAMES DARMESTETER 
 
 PROFESSOR IN THE* COLLEGE OF FRANCE 
 \ 
 
 WITH PORTRAITS \S/ 
 
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 most useful, after all 
 
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i 
 
 THE MAHDI 
 
The Child Mahdi. (Note 35.) 
 

 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 In introducino' this little volume to the En^lish- 
 reading public I am performing a pleasant duty. ' ^ 
 Not being its author, I may be allowed to say that 
 the book is not only interesting, but also useful. 
 Sketching as it does the origin and strength of the 
 belief in the Mahdi, it illustrates a point of very 
 great importance in regard to our Egyptian policy. 
 History repeats itself so closely among the Mussul- 
 mans, that to recount the adventures of former 
 Mahdis is to tell the past, present, and probable 
 future history of the Mahdi who has been giving 
 us so much trouble of late. He is no more the first 
 of his kind than he will be the last ; for, from the 
 dawn of Islamism, a Mahdi has always been ex- 
 pected, and he will be looked for as long as a single 
 
 Mussulman remains. The failure of one Mahdi to 
 1 
 
4 tkahslator's preface. 
 
 successfully demonstrate his heavenly mission has 
 always been followed by the uprising of another, 
 his defeat having proved liim to be the false prophet 
 who, according to tradition, is to precede and herald 
 the approach of the true one.* In the following 
 pages M. Darmesteter traces the history of the 
 Mahdi from the first year of the Mahometan era 
 (622 A.D.) to the year of grace 1885—1302 of the 
 Hegira. 
 
 In the present volume the reader may learn a 
 lesson concerning Mussulman character which should 
 not fail to make a deep impression upon him, and 
 the perusal of its pages will convince him more 
 than any words of mine could possibly do of the 
 necessity of adapting our foreign policy to suit the 
 peculiarities of the peoples with whom we come in 
 contact. 
 
 If a lady may be allowed to express an opinion 
 on political matters, I would observe that one of 
 the greatest faults to be found with English action 
 in the Soudan is that it is not guided by a knowl- 
 edge of Arab character. We English are too apt 
 to consider that all people are constituted alike, and 
 can be treated on precisely the same principles of 
 
 * See Appendix A. 
 
tkanslator's preface. 5 
 
 fairness and honesty ; we do not take sufficiently 
 into consideration the habits, prejudices, rooted 
 beliefs, and the wiliness and treachery of our 
 brothers in the East — if indeed we can call those 
 brothers whose very natures differ so widely from 
 our own. This ignorance of the mental constitu- 
 tions of those with whom we come in contact can- 
 not but be disastrous. It was a powerful factor in 
 producing the horrors of the Indian Mutiny, and 
 without it Khartoum would not have fallen, and 
 Gordon might now have been alive. 
 
 I have endeavored in my translation to adhere to 
 the original as closely as possible, but if my friend 
 M. Darmesteter should find here and there that an 
 allusion has been omitted,* or that my rendering is 
 not quite literal, he will, I feel sure, pardon me, on 
 the grounds that I was more anxious to give " the 
 spirit" than "the letter" of his work, and that on 
 the principle stated above I have tried to adapt it 
 to the idiosyncrasies of the peo^^le for whom I have 
 prepared it. 
 
 * M. Darmesteter's brochure was originally delivered as a 
 lecture before the Scientific Association of France, at the 
 Sorbonne, on February 28, 1885. It contains many allusions 
 to French politics, parties, and literature, of more interest to 
 the French audience than they would be to the English reader. 
 
6 TRANSLATOll's PREFACE 
 
 I am responsible only for those notes which are 
 signed witli my initials, and for the Appendix in 
 which I give some of the most reliable information 
 I have been able to obtain about the present Mahdi 
 and the fall of Khartoum, although I cannot vouch 
 for the authenticity of everything therein published. 
 
 Ada S. Ballijst. 
 
 14 Tavistock Square, W.C. 
 May 4, 1885. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE IDEA OF THE MAHDI. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Parent Religions of Islam — Meaning of the ivame 
 Mahdi 11 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE FORMATION OF THE IDEA OF THE MAHDI. 
 
 Ali — The Caliphs of Damascus — The Arabs in Persia — 
 The Persians side with Ali — The Divine Right — The 
 Alides — Conquests of the Omeiades . . . .16 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE MAHDI IN PERSIA. FIRST PERIOD. 
 
 Mohammed the Son of the Hanefite — His Death — Myths 
 of Sleeping Heroes — Mohammed and the Valley of 
 Radwa — Persecution of the Descendants of Ali . . 26 
 
8 COITTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE MAHDI IN PERSIA. SECOND PERIOD. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Fall of the Omeiades — The Abbassides — Abu-Muslim — 
 The Veiled Prophet — Caliph Almansor — Ali Riza and 
 Caliph Almainum— The Master of the Hour— The Sufis 33 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE MAHDI IN AFRICA. 
 
 The Fatimides — Obeid-Allah — Assassination of Abu-Ab- 
 dallah — The City of the Mahdi — Hakim — The Druzes — 
 The Almohades „ 44 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE MAHDI IN TURKEY. 
 
 Sabbatai Zevi — Antichrist and the Mahdi . . , .53 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE MAHDI IN EGYPT. 
 
 The Mahdi from Tripoli— His Miracles . . . , 57 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE MAHDI IN THE SOUDAN. 
 
 Parentage and Youth of the Mahdi of 1884-5— The Mahdi 
 declares himself — Revolt against the Egyptians . . 60 
 
CONTEKTS. 9 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 MOHAMMED AHMED AND HIS RIVALS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Mahdi's Manners and Customs — His Tactics — Civili- 
 zation in the Soudan — The Messianic Idea among Mod- 
 era Jews — When Mahdi meets Mahdi — Divine Mission 
 of the Mahdi — The Mahdi's Claims contested — The 
 Ulemas' Conclusions — Gordon as Antichrist — Islam's 
 '93 65 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Order in the Soudan — England's Mistake — The Abyssinians 
 — The Civilization of the Future 80 
 
 NOTES 85 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 A. The Mahdi of 1884-5 Ill 
 
 B. The Siege of Khartoum 116 
 
THE MAHDI. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE IDEA OF THE MAHDI. 
 
 At the time of Mahomet's appearance there were 
 in Arabia, besides the ancient national paganism, 
 three foreign religions — Judaism, Christianity, and 
 Zoroastrianism, the prevailing religion of Persia 
 before the Mahometan conquest, which had been 
 propagated in IN^orthern Arabia by means of com- 
 merce, and in the south, in Yemen, by conquest. 
 Mahomet did not take much trouble to be original : 
 he borrowed his doctrines from the Jews and 
 Christians, and his mythology from Jews, Chris- 
 tians, and Persians. JSTo religion was ever built up 
 with such cheap materials. 
 
 A belief common to the three parent religions 
 
12 THE MAHDI. 
 
 was that in a supernatural being, who at the end of 
 time would bring back Order and Justice which 
 had been banished from the world, and thus 
 prelude the kingdom of immortality and endless 
 bliss. 
 
 This is not the place to introduce a history of 
 the idea of a Messiah, which is familiar to most of 
 our readers. For our present purpose it is suffici- 
 ent to recall the fact that the conception originated 
 in Judaism, and gave birth to Christianity, and that 
 it had not taken a definite form, either among Jews 
 or Christians, until subjected to the influence of 
 Persian mythology. Hence, under its three forms, 
 — Jewish, Christian, and Persian, — in spite of a 
 certain variety of detail, there is a strong resem- 
 blance in the principal points of the belief. 
 
 In all three religions the coming of the Saviour 
 was to be preceded by the letting loose of all the 
 powers of evil, personified among the Jews by the 
 invasion and ravages of Gog and Magog ; among 
 the Christians by the Dragon, or the Beast of Reve- 
 lation, and by a false prophet, the prophet of Satan, 
 called Antichrist ; and among the Persians by the 
 serpent Zohak (1), the incarnation of Ahriman, the 
 Spirit, of Evil. 
 
 Again, all three maintained alike that the Saviour 
 
THE MAHDI. 13 
 
 was to be a direct lineal descendant of the most 
 august personage in the national tradition of each : 
 amonff the Jews and Christians He was called the 
 Messiah, and was to be a descendant of the prophet 
 king of Israel, David ; among the Persians he was 
 Saoshyant (2), and was to be a son of the Persian 
 prophet Zoroaster. 
 
 In each of the three religions the most important 
 historic character was to play a leading part in the 
 last act of the drama. 
 
 The Messianic doctrine of the Mussulman is bor- 
 rowed from Christianity. Mussulmans, like Chris- 
 tians, believe that when the time has come the 
 Saviour will destroy the Beast of the Apocalypse, 
 the false prophet of the last hour — Antichrist — 
 whom they call Deddjdl^ the impostor ; but Islam- 
 ism could not give the supreme and decisive role to 
 Jesus. 
 
 The religion of Islam acknowledges the mission 
 of Jesus, but not His divinity. Since the Creation, 
 it teaches, ^ve prophets had appeared before the 
 birth of Mahomet — Adam, ]N'oah, Abraham, Moses, 
 and Jesus — each being greater than his predecessor, 
 and each bringing a fuller and higher revelation 
 than the last. Jesus ranks above all the prophets 
 of the old dispensation, but below those of the new, 
 
14 THE MAHDI. 
 
 inaugurated bj Mahomet. In the final struggle 
 He will be but the servant and auxiliary of a more 
 august personage — THE MAHDI. 
 
 The literal meaning of the word Mahdi is not, as 
 the newspapers generally assert, He who leads^ — a 
 meaning more in consonance with European ideas, 
 — but He who is led. The fundamental idea of 
 Islamism is the incapability of man to guide him- 
 self — to find the truth, the right path— and that to 
 ignorant man God sends now and again His proph- 
 ets — men whom He has inspired with knowledge, 
 and to whom He has revealed what ought to be 
 done. 
 
 The prophet in himself is as ignorant, as frail, as 
 limited in his powers, as the rest of humanity ; but 
 God dictates to him, makes him His mouthpiece; 
 and if he leads his fellow-men it is because he alone 
 is the " well-guided one," led by God — the Mahdi. 
 
 The word Mahdi is only an epithet which may 
 be applied to any prophet, or even to any ordinary 
 person ; but used as a proper name it indicates him 
 who is " well guided " beyond all others, the 
 Mahdi par excellence, who is to end the drama of 
 the world, and of whom Jesus shall only be the 
 vicar. 
 
 Jesus is to come and destroy the Antichrist, massa- 
 
THE MAHDI. 15 
 
 ere the Jews, and convert Christians and idolaters 
 to Islamism ; having done this He will assist the 
 Mahdi in the celebration of the last great service, 
 and will humbly repeat the prayer uttered by the 
 Mahdi, as the faithful in the mosque repeat the 
 words pronounced by the Imam (3), or leader of 
 prayer. Then the trump of the resurrection will 
 sound, and God will come to judge the living and 
 the dead (4). 
 
16 THE MAHDI. 
 
 11. 
 
 THE FORMATION OF THE IDEA OF THE MADHI. 
 
 The Koran does not speak of the Mahdi, but it 
 seems certain that Mahomet must have announced 
 him, although it is impossible to say exactly what 
 idea he had formed on the subject. Among the 
 words which tradition attributes to him are the fol- 
 lowing: "Even though time shall have but one 
 day more to last, God will call up a man of my 
 family who will fill the earth with justice, as it is 
 now filled with iniquity." (5) In other words, the 
 Mahdi was to be of the blood of Mahomet. 
 
 It is doubtful whether Mahomet really explained 
 himself so clearly on the point. He left no sons, 
 and there is nothing to indicate that in prophecy he 
 admitted a principle so antagonistic to the anar- 
 chist spirit of the Arab race as that of heredity. 
 He never, either living or dying, appointed his 
 heir, acting on the principle that God chooses 
 whom He will, and is not constrained to make His 
 
THE MAHDI. 17 
 
 gifts descend with the blood from father to son ; 
 His favors are not dependent on the accident of 
 birth. If the prophet disappears without having 
 cast his mantle on the shoulders of a favored dis- 
 ciple, it is the duty of the people to decide on to 
 whose shoulders it shall fall. This question arose 
 at the death of Mahomet, and it was quicklj de- 
 cided. He left but one daughter, Fatima, whom 
 he had given in marriage to his young cousin, Ali, 
 the first of his proselytes, who was at the same 
 time the most ardent and devoted. A considerable 
 party supported Ali, but three times his claims 
 were set aside, three times in twenty-three years 
 the succession of the Prophet, the Caliphat, left 
 open by death, passed into the hands of strangers — 
 Abu-Bekr, Omar, and Othman. 
 
 The son-in-law of the Prophet at length succeeded 
 to the Caliphat, but he succumbed in the struggle 
 against the fierce animosity which beset him on all 
 sides, and the son of one of the greatest enemies of 
 the Prophet, of one of those who had fought to the 
 very last for the ancient idolatry of Arabia, Moaviah, 
 Prefect of Damascus, head of the family of the 
 Omeiades, founded the hereditary Caliphat on the 
 corpse of Ali. 
 
 The Caliphs of Damascus were fearful miscreants, 
 
18 THE MAHDI. 
 
 who drank wine openly instead of drinking it in 
 secret, as a pious Mussulman should. Their typical 
 representative was Welid II., who used the Koran 
 as a target to shoot at in sport, saying to it in verse : 
 *' In the day of resurrection you can tell the Lord 
 that it was the Caliph Welid who tore you to rags ;" 
 or that Abd-el-Melik, who the moment he was 
 saluted by the title of Caliph, shut the Koran which 
 hitherto he had always had by him, saying : " Now 
 we two must part company." Yet it was under the 
 auspices of these half idolatrous princes that Islam 
 made those marvellous conquests which, like those 
 of the French Revolution under Napoleon, are still 
 the wonder of history. It is the rule that a new 
 principle can only triumph in the world by means 
 of those who corrupt it and turn it to their own 
 advantage. It was at the time of this triumph of 
 the Omeiades that the doctrine of the Mahdi began 
 to grow definite, and to be developed in favor of 
 the descendants of Ali. 
 
 Because in the interval a great event had hap- 
 pened — the conquest of Persia. That immense 
 empire, which for four centuries had stood its 
 ground at Rome and Byzantium, had fallen, in a 
 few years, beneath the attack of a few Arab squad- 
 rons shouting the war-cry^ AllahaMcon^ " God is 
 
THE MAHDI. 19 
 
 great." The national resistance was practically 
 nothing. The armies of the State dispersed, the 
 people submitted without a struggle. Nay more, 
 they adopted the new religion all but unanimously, 
 although it was not imposed upon them ; for the 
 iV rabs, fanatics as they were, did not at first, as is 
 supposed, offer the choice between the Koran and 
 the sword : they made a third alternative — the pay- 
 ment of tribute, an alternative the adoption of which 
 the Caliphs greatly preferred to that of either of the 
 others, for it had the great advantage of filling their 
 coffers. The success of the Koran alarmed their 
 ministers of finance, and as the uncompromising 
 Mussulmans complained, it seemed as if God had 
 sent the Prophet not as an apostle, but as a tax-col- 
 lector. 
 
 Almost the whole of Persia was converted, and 
 willino^lv ; for the Arabian invasion was both a 
 religious and a political deliverance for her. She 
 had experienced under the last national kings a 
 period of terrible anarchy, and the State religion, 
 Zoroastrianism, a religion of pure and high morality, 
 had nevertheless given rise to intolerance — a new 
 thing in the East. Charged with troublesome prac- 
 tices and annoying prohibitions to which the Sassa- 
 
 nides — the first sovereigns who invented the formula 
 3 
 
20 THE MAHDI. 
 
 of the throne supported by the altar (6) — had given 
 secular support, Zoroastrianism had lost all hold on 
 the mind ; moreover, as it was hostile to that spirit 
 of asceticism which people like to see in their 
 religion even if they do not practise it themselves, 
 it ceased to be respected without ceasing to be 
 w^earisome, and it could last no longer, because 
 without restricting the passions it hindered the 
 interests of its professors. 
 
 Thus from the first attack a great part of Persia 
 became Mussulman, although with a curious Islam- 
 ism it is true. Islam relieved her of her former 
 inconvenient creed, but slie introduced into the new 
 religion something far dearer to any nation than its 
 religion, dogmas, or form of worship — her whole 
 mythology. 
 
 When the struggle began between Ali and the 
 Omeiades, Persia was in reality very little inter- 
 ested. "What did it matter to Persians whether the 
 Arab Ali or the Arab Moaviah held the sceptre of 
 the Caliph? They w^ould side wdth the vanquished, 
 whichever party it was ; for to do so was to take 
 up arms against a master. The national spirit had 
 soon revived. 
 
 They had no idea of returning to the ancient re- 
 ligion, for their recollections of it were still too 
 
 \ 
 
THE MAHDI. 21 
 
 vivid. They would remain Mussulmans; but Is- 
 lamism is one thing and the Arabs are another : by 
 the former they would abide, but they would have 
 as little to do with the latter as possible. Ali being 
 defeated, was thought to be in the right, and hav- 
 ing once sided with him, they did so heart and 
 soul, because for the Persians Ali, the son-in-law of 
 the Prophet, and the sons of Ali, grandchildren of 
 the Prophet, represented the principle of heredity, 
 a divine right. 
 
 The Persian constitution for centuries past had 
 rested on divine right, a principle which was, more- 
 over, common to all Aryan nations in the early 
 periods of their development. The Persians, like 
 the Hindus, and like the Greeks of Homer's time, 
 believed that there are among men certain families 
 directly descended from God, to whom regal power 
 belongs by the right of their superhuman nature. 
 These kings, these " sons of Zeus," as the Greeks 
 called them, received and transmitted from father to 
 son, according to the Persian belief, a subtle flame, 
 a sort of aureole of celestial origin, which was 
 called the Farri yazdan, " The glory coming from 
 God." The king was God, son of God. On the 
 inscriptions which remain from the time of these 
 princes, they are proclaimed to be " divine, of celes- 
 
22 THE MAHDI. 
 
 tial race'' (Y). In their correspondence they styled 
 themselves "Brother of the Sun and Moon, Man 
 among Gods, God among Men" (8) ; and on their 
 crowns they bore a representation of the celestial 
 globe, to remind people that they were the axis or 
 pole of humanity (9). 
 
 During four centuries, under the Sassanides, Per- 
 sia had been glorious and powerful, because the 
 power had remained with those of legitimate de- 
 scent and divine blood. Even the great Sassanides 
 did not think themselves firm on the throne until 
 they had fabricated a relationship through the Par- 
 thian s, and the successors of Alexander, to the race 
 of the Achemenides, lineal descendants of the first 
 mythical heroes of the Avesta, Feridun, and Jem- 
 shid. The decadence of Persia had commenced on 
 the day when usurpation interrupted the line of 
 divine succession. Thus for a Persian believing in 
 Islamism, the pretentions and triumph of the Ome- 
 iades, besides their worthlessness from the religious 
 standpoint, were an outrage against reason and 
 right. 
 
 Ali was hardly dead before he became enshrined 
 in legend and in myth. Ali, cousin, brother, 
 adopted son of the Prophet, his first convert, and 
 his bravest defender ; the warrior whom none - had 
 
THE MAHDI. 23 
 
 ever vanquished ; " at the birth of whom," said 
 Caliph Abu Bekr, " the bravest swords had returned 
 to their scabbards ;" the Samson of his time, who, 
 at the assault of Khaiber, had torn the gate of the 
 town from its hinges and used it as a buckler ; the 
 beautiful, the noble, the charitable, the generous, 
 the wise and learned Ali, of whom the Prophet had 
 said, " 1 am the stronghold of knowledge, and Ali 
 is the gate of it ;" Ali, three times deprived by in- 
 trigue of his inheritance, and falling at last beneath 
 the dagger ol assassins, became for his admirers a 
 sort of heroic Chnst militant (10). 
 
 Hence the great schism which from the first 
 divided the camp of Islam. While the greater 
 H umber of Mussulmans, the men of tradition, the 
 Siinnites, revered the first three elected Caliphs 
 equally with Ali, the others principally recruited 
 among the Persians, regarded them as usurpers, 
 and acknowledged only the son-in-law of the Proph- 
 et as imdnjb^ or legitimate chief. They founded the 
 sect of Alides or ImdmioMs ; that is to say, those 
 who believe that there is always a sinless iradrri^ 
 whose existence is absolutely necessary to maintain 
 the order of the universe, that there is but one le- 
 gitimate imam in the world as there is but one 
 God in heaven, and that this dignity of imam, is in- 
 herent in the race of Ali, chosen by God. This is 
 
24 THE MAHDI. 
 
 the sect which is best known in Europe under the 
 name which the orthodox party has given it of 
 Shiites^ or sectarians. 
 
 Among his adherents the worship of Ali speedily 
 took on all the characteristics of a religion. He 
 was in part divine ; he was not dead, but had as- 
 cended to heaven; it was he who was seen in 
 storms riding on the hurrying clouds; it was he 
 whose voice was heard in thunder, and whose whip 
 was seen to writhe in lightning flashes. It is said 
 that even during his lifetime he was adored by 
 some as the incarnation of the Deity. Some men 
 exclaimed in his presence, " Thou art God !" Ali, 
 indignant, and ignorant of his own divinity, had 
 their heads cut off ; but the heads rolling on the 
 earth continued to cry, "Ali, thou art God!" (11) 
 
 Ali left two sons by Fatima, Hassan and Hus- 
 sein : Hassan was poisoned by the Omeiades; Hus- 
 sein, abandoned in the struggle by the partisans 
 who had called him forth, was massacred at Kerbela 
 with all his family after a heroic resistance and 
 scenes of horror, the representation of which gave 
 birth in Persia to a monotonous but admirable 
 drama known to Europeans through the works of 
 MM. de Gobineau and Chodzko (12), and which 
 even now, every year, makes the most incredulous 
 Persian weep with sorrow and rage. 
 
THE MAHDI. 35 
 
 • The Omeiades might well triumph, besiege and 
 sack the sacred towns Mecca and Medina, and bear 
 the arms of Islam beyond the Oxus and the Indus, 
 to the Caucasus and the Pyrenees ; but they were 
 only masters de facto / there was no legitimate 
 chief, no imam but of the race of Ali. However 
 dark was the present, in the future from Ali must 
 arise the Saviour, the Mahdi, for the sacred trust 
 of the Prophet's blood had been given to Ali. The 
 Zoroastrian Persians believed that the Saviour, 
 Saoshyant, was to be born of the blood of their 
 prophet Zoroaster. The converted Persians had 
 only to change the proper names. They told how 
 one day Ali had said to the Prophet : " O Prophet 
 of God ! will the Mahdi be of our or of another 
 family ?" and the Prophet had made answer : " Cer- 
 tainly he will be of our own. It is through our 
 agency that God will complete His work, just as it 
 was through us that He commenced it" (13). 
 
 The idea of the Mahdi once formed it circulated 
 throughout the Mussulman world : we will follow 
 it rapidly in its course among the Persians, the 
 Turks, the Egyptians, and the Arabs of the Soudan ; 
 but without for an instant pretending to pass in re- 
 view all the Mahdis who have appeared upon the 
 prophetic stage ; for their name is Legion. 
 
26 THE MAHDI. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE MAHDI IN PERSIA. FIRST PERIOD. 
 
 Hussein, the second son of Ali and Fatima, left 
 but one child, Ali, who was only ten years old — too 
 young to serve as a rally ing-point for the disaf- 
 fected. But by a wife other than Fatima, Ali had 
 left another son, named "Mohammed, son of the 
 Hanefite." He lived quietly at Mecca, far from 
 the dangers of active life ; but all the hearts of the 
 Alides turned towards him. An ambitious man 
 named Mokhtar then rose in his name and took the 
 title of " Lieutenant of the Mahdi," and thus for 
 the first time the name Mahdi appeared in history 
 only half a century after the death of the Prophet. 
 
 This Mokhtar was a clever fellow, who in turn 
 held in with all parties ; and to palliate his changes 
 of opinion, invoked a dogma of his own invention, 
 which is strongly to be recommended to political 
 theologians — the dogma of the mutability of the 
 Deity — according to which the intellectual activity 
 
THE MAHDI. 27 
 
 of God is SO great that necessarily His ideas change 
 every instant ; and, naturally, those who follow the 
 inspirations of God ought — it is a sacred duty — to 
 try and imitate these variations. He announced to 
 his soldiers that if they grew faint in battle the 
 angels would come to succor them in the form of 
 birds ; and at a critical moment he had flights of 
 pigeons set free, a stratagem which was marvel- 
 lously successful. He had borne before his soldiers 
 a seat bought at a bric-a-brac shop in Koufa, which 
 he held up to the veneration of the faithful as 
 being the seat of Ali, and which he said was to be 
 for them what the Ark of the Covenant was for 
 the children of Israel : with this palladium they 
 would be invincible (14). 
 
 Mohammed, feelinor that he would never be anv- 
 thing but a puppet in the hands of this man, 
 allowed him to act without protest. Mokhtar per- 
 ished in spite of all his cunning, but none the less 
 did Mohammed, without eifort of liis own, remain 
 the Mahdi for his partisans. This, liowever, did 
 not prevent his dying in his turn, although his fol- 
 lowers refused to believe his death, and announced 
 that he would return. 
 
 This was the first invasion into Islam of an old 
 myth familiar to Persian mythology which we shall 
 
28 THE MAHDI. 
 
 meet again hereafter — the myth of a hero believed 
 to be dead, but who, either hidden or asleep, awaits 
 the time for his return. It is one of the favorite 
 legends of Aryan, and more especially of Persian 
 mythology, and has its origin in the nature-myth 
 of the reappearance of the sun after it has been 
 shrouded in night, or clouds. The brilliant hero 
 wept as dead comes forth again triumphant, not 
 having been dead but asleep. Hence when dark- 
 ness is victorious there is the hope of a bright 
 awakening. The God is not dead ; He sleeps and 
 will wake again (15). 
 
 Tales like this are in harmony with the imagina- 
 tion of the people, which in face of present sorrows 
 loves to see a glimmer of hope in the distant future. 
 Among peoples tormented with a national dream it 
 is the expectation of a new era. During how many 
 centuries did the British Celts await the coming of 
 Arthur, who was said to be resting in the Island of 
 Avalon, where the fairy Morgain was healing his 
 wounds, and who would leave it to drive away the 
 Saxons from his land and conquer the world ? The 
 Servians look for the return of Marko Kralievich, 
 who sleeps in a cavern where God bore liim from 
 the midst of a battle. There are few who will not 
 recall the story of Frederick Bai'barossa and the 
 
THE MAHDI. 29 
 
 Castle of Kaiserslautern ; and in 1870 tlie German 
 poets exclaimed that Barbarossa had awakened, and 
 that the withered tree had grown green again (16). 
 In 1848, at the news of the Austrian defeats in 
 Italy, the report arose that wlien only two soldiers 
 should remain of tlie emperor's forces, the Subter- 
 ranean Guest would reappear and, like a hurricane, 
 sweep away tlie Italian army. In Portugal more 
 than one old woman still tells how Doni Sebastian, 
 with whom the greatness of the nation was ino^ulfed 
 three centuries ago beneath the sands of Africa, has 
 not really perished, but will soon return with a fleet 
 from Brazil ; Dom Louis will abdicate at his coming, 
 and the great days of Yasco di Gama will recom- 
 mence. 
 
 During many centuries the imagination of the 
 Persians was busy with lesrends such as these. ISTo 
 
 V CD 
 
 other people has had so many heroes asleep and 
 ready to reappear. 
 
 The most illustrious was Keresaspa, a destroyer of 
 demons, who after innumerable and marvellous ex- 
 ploits was wounded in his sleep by the lance of a 
 Turanian. But dead he still lives ; ninety-nine 
 thousand nine hundred angels watch over his body 
 in the plain of Kaboul. At the end of time, when 
 the serpent Zohak, the incarnation of Ahriman, 
 
30 THE MAHDI. 
 
 chained up by Feridun on the mountain Demavend, 
 shall break asunder his chains and traverse the 
 world in triumph, like the Christian Antichrist and 
 the Mussulman Deddjal, Keresaspa will arise from 
 his slumber to slay him with one fell blow. 
 
 Besides Keresaspa there are many other immor- 
 tals who await in the tomb the hour of the final 
 struggle : Khumbya, Aghraeratha, and the com- 
 panion s-in-arms of the king Kaikhosrav. 
 
 Besides these there are heroes who have never 
 died, but who wait in distant or invisible regions : 
 Urvatatnara, the son of Zoroaster, who carried his 
 father's law into the subterranean kingdom of 
 Yima; Peshotanu, son of the king Gush tasp, whom 
 Zoroaster caused to drink a cnp of saci*ed milk 
 which rendered him immoi'tal. Such is the crowd 
 which at the end of time will surround Saoshyant, 
 the yet unborn son of Zoroaster, when he appears 
 to kill Death and preside at the resurrection (17). 
 
 When Mohammed, the son of Ali, the first 
 Mahdi, had disappeared, and there was no possi- 
 bility of doubt that he was beyond reach, the old 
 mythology came to sustain the neo-Mussulmans in 
 their new faith. The poets sang that he was hid- 
 den for a time near Medina, in the valley of 
 Radwa, where water and honey flow, waiting the 
 
THE MAHDI. 31 
 
 day when he should reappear at the head of his 
 horsemen preceded by the standard (18). Moham- 
 med liimself, they said, had pointed out with his 
 finger the pass among the mountains whence the 
 Mahdi should come forth to gather together around 
 liim armies as numerous as the flakes of vapor of 
 wliich the clouds are formed ; and there were peo- 
 ple who took up their abode at the favored spot, 
 and died tliere waiting for him (19). 
 
 The time of liis absence was fixed at seventy 
 years, the period assigned by the Bible as that of 
 the duration of human life. A frao^ment of one of 
 these poems b}- a great poet of the time, the Him- 
 yarite Seid (20), remains, and its cliaracter maj' be 
 seen from the following few verses rendered ac- 
 cording to the beautiful translation in French by 
 M. Barbier de Mevnard : 
 
 "O thou for whom T would give ray life, loDg is thy stay in 
 this mountain! 
 
 Sorely are we oppressed, we who implore thee, we who pro- 
 claim thee Caliph and Im^m. 
 
 All the nations of the earth reckon seventy years for the 
 length of thine absence. 
 
 No, the son of Khawlah (31) has not tasted the cup of death. 
 The earth does not hide his remains. 
 
 He watches in the depths of the valley Radwa, in the midst 
 of the conversation of angels. . . . 
 
32 THE MAHDI. 
 
 O valley of Badwa, what has become of him whom thou 
 hidest from our eyes, and for the love of whom our 
 minds are distracted? 
 
 How long shall our waiting last, O son of the Prophet; thou 
 who livest nourished by God?" (22). 
 
 While the people were waiting for the return of 
 Mohammed, Hussein's son, the grandchild of Ali, 
 was growing up. The dead cannot long hold their 
 ground against the living, and the mass of the 
 Alides abandoned the invisible itnam for him who 
 was present and visible. He was poisoned. His 
 son Mohammed succeeded him in the veneration of 
 tlie Alides, but met a similar fate to that of his 
 father. Poison was the temporal consecration of the 
 imams. Zeid, a younger brother of Mohammed, 
 then proclaimed himself Mahdi, and raised the 
 standard of revolt. He perished, and the Caliph had 
 his naked body strung up to a gibbet, and insulted 
 it through his poets, who said, " We have fastened 
 your Zeid to the trunk of a palm-tree ; I have never 
 seen a Mahdi hanging on a gibbet before" (23). 
 
THE MAHDI. 33 
 
 THE MAHDI IN PERSIA. SECOND PERIOD. 
 
 The days of tlie Omeiades were numbered. Af- 
 ter a century of power they disappeared in a mo- 
 ment before tlie Abbassides; the whole royal 
 family, eighty persons in all, invited to a banquet 
 given ostensibly for purposes of reconciliation, were 
 strangled by their enemies, who held a triumphant 
 oro:ie over their dead bodies. The Alides then 
 began to breathe again, and thought their chance 
 had come, for it had been with their support and in 
 their name that the Abbassides had struggled, and 
 naturally they believed this triumph to be a victory 
 for themselves. 
 
 They were, however, speedily and cruelly disa- 
 bused of their confidence. The Abbassides, like 
 themselves, belonged to the family of Mahomet, be- 
 ing descended from Abbas, the Prophet's uncle. 
 As long as the struggle had lasted they liad con- 
 cealed their personal pretensions, and given them- 
 
34 THE MAHDI. 
 
 selves out to be the avengers of Ali and his sons ; 
 they had wrought up the fanaticism of the Alides 
 to a pitch of terrible excitement, and thus caused 
 Persia to side with them ; throughout the empire 
 they had sent missionaries to stir up the burning 
 memory of the scenes of Kerbela, who had thrown 
 Mussulman Persia into an ecstasy of grief at the 
 Passion of Ali and his sons, the divine martyrs. 
 These emissaries made their dupes swear fidelity to 
 a Caliph of the family of the Prophet without men- 
 tioning his name. Their chief agent and execu- 
 tioner was a man from Eastern Persia, named Abu- 
 Muslim, who had formerly been a saddler by trade. 
 He was a stern and cruel fanatic, one of those men 
 who, in the words of a poet of the time, never drank 
 water unmixed wdth blood. 
 
 As the star of the Omeiades sank, the Abbassides 
 began gradually to throw the Alides into the shade. 
 Were they not also of the race of the Prophet? 
 and to enforce their claims they spread a report that 
 the first Mahdi, Mohammed, the son of the Hanefite, 
 had duly transmitted his rights to one of their an- 
 cestors (24); they forged new traditions, apocryplial 
 words attributed to Mahomet, who naturally was 
 not in a position to disclaim them. They afiirmed 
 that Mahomet had said one day to his uncle Abbas, 
 
THE MAHDI. 35 
 
 " In ye shall rest prophecy and sovereignty." An- 
 other day he had said plainly to him, " Thou art 
 the Father of the Caliphs amongst whom shall 
 he Al Mahdi, and amongst whom shall be one 
 who shall pray together with Jesus, the son of 
 Mary, O uncle, dost thou not know that Al Mahdi 
 shall be of thy descendants, the prospered of God, 
 happy and approved ?" (25). Thus when the Alides 
 were preparing to mount the throne left vacant 
 by tlie Omeiades, they found their avengers block- 
 ing the way to it. The principal captains of the 
 Abbassides were AHdes, who had thought they were 
 laboring for the descendants of Ali. These were 
 got rid of one by one. 
 
 Abu-Muslini went to rejoin the six hundred 
 thousand victims which lie is said to liave slain 
 with his own hand. His fall was brous^ht about by 
 a letter that he sent to the Caliph Almansor, and 
 which ran as follows : 
 
 •'I had a guide of the family of the Prophet, 
 
 who was to teach me the doctrines and the duties 
 
 prescribed by God. I thought that in him I had 
 
 found knowledge; but he led me astray even by 
 
 the aid of the Koran itself, which he falsified by his 
 
 love for the wealth of this world. He bade me in 
 
 the name of God draw my sword, banish every 
 3 
 
36 THE MAHDI. 
 
 feeling of pity from my heart, accept no justifica- 
 tion from my adversaries, and pardon no error. 
 All this have I done. I prepared for you the way 
 to power, for I did not know you ; but now God 
 has led me from my error — now I know you only 
 too well ; now I regret and am penitent. May God 
 pardon all the wrongs I have committed ; but if 
 He does not pardon me, if He punishes me, I must 
 still acknowledge that He is righteous" (26). 
 
 To so great an extent was it the ancient Persian 
 mythology which inspired the movement of the 
 Alides, that Abu-Muslim found an avenger in Sin- 
 bad, a priest of fire, belonging to an ancient Persian 
 Zoroastrian sect, the sect of Mazdak. He went 
 about proclaiming that Abu-Mnslim was not dead, 
 that at the moment of execution he had invoked 
 the supreme and secret name of God, and had es- 
 caped from the hands of Almansor, flying away in 
 the form of a white dove. He had retired to a 
 castle made of copper in the company of the Mahdi, 
 who would soon leave it with him, with Mazdak for 
 his Yizier. It took seven years of fierce warfare to 
 put an end to Sinbad (27). 
 
 Yery soon Abu-Muslim, growing more and more 
 in importance after his death, from precursor of 
 the Mahdi, came to be regarded as himself an in- 
 
THE MAHDI. 37 
 
 carnation of the divinity. His apostle and suc- 
 cessor was liis former secretaiy, a working fuller, 
 who was called the Veiled Prophet (28), ElMo- 
 canna^ because he wore a veil ostensibly so that he 
 should not dazzle mortal eyes by the splendor of 
 liis divine light, really to hide a horrible wound 
 which had disfigured him. lie taught that God 
 had appeared nine times in human form. Adam, 
 Noah, Abraham, Moses, Mahomet, Ali, and the Son 
 of the Hanefite had been the first seven incarna- 
 tions. He had afterwards appeared with the feat- 
 ures of Abu-Muslim; and now He at the same time 
 revealed and veiled Himself in the person of El- 
 Mocanna. By the aid of miracles, that is to say, of 
 conjuring tricks, of which he was past master, the 
 Veiled Prophet of Khorassan came to be regarded 
 as divine. Three armies sent out against him were 
 destroyed ; but at last, surrounded and at bay, he 
 set fire to his fortress and disappeared like an arch- 
 angel in the flames. Centuries afterwards he still 
 had worshippers (29). 
 
 The Abbassides might easily have turned this 
 stream of relisjious mania to their own advantao^e. 
 Among the soldiers of Abu-Muslim were three 
 thousand men from Khorassan, the Ravandis, who 
 discovered one fine day that the God whom they 
 
38 THE MAHDI. 
 
 sought on earth was that very Caliph Almansor 
 whom thej had placed on the throne ; moreover, 
 that the soul of Adam had passed into his captain 
 of the guards, and the Angel Gabriel into the pre- 
 fect of the city. 
 
 Each time they saw Almansor they prostrated 
 themselves, saying, " Eehold God ; he has in him a 
 portion of God." He was recommended to put 
 them to death as heretics, but he replied wittily 
 enough: '*! would rather see them in hell and 
 faithful to me, than that they should revolt and go 
 to heaven." One day they began to w^alk round the 
 palace like the pilgrims at Mecca walk round the 
 Caaba; they interfered with traffic, and Almansor, 
 who was in a bad temper that day, had them put in 
 prison, and forbade their assembling under pain of 
 death. Thej^, however, gathered together, and de- 
 cided that that portion of God which had entered 
 into him had left him, that God had cursed him, 
 and that he must be killed so that the Deity might 
 enter into some one else. Tliej^ marched to the 
 palace, and almost took it .by a coujp de main ; but 
 the devotion of a servant saved the Caliph's life and 
 his crown (30). 
 
 After a ray of hope the road to martyrdom again 
 lay open before the Alides. The second Caliph 
 
THE MAHDI. 30 
 
 Almansor had given his son and heir the name of u- 
 Mahdi, as a protest against tlieir claims; but an 
 empty title was not enongh to reduce tlie legitimate 
 Jieirs to silence. Two Alides, brothers, Mohammed 
 and Ibrahim, rose at the same time, one in Arabia 
 and the other on the banks of the Euphrates. Both 
 perished. The Alides had only changed execu- 
 tioners ; but the executioners belonged to the 
 family, and that made all the difference. The sister 
 of Mohammed, when she heard of his death, ex- 
 claimed in a joyful tone : " God be praised that he 
 did not flee, and did not fall alive into their hands. 
 He was killed like his father, his uncles, and his 
 ancestors" (31). 
 
 The head of the family of the Alides, the legiti- 
 mate Imam Jafar, who was alive at the fall of the '^ 
 Omeiades, had died by poison like his predecessors; 
 liis successor, the seventh Imam, Musa, was poi- 
 soned in liis turn by the Caliph of Arahian Nights' 
 celebrity, Haroun al Rasliid. 
 
 Under the eighth Imam, AH Riza, a sudden 
 change seemed about to take place. The Caliph 
 was Almamun, a strange man. He was a liberal 
 inasmuch as he sent orthodox people to the gal- 
 
40 THE MAHDI. 
 
 lows, a form of liberalism bj no means rare — in the 
 East. IS^ow on reflection this Caliph began to have 
 doubts as to tlie legality of the power of the Abbas- 
 sides; hence arose the remarkable spectacle of one 
 of the Abbassides who actually sided with the 
 Alides. His scruples did not lead him so far as to 
 abdicate himself, but he disinherited his sons, de- 
 clared Ali Riza as his successor, and replaced the 
 black banner of the Abbassides by the green stan- 
 dard of the Alides (32). 
 
 The Caliph's family and the army of his func- 
 tionaries on this threatened to revolt, and Alma- 
 mun got himself out of the difficulty by the simple 
 means of poisoning his protege. The place where 
 the Imam perished, Meshhed, is to the present day 
 the great resort for Persian pilgrims (33). 
 
 The three Imams, Mohammed, Ali, and Hassan, 
 next succeeded from father to son, and each of 
 these theoretical rulers of the Moslem world perish- 
 ed in turn by poison (34). Hassan the eleventh 
 left a son, Mohammed, who at the time of his 
 father's death was six years old. The Caliph kept 
 this child a prisoner near his own" person, in the 
 town of Hillah ; but at the age of twelve years he 
 disappeared, probably also by the agency of poison. 
 
 The direct line of Imams was therefore broken 
 
THE MAHDI. 41 
 
 for ever ; there was no longer hope of a Malidi. 
 But the logic of the people of course drew the con- 
 clusion that the child was not dead but hidden, and 
 that he would return when he chose, being the 
 Master of Time. Persian engravings* represent 
 him with the features of a child, holding the sacred 
 book in his hand, seated in a grotto into which rays 
 of light are penetrating (35). 
 
 For a long time there were members of the 
 family of Ali who awoke every day with the hope 
 of witnessing the reappearance of the twelfth Imam, 
 the last lineal descendant of Fatima, whom they 
 called the exjpected Fatimide. " They go forth 
 from their villages on horseback and armed," says a 
 contemporary ; " thus accoutred they go to meet 
 their Imam ; they return deceived in their hopes, 
 but not discouraged" (36). 
 
 At Hillah, near Bagdad, the last place where he 
 was seen, a mosque was erected, over the door of 
 which Imng a silken curtain. This was where he 
 dwelt, in the holy of holies ; it was "the sanctuar}^ 
 of the Master of the Hour." Every day after the 
 midday prayer, a hundred horsemen, sword in 
 
 * A copy of one of these appears as the frontispiece of this 
 volume. 
 
42 THE MAHDT. 
 
 hand, went to receive from the commander of the 
 town a horse which was saddled and bridled, and 
 which they led to the sanctuary with sound of 
 trumpets and drums. When arrived at the door 
 they cried out, " In the name of God, O Master 
 of the Hour, in the name of God, come forth ! 
 For corruption has appeared and great is wrong- 
 doing." And they continued thus to appeal to 
 him to the sound of trumpets until the time of 
 evening prayer (37). The Mahdi, however, did 
 not come forth. 
 
 At last, in the sixteenth century, the Alides gained 
 the upper hand in Persia. A sheikh, who pro- 
 claimed himself to be a descendant of Musa, the 
 seventh Imam, founded the last great national 
 dynasty of Persia, the dynasty of the great Sufi. 
 But the Sufis, though Alides by birth, only regard- 
 ed tliemselves as lieutenants of the Imam, the pro- 
 visional administrators of Iran. As long as the 
 Imam was absent they were only rulers owing to 
 accident. Thus the Snfi did not call himself 
 "King of kings," but "Slave of the king of the 
 country," and even still more humbly, "The w\atch- 
 dog at the gate of Ali." The true king of Iran 
 was the absent Mahdi (38). In their palace at 
 Ispahan the Sufis always kept two horses magnifi- 
 
THE MAHDI. 43 
 
 cently harnessed, ready to receive him when lie 
 should deign to take once more the reins of gov- 
 ernment. One of these horses was for the Mahdi, 
 the other for liis h'eiitenant, Jesus Christ (39). 
 
44 THE MAHDI. 
 
 V. 
 
 THE MAHDI IN AFRICA. 
 
 Hitherto we have remained in the East, and 
 have only witnessed tlie deceptions and checks suf- 
 fered by the Mahdi. Let us now turn to the West, 
 and observe some of his triumphs. 
 
 Two Mahdis, one in the tenth century in Egypt, 
 the other in the twelfth century in Morocco, found- 
 ed dynasties which have left their name in history 
 — the first was that of the Fatimides, one of the 
 most glorious dynasties of Islam, which lasted three 
 centuries ; the second was that of the Almohades, 
 the conquerors of Spain. 
 
 In consequence of intestine quarrels among the 
 Alides, a powerful sect left the Imamians. This 
 was the sect called Ismaelis, whence came later that 
 sect w^ell known in the history of France, the Assas- 
 sins, or the Old Man of the Mountain (40). A 
 Persian oculist named Abdallah, the son of Mei- 
 moun (41). sworn enemy of the Arabs, took the 
 
THE MAHDI. 45 
 
 post of leader of the party of which he made a 
 purely philosophical sect, destroying the letter of 
 the Koran by allegorical interpretations. 
 
 So as to work more easily on the credulity of the 
 people, he pretended that he came of the race of 
 Ali, and sent missionaries to Arabia and Africa to 
 preach the new law, and announce the coming of 
 the Mahdi. The Mahdi delayed, but came at last 
 in the person of his grandson, Obeid- Allah. 
 
 Obeid-Allah laid claim to Northern Africa, where 
 the Berbers bore the yoke of the Arabs and of or- 
 thodoxy with impatience, and where the missionary 
 of the new sect, Abu-Abdallah, had preached with 
 marvellous success, both by word and sword. He 
 announced that the Mahdi was about to appear, to 
 subjugate the earth, revive the dead, and make the 
 sun rise from the loest (42). The Mahdi coming at 
 the call of his apostle was arrested at Tripoli and 
 thrown into prison by the governor of the Aghla- 
 bites, the local dynasty, vassal of the Caliph of Bag- 
 dad ; nevertheless his lieutenant continued a tri- 
 umphal march, expelled the Aghlabite prince and, 
 in the absence of the captive Mahdi, proclaimed 
 God as regent. 
 
 For several months the coinage, instead of bearing 
 the name of a king, was stamped with these words : 
 
46 THE MAHDI. 
 
 " I have accomplished the testimony of God ; may 
 the enemies of God be scattered ;" on all weapons 
 he had ene^raved : '' Arms with which to fio^ht in 
 the cause of God ;" and on the harness of horses : 
 "To God belongs the kingdom." Having thus 
 enthroned the Deity during this interregnum, he 
 marched on the town where His terrestrial repre- 
 sentative was imprisoned, delivered him, made him 
 mount on horseback, and marching before him with 
 the chiefs of the tribes, said to the people with 
 tears of joy : " Behold your master." On the Fri- 
 da}^ following he had his name proclaimed in public 
 prayer wdtli the title of " Mahdi, prince of true be- 
 lievers." 
 
 The Mahdi up till that time had only been a pas- 
 sive conqueror, but he soon began to show that he 
 could be active also. He began by having Abu- 
 Abdallah assassinated. " Stop, my son !" exclaimed 
 Abu-Abdallah, seizing the arm. of his murderer; 
 the man replied, '^ He whom you have enjoined us 
 to obey has ordered us to slay you." Abu-Abdallah 
 had only succeeded too well in his work as apostle. 
 To show that he was not ungrateful, the Mahdi him- 
 self recited the prayers for the dead over the corpse 
 of his benefactor. 
 
 Some people still doubted Obeid-Allah ; the sun 
 
THE MAHDI. 47 
 
 was against him, and witli sceptical obstinacy con- 
 tinued to rise in the east ; then the Mahdi had 
 shown perfectly well that he was able to kill, but 
 had not yet demonstrated that he could revive the 
 dead. One day a sheikh dared to say to him, " If 
 you are the Mahdi, perform a miracle, for we doubt i 
 very much whether you are what you give yourself 
 out to be." The Mahdi replied by having his head 
 cut off. It was not a miracle, but it is extremely 
 doubtful whether any miracle could have served 
 better to shut the mouth of the incredulous ! 
 
 The Mahdi required a capital, but he did not care 
 to occupy either Tunis or Kairoan, as there were too 
 many Arabs in both places, and he did not feel safe 
 among them. He traversed the coast of Tunis and 
 reached a peninsula which had the foi'm of a closed 
 fist. There, after having consulted the stars as to a 
 favorable day and hour, he laid the foundation-stone 
 of a city over which the French flag floats to-day, 
 but which still bears the name he gave — Mahdia — 
 the City of the Mahdi. 
 
 He surrounded it with a strong wall, with gates 
 of iron, each leaf of which weighed five hundred- 
 weight. In the hill he had an arsenal constructed 
 which could contain a hundred galleys, and when 
 the town was finished, he cried : " Now I am reas- 
 
48 THE MAHDI. 
 
 sured as to the fate of the Fatimides. T have built 
 this town so that they may take refuge here for a 
 short time." 
 
 To his mind, Mahdia was, in verj^ fact, only a pro- 
 visional shelter: the Mahdi's hopes were turned 
 eastward to Egypt. "When the walls of his town had 
 reached their full height, he mounted to the top and 
 fired an arrow towards the west. Soon after his 
 dominion extended to the Atlantic. Then it had to 
 be established on the shores of the Nile. His third 
 successor, Moez-lidin-Allah, sent a Greek slave, Jau- 
 her, to conquer Egypt and build a capital city, 
 which he called " The Victorious" Cairo (El Kahira). 
 Syria soon experienced the fate of Egypt ; and even 
 the seat of the Caliphat was for a short time in the 
 hands of the descendant of the Persian oculist, and 
 his name resounded in the Salvum fac at Bagdad 
 instead of that of the Abbassides. 
 
 The Caliphs of Bagdad made war against their 
 fortunate rivals of Cairo with the pen and with all 
 the weapons of theologj^, making their sages declare 
 that the pretended descendant of Ali was really the 
 son of a Magus and of a Jewess ; but the day when 
 the Egyptian Ulemas received Moez and asked him 
 for proofs of his lineage, he easily convinced them 
 by two arguments. Holding the pommel of his 
 
THE MAHDI. 49 
 
 sword ill his hand, he exclaimed : " This is my an- 
 cestor !" and throwing them a liandful of gold, he 
 said, " Here are my proofs "(43). 
 
 Nevertheless, credulity wore itself out in time. 
 The Prophet had not declared that the Mahdi was 
 to become a source of terrestrial kings — he was to 
 have come to announce God. God must come, and 
 so the seventh Fatimide, Hakim, became God. 
 This Hakim was a sort of raving madman, by turns 
 a bigoted Mussulman and a downright atheist, ac- 
 cording to the theological caprice of the moment, 
 and according to whether he subscribed to the letter 
 of the Koran or to the symbolical interpretation 
 known only to those initiated in the highest degree. 
 A Persian secretary named Darazi came to preach 
 to him that he was the Divine incarnation, and 
 Hakim believed it without having to be asked to do 
 so twice ; but, wonderful to relate. Hakim was not 
 the only person who believed in Hakim; quite a 
 church formed about this God in the flesh, and 
 when he suddenly disappeared, three years after his 
 apotheosis, having probably been assassinated, his 
 followers announced that he would reappear in 
 human form on the day of resurrection to pass his 
 judgments by the sword. He was to appear en- 
 veloped as in a veil, with a multitude of angels, 
 
60 THE MAHDI. 
 
 among squadrons of cherubims. His arrival was to 
 be preceded by a great tumult in the land of Egypt, 
 by the apparition of an impostor at Cairo (Arabi 
 Pasha ?), by earthquakes (those in Spain ?), by the 
 triumph of the Christians, and by the derision into 
 which religion shall have fallen. 
 
 " When ye see among you faith become rare," 
 cried one of the apostles, " pious men overwhelm- 
 ed with injuries and outrages ; when religion shall 
 be, against the will of those who have remained 
 faithful to it, a subject for mirth in the mouths of 
 the impure ; when it shall be treated as a paring of 
 the nails to be flung far away ; when the earth, 
 great as it is, shall seem too small for the disciples 
 of truth, who cannot find in it a place of safety ; 
 then may ye speedily, O ye dregs of the nations, 
 expect to hear the cry which will be the signal for 
 your defeat ! O ye remnant of the worshippers of 
 the calf and of idols !" (44). 
 
 The worship of Hakim did not survive its god in 
 Egypt ; but it has lived on to the present day in the 
 mountains of Syria. There Darazi left disciples 
 who assumed his name, and the descendants of 
 whom we now call the Druzes, who still wait the 
 return of Hakim, the Man-god. 
 
 The Berbers of Constantine and Tunis had their 
 
THE MAHDI. 51 
 
 Mahdi at the time of the founder of the Fatimides ; 
 two centuries later came one to the Berbers of 
 Morocco. A man of the tribe of Masmuda, in the 
 Morocceen Atlas, named Mohammed ibn Tumert, 
 returned from the pilgrimage to Mecca and the 
 schools of Bagdad with a half-pantheistic system 
 which he called the system of Unity, or ahnohade 
 ialmiivahhid) system. At first he was only a saint 
 (they all begin in this way), so severe and so chaste 
 in his habits that he easily persuaded the Barbers 
 that he belonged to a different species from them- 
 selves. 
 
 He soon announced the coming of the Mahdi, 
 and it was eagerly expected. IText he affirmed 
 that he himself was the Mahdi, and he was believed 
 Miracles were demanded: he performed them. 
 For example, he made angels speak from the bot- 
 tom of a well, and pronounce sentence of death 
 against his enemies, who were immediately exe- 
 cuted by his followers. Then, without losing time, 
 he had the well filled up to guard its sanctity from 
 possible pollution in the future, and to prevent any 
 indiscretion on the part of his angels. 
 
 The Mahdi died before having reaped the fruits 
 of his miracles ; his disciple and successor, Abd-al- 
 Mumin, profited by them, and after having inun- 
 
52 THE MAHDI. 
 
 dated Morocco with a torrent of Berbers, passed 
 into Spain, which he also conquered; hence the 
 dynasty of the Ahnohades under which, during the 
 whole of the twelfth century, Spain was subjected 
 to a wild orthodoxy unknown during the Arab 
 rule. Averroes had to go into exile. " In our 
 country," said a sage of the time with much pride, 
 " not the slightest heresy is tolerated ; we will have 
 no church, no synagogue" (45). 
 
 The Almohades succumbed in their turn ; but 
 the Mahdi fever continued to rage among the 
 Berbers ; it was epidemic throughout the thirteenth 
 century. He was sought at the extremities of the 
 habitable world. At Massa, on the Atlantic coast 
 of Morocco, there was a celebrated convent or rihat / 
 not far from there dwelt the tribe of Guedala, the 
 men of which covered their faces with a veil called 
 the litham^ which only allowed the eyes to appear, 
 and is still worn by the Tuaregs. The idea arose 
 that it was thence, and from among this veiled 
 people, that the hidden Imam, the long-expected 
 Mahdi, would come forth, and that in the convent 
 his inauguration would take place (46). More than 
 one aspirant came to the ribat to leave it Mahdi 
 and perish immediately (47). It is said that at the 
 present moment there is still one waiting there (48.) 
 
THE MAHDI. 53 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE MAHDI IN TURKEY. 
 
 After the Persians and the Berbers let us turn 
 to the Turks. 
 
 The Turks were not Alides ; being the heirs of 
 the Caliplis of Bagdad, they were and still are 
 fanatically orthodox. A passionate hatred raged 
 between the Persian Shiites and the Turkisli Sun- 
 nites. They also believed that the Mahdi was to 
 appear at the end of time supported by three hun- 
 dred and sixty lieavenly spirits, "The men of God, 
 the Ridjal Allah^'' to summon all the peoples of 
 the earth to the knowledge of Islam ; but they took 
 their precautions against him, for they knew very 
 well that they were not of the blood of Mahomet, 
 that tliey were interlopers in the Caliphat, and had 
 only entered it by main force. Hence they sought 
 to isolate the Mahdi from the world, and cut every 
 bond between him and the human race. The thirty- 
 fourth article of the Turkish creed was that " tlie 
 
54 THE MAHDI. 
 
 Imam ouglit to be visible, that lie must not hide 
 from the public gaze, nor be the object of its expec- 
 tation " (49). In Turkey, therefore, there was no 
 room for a hidden Imam, an absent Hakim, or an 
 '' expected Fatimide." They have declared quite 
 recently, as we shall presently see, that the Mahdi 
 can only appear in a time of interregnum, when the 
 Caliph has died without an acknowledged successor, 
 a very conservative theory and a most reassuring 
 one for the Sultan on the throne. But when people 
 will have a Messiah, not all the sermons of all the 
 theologists in the world will prevent them from 
 manufacturing one (50). 
 
 The most celebrated of Turkish Malidis made his 
 appearance in 1666, under Mohammed TV.- — the 
 Sultan who very nearly took Yienna. That year 
 there was a Messianic eruption, which began among 
 the Jews. The Cabala announced the arrival of the 
 Messiah for that year; he apj^eared at the appointed 
 time. He was a young man from Smyrna, of ex- 
 treme personal beauty, very eloquent, and inspired, 
 to all seeming, with divine fervor; his name was 
 Sabbatai Zevi. All the Turkish rabbis acknowl- 
 edged him, and proselytes came to him from Ger- 
 many, Amsterdam, and London; the kingdom of 
 l94*ael was about to be re-established, the reign of 
 
THE MAHDI. 65 
 
 God to commence, and the New Jerusalem to 
 descend upon earth. 
 
 The Mussuhnan world also was stirred. The 
 arrival of the Mahdi was to be preceded and an- 
 nounced by that of the Antichrist, of the false 
 prophet Deddjal ; hence as the Jewish Messiah had 
 come the Mahdi would soon appear. An eclipse of 
 the moon, wliich stopped the troops who were ready 
 to embark for Crete, proved that the time had come, 
 and then it was suddenly announced that the Mahdi 
 liad appeared. This was the son of a Kurdistan 
 sheikh who had put himself at the head of some 
 thousands of Kurds ; but he was taken and sent to 
 the Sultan. The Sultan was hunting when the 
 Mahdi was presented to him. He questioned him, 
 and the young man, renouncing his part, answered 
 with such good grace that the Sultan was delighted 
 with him and retained him as page. 
 
 Some time afterwards Sabbatai being denounced 
 as an impostor by a rabbi whose proffered services 
 as vicar of the Messiah he had refused, had also to 
 be summoned before the Sultan, and, to the great 
 scandal of his followers, was obliged to employ an 
 interpreter in order to answer the questions put to 
 him ; emotion had apparently made him lose the 
 supernatural knowledge of all tongues which he 
 
56 THE MAHDI. 
 
 ought to liave possessed. Matters became worse 
 when the Sultan had him stripped and bound to a 
 target, and offered himself to become a convert if 
 the arrows shot at him should leave his body scath- 
 less. Sabbatai declined the ordeal, accepted the 
 turban,* and obtained a post as one of the warders 
 of the harem. Thus the Sultan had the honor of 
 being served by the Antichrist as doorkeeper, and 
 the Mahdi as valet. In spite of this protection, 
 however, he was strangled by his janissaries a few 
 years later according to Ottoman custom (51). 
 
 * To put on the turban is the sign of conversion to the faith 
 of Islam.— A. S. B. 
 
THE MAHDI. 67 
 
 YII. 
 
 THE MAHDI IN EGYPT. 
 
 We may pass over the eigliteentli century, which 
 was not very fertile in Mahdis. The Mahdi slept 
 in the East just as Christ slept in the West ; he 
 awoke in Egypt at the French conquest in May, 
 1Y99. It is not likely that this Mahdi belongs to 
 the old Alide movement of Fatimite Egypt, for he 
 was supported by Turkey, wliich supplied him with 
 English money. This Mahdi, whose I'eal name is 
 unknown, seems to have been one of the most de- 
 cided impostors of his kind. He came from Tripoli, 
 where he had descended from heaven ; his descent, 
 however, was made in the desert, so that the miracle 
 had but few spectators. He was very lavish with 
 liis money — money which had also fallen from 
 heaven, but which, curiously enough, was marked 
 with the Sultan's stamp. His body, although visi- 
 ble, was immaterial. Every day at the hour of 
 prayer before the assembled people he dipped his 
 
68 THE MAHDI. 
 
 fingers into a bowl of milk, and passed tliem across 
 liis lips ; this was all the nourishment he took. At 
 Damanhour he surprised and slaughtered sixty men 
 belonging to the navy ; and by throwing a little 
 dust towards the French guns he prevented the 
 powder from exploding, and caused the balls to fall 
 harmless before the true believers. But Lefebvre, 
 the French Brigadier-General, marched against him 
 with four hundred men. "Assailed by a cloud of 
 Arabs," wrote Bonaparte in a report to the Direc- 
 tory, "he ranged his men in a square, and all day 
 long he continued killing the madmen who threw 
 themselves upon our cannon, unable to rid them- 
 selves of the delusion under which they labored. It 
 was not till night that these fanatics, when they 
 counted their dead (there were more than a thou- 
 sand) and their wounded, began to understand that 
 God no longer performs miracles'^ (52). 
 
 When his alarmed and shocked partisans showed 
 him their dead and wounded, the Mahdi replied that 
 only those are invulnerable who have an entire 
 faith. Apparently he himself was not one of these, 
 for in a skirmish a ball which laid him dead marked 
 him out as an unbeliever ; but his more faithful 
 followers concluded that he had considered it better 
 to fight from the heights of heaven whence he had 
 
THE MAHDI. 59 
 
 come, and they looked for his return. He did not 
 return, but the Frencli went away, wliich amounted 
 to very much the same thing, and vindicated the 
 lienor of the Mahdi. 
 
eO THE MAHDI. 
 
 YIII. 
 
 THE MAHDI IN THE SOUDAN. 
 
 We have now reached the Malidi of Soudan 
 celebrity. The time has not yet come to write his 
 liistory, for he has first to accomphsh and end it. 
 Concerning the man personally we have only two 
 authentic documents. One is the letter of a French- 
 man born in the Soudan, who saw him at Khartoum 
 — M. Mousa Peney, son of Dr. Peney, one of the 
 bravest of explorers in the Soudan, the first Euro- 
 pean who had ever visited Gondokoro. Tlie only 
 fault to find with this is that it sometimes sins on 
 the side of over-precision (53). The other, which 
 dives into the verv souls of the heroes of the drama, 
 is the report of a consultation of thewUlemas of El 
 Azhar Mosque at Cairo, of which M. Clermont 
 Ganneau, the well-known Orientalist, has kindly 
 communicated his own translation to the author. 
 The following is derived from these two sources: 
 
 The name of the Mahdi is Mohammed Ahmed. 
 He was born at Dongola, about the year of the 
 

 
 ■*^. 
 
 »<»-""«^ ..-.»-•"" 
 
 ■■^, 
 
 The Mahdi. 
 
THE MAHDI. 61 
 
 Hesrira 1260, 1843 of our era. His father's name 
 was Abdallalii, and his mother's Amiiia (54). 
 
 These details, of little apparent significance to us, 
 are of the greatest importance to Mussulmans. A 
 tradition, which is really very ancient and attributed 
 to Mahomet, declares that the Mahdi shall bear the 
 same name as the Prophet, and that the father of 
 the Mahdi shall have the same name as the Prophet's 
 father (55). Now, the Prophet's name was Moham- 
 med Ahmed, his father's Abdallah, and, what is 
 more, his mother was called Amina. Forty years is 
 the age of prophecy among the Mussulmans, be- 
 cause it was at that age that Mahomet revealed 
 himself. 
 
 The Mahdi's name and those of his parents seem 
 to point to the fact that lie was born in the midst of 
 people disposed to fervor and prophecy, an heredi- 
 tary genius. Moreover, from his childhood, Mo- 
 hammed showed that he had a decided vocation; 
 at twelve years old he knew the Koran by heart. 
 When his father died, his two elder brothers, who 
 were boat-builders on the White Nile, seeing that 
 he had talent, supplied his wants, and provided him 
 with means to study under two professors of repute 
 in the neighborhood of Khartoum, Abdel Dagim 
 and El Gourachi. 
 
62 THE MAHDI. 
 
 When twenty-five years old, having finislied his 
 studies, and his motlier being dead, he settled down 
 near the place where his brothers worked, in the 
 Island of Aba, a little island then unknown, but now 
 historical in Europe and sacred in Africa. Tliere 
 he lived in a very retired way for fifteen years, the 
 fifteen years which Mahomet had spent in medita- 
 tion near Mount Harra. His career was evidently 
 foreshadowed by that of the Prophet. Strauss says 
 that the life of Jesus is a projection cast by the 
 popular imaginatiQn from the ancient prophecies of 
 Israel. The life of the Malidi is a patent illustra- 
 tion of this theory, the Mahdi being but the living 
 reflection of Mahomet. 
 
 He lived in a hole in the ground, and grew thin 
 from privations and frequent fasting, continually 
 mourning over the corruption of men. The neigh- 
 boring tribe of Beggaras, the most powerful in this 
 region of the l^ile, venerated him as a saint, and 
 felt assured that the breath of God was upon him ; 
 so when the hour of prophecy was told, and the 
 fortieth year began, when he rose up Mahdi, the 
 Beggaras without any difficulty passed from venera- 
 tion to adoration, and he became that phenomenon 
 — ^a prophet in his own country. 
 
 Moreover, was not the fatal year approaching, the 
 
THE MAHDI. 63 
 
 year 1300 of the Hegira, which a modern tradition 
 assigns for the final triumph of Islam ? Mohammed 
 sent out numbers of missionaries to the sheikhs of 
 the various tribes, announcing that he > was the long- 
 expected Mahdi, that Mahomet had come from God 
 to tell him tliat the Turkish dominion was about to 
 end, that the Soudan was to rise on every side, and 
 that he himself, after having passed the necessary 
 time in the Soudan, was to go up to Mecca to be 
 acknowledged by the great Sheriff. 
 
 His emissaries had been preaching these things 
 for about a year without anything being known of 
 them at Khartoum, although it was only three days' 
 journey from the sacred island. Raouf Pacha, the 
 Governor-General, when at last he was informed of 
 the true state of affairs, sent two hundred men to 
 Aba to seize the Mahdi. Overtaken by rain and 
 sinking into deep mud at each step, in the depths 
 of the forest, the men, it is said, at last arrived at 
 midnight at the hut of the Prophet, round which 
 a band of dervishes were dancing, repeating the 
 sacred name of Allah. 
 
 The adjutant-major tired and killed one of the 
 dervishes, and immediatel}^ the whole band howling 
 with rage fell upon the soldiers, their cries being 
 repeated by thousands of Arabs who had established 
 
64 THE MAHDI. 
 
 themselves in the forest. In a few seconds the 
 whole troop, including its officers, was cut to 
 pieces. This was the first spark of the great fire 
 which is now raging in the basin of the Nile. It 
 was in August, 1881. 
 
 The Mahdi, retiring with his dervishes to Mount 
 Gadir, commenced new efforts. The Soudan began 
 to be affected. The temporary governor, the Ba- 
 varian Giegler Pacha, concentrated the garrisons of 
 Sennaar, Fachoda, and Kordofan, with the view of 
 leading them against the Mahdi, not for a moment 
 imagining that the provinces whicli he left ungar- 
 risoned by this step would immediately revolt. 
 
 Seven thousand men sent to Mount Gadir were at- 
 tacked by fifty thousand insurgents, commanded by 
 the Mahdi's two brothers, Mohammed and Hamed. 
 The two brothers perished, but of the Egyptian 
 army only one hundred and fifty men escaped. 
 
 During this time Sennaar revolted, and El-Obeid 
 fell into the hands of the Mahdi, v/ho made it his 
 capital on the 17th of January, 1883. On the 5th 
 of November, in the same year, the army marching 
 to the rescue under Hicks Pacha was destroyed, or 
 went over to the camp of the Mahdi. We know 
 what followed. ' 
 
THE MAHDI. 65 
 
 IX. 
 
 MOHAMMED AHMED AND HIS RIVALS. 
 
 Many explanations of the success of the Mahdi 
 have been sought. Some say he is a genius. Per- 
 liaps he is ; but that is not in itself sufficient. He 
 really does not seem to be an ordinarv man. A deep 
 and sincere conviction is required to act upon the 
 masses as he has done, more especially as he does 
 not rely upon the magic of mystery, but shows him- 
 self to all. When his quarters were at El-Obeid, 
 the Irishman O'Kelly remarks (56), he went to the 
 mosque, in the midst of the crowd, liis sandals on 
 his feet, and his whole dress consisting of a shirt 
 and drawers made of coarse cloth.* 
 
 His strategy is elementary, but it is that which 
 the country requires: no assaults on fortified towns, 
 which are merely to be surrounded until famine 
 opens their gates; no great battles, but a constant 
 
 * See Note 69 and Appendix A. — A. S. B. 
 
66 THE MAHDT. 
 
 liarassing of the enemy, sniTounding liim from a dis- 
 tance, then, when he is exhausted, swooping down 
 on liim with all forces united to make an end of 
 the affair. 
 
 Whether he follows the advice of European ad- 
 venturers or acts on his own opinions, the success 
 with which he has met has justified his plan of 
 warfare up till the present. Two facts seem to in- 
 dicate that he is relatively honest and humane;* he 
 performs few miracles (5Y), and he makes prisoners 
 (58). 
 
 Recent news from the seat of war indicates that 
 he is a cultivated specimen of Mussulman politician. 
 The messengers sent by him to neutral or hostile 
 tribes, to summon them to join him on pain of 
 extermination, are accompanied by Ulemas charged 
 to convince them of the mission of the Mahdi, and 
 of the supreme duty to join him which is incum- 
 bent on them. Many who are insensible or re- 
 
 *Tlns latter epithet can however hardly be applied to some 
 of his followers. The special correspondent of The Lancet 
 writing from the base - hospital camp near Siiakin, under 
 date March 23d, 1885, after describing the character of the 
 wounds inflicted on our soldiers, said: "No man unhorsed in 
 tight ever escapes the fury of these ruffians, nor lives to tell 
 the tale of a hand-to-hand encounter with their active and 
 brave but relentless foes." (See Lancet, April 11.) — A. S. B. 
 
THE MAHDI. 67 
 
 bellious to threats come from the theological dis- 
 cussion ready to die the death of martyrs to his 
 cause. The tribal jealousies which counterbalance 
 hatred of Christianity will weigh light in one scale, 
 if in the other they see the authority of the Koran 
 added to the weight of the victorious sword (59). 
 
 Others believe him to be a mere tool in the hands 
 of the great slave-merchants of the Upper Nile, 
 who are menaced in their hideous traffic by Euro- 
 pean civilization. But this is to be too precise in pol- 
 itics ; the Mahdi may have the slave-merchants on 
 his side, but the slaves are also for him. The rising 
 of the Mahdi is the natural and leo^itimate reaction 
 of the Soudan, whether for or against slavery, 
 against the worst of oppressions, that which presents 
 itself with all the hypocrisies of civilization. 
 
 Civilization introduced into a half -savage country 
 is a dangerous thing even in the hands of Euro- 
 peans ; we can hardly imagine what it may become 
 in the hands of Egyptian Pachas, Arabs, or Turks, 
 steeped in bureaucracy. 
 
 The Egyptian conquest of the Soudan was doubt- 
 less beneficial for the West, for our science and 
 commerce ; but for the peoples of the Soudan it 
 was hell upon earth. The Egyptian conquest was 
 the monopoly of slavery for the benefit of the Khe- 
 
68 THE MAHDI. 
 
 dive's people. Our hero, Gordon, appointed Gov- 
 ernor of the Soudan, saw the intimate workings of 
 Egyptian civilization, and twice he resigned his post 
 in horror and disgust. 
 
 Further, the war-cry of the Mahdi is not "Down 
 with the Christians !" but " Down with the Turks !" 
 That is to say, down with the false Moslems of 
 Cairo ! The word Turk is used habitually in the 
 Soudan, because in the Island of Aba people are 
 not familiar with the changes which take place in 
 the dictionary of politics, and they are ignorant that 
 the Turk of Constantinople no longer rules in 
 Egypt. 
 
 However this may be, the Turk, who still thinks 
 himself sovereign, took fright. The Soudan, more- 
 over, is not the only place where a Mahdi is to be 
 dreaded ; on the other side of the Hed Sea there is 
 another volcano — Arabia. The Arabs of Arabia 
 have certainly been cold to him hitherto ; but the 
 reason of this may easily be conceived ; for if there 
 is a place which has a right to claim the honor of 
 giving the Mahdi to the world, it is Mecca, and 
 each Sheriff who prides himself on being descended 
 from Fatima says in his heart of hearts, "Who 
 knows ? Perhaps I may be the man !" 
 . During the pilgrimage of 1882, a Mahdi was ex- 
 
THE MAHDI. 69 
 
 pected at Mecca. The Turkish police was on its 
 guard, and informed the notables of the city that 
 something unpleasant miglit happen to them if he 
 did appear, and the Messiah remained discreetly in 
 the background. 
 
 ^Nevertheless, a curious fact proves to what an 
 extent the atmosphere of Arabia, without distinc- 
 tion of religion or race, is impregnated with Mes- 
 sianic vapors. A hundred Jewish families of Ye- 
 men, after traversing the whole of that immense 
 peninsula, arrived at Jerusalem a few months ago, 
 having been urged thither by the report that the 
 Messiah had appeared ! They found at Sion, instead 
 of the Messiah, the Turk, misery, and famine. 
 They lodged in caverns at the foot of the holy 
 mountain, and set up their tents on the ground at 
 the feet of its olive-trees. The European consuls 
 interceded for them, and had some houses built for 
 them on the Mount of Offence * (60). 
 
 If we remember that, in Mussulman theology, the 
 Messiah heralds the Mahdi, this Jewish exodus is 
 full of significance as to the ideas current in Arabia 
 
 * The Mount of Offence or Scandal is the most southern 
 part of the Mount of Olives, which has been fixed upon as the 
 place where Solomon raised altars for his idolatrous wives, — 
 S. A. B. 
 
70 THE MAHDI. 
 
 at the present time. Hence the Mahdi, aware of 
 these things, is anxious to visit Mecca, and this is 
 the reason for his having announced, as the last act 
 of his programme, that he proposes to go thither to 
 be acknowledged by the great Sheriff. This is why 
 Osman Digna (61) is so desirous of retaining Sua- 
 kin ; unfortunately for him, the English fleet bars 
 the way to the holy city. It is the sea, this time, 
 which says to the man, " Non am/plius ihis.^^ 
 
 Another Mahdi who was an important personage 
 until the great victories of Mohammed, but whose 
 star has since been on the wane, is the Mahdi of the 
 Senussis. This sect was founded hardly more than 
 forty years ago by an Algerian of Mostaganem, and 
 is dominant at the present time in Tripoli and the 
 Tripolitan Soudan, extending its branches even to 
 the Atlantic, to Bagdad (62). 
 
 Senussi, a man of considerable foresight, had mar- 
 ried a Sheriffa, that is to say, a woman of the race 
 of Ali, and had given his son the name of El-Mahdi. 
 On this son the eyes of all the Senussis were fixed. 
 He had attained the age of forty — the prophetic 
 age. It is said among the Arabs that the Sultan, 
 who felt a little uncomfortable, wrote to him, say- 
 ing, "There is a great deal of talk about thee. Who 
 art thou ? If thou art the Mahdi, let us know, so 
 
THE MAHDI. ♦J'l 
 
 that in the name of God we may aid tliee to accom- 
 plish the divine mission which has been confided to 
 tliee." The Mahdi prudently replied, *' I am yQiir 
 servant ; but I do not know what yon mean." Iji 
 the mean while the Mahdi of Tripoli and the Mahdi 
 of the Soudan sat lookino^ at each ether, like two 
 china dogs on a farm-house mantelpiece. At the 
 beginning of last year the Mahdi of Jahrboub 
 denounced him of the Soudan, to the indignation 
 of the faithful, as an impostor and a liar. 
 
 During this time the true Mahdi revealed him- 
 self, as a Mahdi ought to do, by victory. The 
 Sultan, growing more and more uneasy, made a 
 trial of those theological weapons which nine centu- 
 ries ago had brought such poor success to his prede- 
 cessors of Bagdad against the Fatimide Mahdi. 
 He consulted the Ulemas of El-Azhar, the greatest 
 university of the Mussulman world, as to the value 
 of the pretensions of this " person who has revolted 
 against the authority of the Caliph of God on earth, 
 who alone has power to bind and to release." The 
 letter in which the Sultan consulted them gave the 
 resume of a circular letter sent by the Mahdi to the 
 tribes of Suakin, the commentary on which were 
 the battles between General Graham and Osman 
 Digna. 
 
72 THE MAHDI, 
 
 After the usual benedictions on the name of 
 Allah, on Mahomet and his family, and after nu- 
 merous quotations from the Koran, and traditions 
 which command a holy war and forbid the faithful 
 to make friends with the enemies of the Most 
 High, he claimed for himself the Supreme Caliphat, 
 a claim which, he said, was supported by a revela- 
 tion from the Most High. Mahomet came to in- 
 form him that he was the long-expected Mahdi, 
 and made him sit on his throne in the presence of 
 the Caliphs, the spiritual chiefs, and Kliidr (the 
 Mahometan representative of the Jewish and Chris- 
 tian prophet Elijah). God then promised him the 
 assistance of the angels who surrounded him, of the 
 faithful Djinns, and of all the prophets and saints 
 who have ever existed, from the time of Adam to 
 the present moment. At the hour of battle the 
 Lord promised him to appear in person with them 
 at the head of his army ; the Lord gave him the 
 sword of victory, with the formal promise that none 
 sliould vanquish him, even if the Djinns should 
 unite with men against him. Besides this, God 
 gaA'e him two other signs of his mission — one a 
 beauty-spot on the right cheek (63), the other the 
 standard of light, to be borne at the hour of battle 
 by the Angel Azrael (64). The Prophet said to 
 
THE MAHDI. 73 
 
 him also, " Of the h'glit of my heart art thou cre- 
 ated " (65). AVhoever believes in him will be very 
 happy, and have allotted to him a place near God 
 like that of Abd-el-Kader Ghilani {66); whoever 
 opposes him shall be considered an infidel, an out- 
 cast in this world and the next, and shall see his 
 children and his fortune a prey to the Moslem. 
 The Prophet concluded by announcing the fall of 
 those infidels, and worse than infidels, the Turks, 
 because they strive to extinguish the light of the 
 Most High God. 
 
 The Ulemas gave the reply which was evidently 
 desired, and endeavored to crush the pretensions 
 of the Mahdi with an overpowering weight of 
 arguments and quotations ; but, curiously enough, 
 they seemed not to dream of doubting the miracles 
 whicli he announced as facts. They accepted all 
 his premises, only contesting liis conclusions — a 
 very dangerous procedure from a logical point of 
 view. In their honor be it said, however, that the 
 authority of the beauty-spot did not really impose 
 upon them, for they profoundly remarked that 
 there are many people who bear this ornament 
 quite modestly on their cheeks without holding it 
 forth as a reason for them to a claim a mission 
 from on high. The standard of light borne by 
 
74 THE MAHDI. 
 
 Azrael seemed to puzzle tliem more, and the natu- 
 ral question arises what that standard of light is. 
 Of this we know notliing, but the Ulemas were 
 apparently familiar with its nature. Thej con- 
 tented themselves with the observation that a man 
 through whose means a miracle is performed is not 
 necessarily a prophet, and that miracles may even 
 take place through the agency of the impious: for 
 example, apparently, those daily wonders of the 
 unfaithful, railways, the telegraph, dynamite, etc. 
 They argued for a long time as to whether Ma- 
 homet had appeared to him awake or asleep, but 
 concluded that however that mav have been, he 
 had certainly not brought him a revelation which 
 was contrary to the very law of Mahomet ; for the 
 trne Mahdi, according to the orthodox tradition, 
 ought to appear at a time of trouble, at the death 
 of a Caliph, when the people should not know 
 whom to appoint in his stead, which was not the 
 case at that moment. Further, he was not to 
 appear in the Soudan, but in Arabia ; not to pro- 
 claim himself Mahdi, but to be proclaimed Mahdi 
 in spite of himself : for, according to the most 
 authentic traditions, the Mahdi was to be a man 
 from Medina, who, reversing the Hegira'^ of Ma- 
 * The Flight.— A. S. B. 
 
THE MAHDI. 75 
 
 liomet, sliould flee to Mecca and be proclaimed in 
 spite of liimself between tlie black stone at the 
 Caaba, and the standing-place of Abraham (67). 
 
 This tradition, which was most reassuring to the 
 powers that were, according to the Ulemas refuted 
 the pretensions of the false prophet, " with a clear- 
 ness comparable to that of the stars." 
 
 The terrible accusation of infidelity, hurled against 
 those who should deny the Mahdi, should be turned 
 against him himself, for he denounced and massa- 
 cred the faithful, forgetting that it is a less heinous 
 crime to leave a thousand infidels alive than to slay 
 one of the faithful, "an unheard-of and revolting 
 atrocity which angers God and His Prophet, and 
 realizes the hopes of Satan." The words of the 
 Prophet on the subject of heretics apply to the 
 false Mahdi and his followers: "They are the 
 worst of my people who slay the best of my peo- 
 ple." Hence, any one who associates with him by 
 act or word will be associated with him at the Last 
 Judgment. The Prophet has said, " Discord sleeps ; 
 mav God curse him who awakens her !" 
 
 4/ 
 
 A month after this consultation Hicks Pacha's 
 army was exterminated, and many of those who had 
 agreed with the above conclusion began to have 
 doubts of the value of their arguments. The events 
 
76 THE MAHDI. 
 
 whicli followed later, the taking of Khartoum and 
 the death of Gordon, ended many a doubt and 
 much resistance. The death of Gordon was even 
 more striking than the taking of Khartoum, for it 
 was an event predicted in the Messianic programme. 
 
 It seems as if Gordon played, and still plays, a 
 superhuman part in the imagination of the Mahdi's 
 followers. To us Gordon is only a hero, perhaps 
 the last hero of Puritan Christianity, one of Mil- 
 ton's heroes who has lost his way among the in- 
 trigues of the nineteenth century; to the Arabs 
 Gordon is Christianity itself, the mighty incarna- 
 tion of evil and of error, which they contemplate 
 with a mixture of terror, awe, and hatred. 
 
 The English papers published a manifesto from 
 the Emir of Berber, announcing the taking of 
 Khartoum and the death of Gordon ; according to 
 the translation it said : " We have killed the traitor 
 Gordon" (68). It is rather surprising to iind the 
 expression traitor coupled with the name of Gor- 
 don even by the pen of an Arab, and it is to be 
 regretted that the word so translated was not given 
 in the Arabic original, for very possibly the text 
 gave " Gordon the Impostor," that is to say, the 
 Deddjal, the Antichrist : for the death of the Dedd- 
 jal, the destruction of the Antichrist, was to be the 
 
THE MAHDI. 77 
 
 great work of the Malidi and the heginning of the 
 great triumph (69). Gordon miglit have played 
 another part if he had become a convert to Islam- 
 ism, as the Mahdi seems to have offered that he 
 should do — the part of Jesus Christ Himself; for 
 theoretically at least there can be no Mahdi without 
 a Jesus at liis side. 'No one has hitherto been 
 engaged for this part, but possibly the ambition of 
 M. Ollivier Pain* may be tempted by it. 
 
 The movement in the Soudan cannot be crushed 
 by intermittent victories bought too dearly for Eng- 
 land. It is not with one battle that a revolution 
 can be put an end to. Islam has reached its '93, 
 and caimot be brought back again to '89. In spite 
 of an infinite number of external differences, tlio 
 same spirit is now urging the followers of the Mahdi 
 which urged on the men of the French Eevolution. 
 To the thousands of people who are ready to die at 
 his sh'ghtest command, and probably even to him- 
 self, the work of the Mahdi is to bring about the 
 advent of justice upon earth. Remember the Pro- 
 phet's definition of the Mahdi : "A man who shall 
 fill the earth with justice, as it is now filled with 
 iniquity." 
 
 * See p. 78, foot-note. 
 
78 THE MAHDI. 
 
 The revolutionary idea among the French, and 
 the idea of the Messiali among the Mussulmans, 
 spring from the same instinct, the same aspiration 
 —among the former in a secular, among the latter 
 in a religious form ; among the former withered 
 into abstract propositions and tlieoretical reasonings, 
 among the latter in the spontaneous and striking 
 form of supernatural visions. 
 
 On both sides we find the same striving for an 
 ideal, tainted bv lapses into greed and hatred ; on 
 both sides the same ignorance of reality, the same 
 hopes contrary to the order of Nature, the same 
 dream of a world regenerated by a miracle, without 
 any change in humanity, the same prodigies of en- 
 thusiasm, ferocity, and devotion ; on both sides, the 
 kingdom of equity, peace, and brotherhood, is to 
 be established by means of a desti'oying angel. The 
 Chancellor of the Mahdi, if he has one,* need not 
 feel himself expatriated in the midst of tlie desert 
 confederations. Wliere the Fiench beggar sings: 
 
 " Here is the end of your troubles, 
 Eaters of black bread and drinkers of water !"f 
 
 * M. Ollivier Pain Is said to be the Mahdi's Chancellor; he 
 played a leading part in the Commune at Paris in 1871. — 
 A. S. B. 
 
 f " Voici la fin de vos miseres, 
 
 Mangcurs de pain noir, buveurs d'eau!" 
 A song by Dupont which was very popular in 1848. — A. S. B. 
 
THE MAHDI. 79 
 
 the oppressed Arab cries up to heaven : Mata 
 yathar el Mahdi f — " When will the Mahdi come ?" 
 A people imbued with these sentiments may be 
 exterminated, but they will never be made to sub- 
 mit to fate. 
 
80 THE MAHDI. 
 
 X. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 How will it end ? The subject naturally invites 
 prophecies, but the author has no intention of setting 
 himself up as a Mahdi, and will therefore endeavor 
 to be prudent in his predictions. 
 
 The present Mahdi, if Mahomet is to be trusted, 
 has still three or four years to last, for the Prophet 
 announced that the terrestrial mission of the Mahdi 
 should last for seven years (70). It is quite possi- 
 ble, indeed, that three years may wear him out : for 
 a Mahdi can only exist by victories and marches in 
 advance; if he retires or pauses the Soudan will 
 cry : " This is not the true Mahdi ; he is one of the 
 false Mahdis who are to announce the true : let us 
 wait." It seems safe, however, to assume that 
 whatever may be the result of the English expedi- 
 tion, no European nation, whatever it may be, will 
 ever be able to establish lasting order in the Soudan, 
 and this for a natural reason, a decree from above. 
 
THE MAHDI. 81 
 
 The sun over their heads, the desert sand beneath 
 their feet, oppose a double barrier to their success 
 which no act of Parliament can abolish (71). 
 
 From the very dawn of history there has never 
 but twice been anything like real order prevailing 
 in these regions — three thousand years ago under 
 the Pharaohs of the Eighteenth Dynasty, and in this 
 century under the Khedives. 
 
 Order, as understood by the Khedives, has 
 brought about what we have already seen. Eng- 
 land could only restore it with the forces of Egypt ; 
 but by reducing Egypt to vassalage, and making 
 the Khedive a mere phantom, by drawing down 
 on herself, by a series of useless and unnecessary 
 measures, the hostility of the most important part 
 of Egypt, she broke with her own hands the only 
 instrument wliich she could serviceably employ 
 tliere. Her brave little army with terrible sacri- 
 fices and loss of blood might be able to fly the 
 flag of England for a day from the walls of Khar- 
 toum, to gain a brilliant but sterile victory in the 
 desert; but her victorious footprints would in a 
 night be obliterated by the sand of the desert. 
 
 Hence the real sympathy, more general than is 
 imagined, and which the newspapers will not ac- 
 knowledge, that the Malidi excites in England, even 
 
 OB 
 
82 THE MAHDI. 
 
 after the death of Gordon. England has a great 
 political virtue — the greatest perhaps of all political 
 virtues — the respect for power under whatever form 
 it may be manifested, as long as it is manifested 
 clearly. If Mohammed AH had been a politician, 
 if there had been in him the stuff to make a Fatim- 
 ide or an Almohade, if he consented to remain on 
 earth, and found a great Soudanese empire, then 
 Europe might wake up one fine day and learn that 
 England had sent a resident to the Court of Khar- 
 toum or El-Obeid, with a regular treaty of com- 
 merce. Unfortunately it seems that the Mahdi is 
 not a politician in the European sense of the word. 
 He is something more, or less — he is an honest fan- 
 atic. The kingdom of earth is to him only a step- 
 ping-stone to the kingdom of heaven ; and in the 
 kingdom of heaven, according to the Arabian con- 
 ception of it, there is no room for an English resi- 
 dent, even though he were a missionary or a 
 Methodist. 
 
 l^evertheless it is necessary that the Soudan shall 
 remain open ; if it were closed it wonld, in the eyes 
 of history, be a disgrace to our times. It is impos- 
 sible that Europe should lose the fruit of the hero- 
 ism and genius of an incomparable army of explor- 
 ers, English, French, Italian^ and German. In one 
 
THE MAHDI. 83 
 
 day the loss of half a century of gain would be 
 brought about. 
 
 Well ! if European civilization cannot ascend the 
 Nile, it has only to reach the source of it and to de- 
 scend it. This is quite possible. At the very gates 
 of the Soudan a half-European power has slum- 
 bered for centuries, a power which has hitherto 
 only occasionally appeared upon the scene to inflict 
 a few short but sanguinary lessons upon Egyptian 
 greed, but which one day will be the Deus ex 
 machina — this power is Abyssinia. At the source 
 of the Blue Nile, cut off in a chaos of impregnable 
 mountains, dwells a nation of strong passions, which 
 is at the same time very old and verj^ young, which 
 has behind it long distant memories of power and 
 glory, and which is beginning to dream of a future 
 equal to its real or imaginary past. This people is 
 Christian, and boasts its descent from King Solomon 
 and the Queen of Sheba (72). More than thirteen 
 centuries ago it received from the Greeks the Chris- 
 tian religion and the germs of a civilization re- 
 sembling our own, which only need to be developed 
 if Europe will lend its aid. M. Gabriel Charmes, 
 one of the most brilliant of French journalists, has 
 pointed out the great interest which we should take 
 to merit the friendship of a people who look towards 
 
84 THE MAHDI. 
 
 US, a lost sentinel of the West, whom we have for- 
 gotten, for centuries, to relieve. One day if we 
 wish, and will undertake the education of this infant 
 people, the mountains of Abyssinia will be the 
 stronghold whence European civilization shall domi- 
 nate the Soudan. 
 
 This is not an affair of conquest nor of annexation ; 
 it will not be necessary to lead an Abyssinian army 
 to the conquest of Khartoum ; it is a matter of slow 
 and disinterested action which cannot awaken jeal- 
 ousy, for all the nations of Europe can participate 
 in it to the extent in which each inspires confidence. 
 The European nation which shall do the most for 
 the education of this people, which shall respect its 
 weakness instead of speculating upon it, which shall 
 develop its powers instead of using them as an in- 
 strument of personal ambition, shall make of this 
 nation, now backw^ard in civilization, an advanced 
 guard against barbarism. Our civilization thus in- 
 stalled at the sources of the Blue IS^ile will slowly 
 descend the valley ; and who knows whether in 
 these young and courageous hands it may not, when 
 necessary, find a supreme resource against the dan- 
 gers of a return to barbarism to which it is exposed 
 by the senile quarrels of Europe fallen into its 
 second childhood ? 
 
NOTES. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 1. For the subject of Zohak, see Ormazd et Ahri- 
 man, by J. Darmesteter. Paris, Vieweg, 1877, §§ 
 91-95, 107-110. 
 
 2. As to Saoshyant, see ibid. §§ 180-192. 
 
 3. The word imdm literally means the chief, or 
 guide. In public prayer it signifies the officiating 
 minister, whose words the 'people repeat in a low 
 voice and whose gestures they imitate; he is a dele- 
 gate of the supreme Imam, the successor of Ma- 
 homet. Among the Shiites, the legitimate imam 
 having disappeared (see above, p. 40), there are only 
 leaders de facto, and the Friday public prayer is no 
 longer legal (Querry, Iteciieil de lois Chyites, I. 85). 
 
 4. "In all times the Mussulmans have held the 
 opinion that towards the end of time a man of the 
 family of the Prophet must necessarily appear in 
 order to support religion and bring about the tri- 
 umph of justice. Leading in his train the true be- 
 lievers, he will make himself master of the Moslem 
 kingdoms, and will be called El Mahdi (the God- 
 
88 NOTES. 
 
 guided). Then El Deddjal (the Antichrist) will ap- 
 pear, and those events will take place which are to 
 -herald the approach of the last hour (of the world), 
 events indicated in the collections of authentic tra- 
 ditions. After the coming of Deddjill Jesus will de- 
 scend (from heaven) and will destroy him, or (ac- 
 cording to another tradition) he will descend with 
 the Mahdi to assist in the destruction of Deddjal, 
 and when he prays the Mahdi will be his imam 
 (prayer-leader)" {ProUgomenes cPIbn Khaldoun, 
 translated into Fi-ench by De Slane, II. i58). See 
 the whole chapter, which contains a collection of tra- 
 ditions relative to the Mahdi. Ibn Khaldoun wrote 
 in the fourteenth century; he was born in Tunis in 
 1332, and died in Egypt in 1406. 
 
 5. ProUgomenes, II. 166. 
 
 6. Masoudi, Les prairies cVor, II. 162. 
 
 7. Bagl Minocitri min yaztdn (Pehlevi Inscrip- 
 tions, jt:>ass«'m). 
 
 8. "Rex regum Sapor, particeps siderum, frater 
 soils et lunae, Constantio Caesari, f ratri meo, salutem 
 plurimam dico" (Ammianus Marcellin. XVII. 5-3). 
 
 'Xodpofj'^ ftadiXevi ftapiXsoor , ...h' BeoiS /lev arOpooTto? 
 dyaQd<^ uai aiGovioi, sr de rot's dvOpcjTtoi'S QeoS k7tiq)aye- 
 draroi, vTtEpsvSo^oi, viHrjTrii, i)Xicp dwavaraXXcor uai 
 Ty vvxri X(Xpi^6fAEvo<i o/iijiaTa'' (Theopliylactus Siraocatta, 
 IV. 8). 
 
 9. Adrien de Longperier, (Euvres, I. 79. Hence, 
 doubtless, the usage among the Sufis of the word 
 
NOTES. 89 
 
 qotb, pole, to indicate the supreme saint, the delegate 
 of God, by virtue of whom in every generation 
 nature and the world follow regular order. (Silves- 
 tre de Sacy, Journal des Savmits, 1822, p. 17.) 
 
 10. Amari, Storia del Musuhnani dl Sicilian I. 
 107. 
 
 11. The first apotheosis of Ali is attributed to a 
 converted Jew from Yemen, Abdallah ben Saba, 
 founder of the sects of Extravagants or Ultra-Alides 
 (the Ghaliyas) ; with regard to these sects see Schah- 
 rastani. Sects and Schools, Haarbriickner's translar 
 tion. (Abul-Fath Muhammad asch-Schahrastani's 
 Meligionspartheien und Philosphen-Schulen, Halle, 
 2 vol. 1850: I. 195-219.) 
 
 12. Comte de Gobineau, Heligions de VAsie 
 centrales page 339, e^ seq. — Chodzko, Theatre persan 
 1878. 
 
 13. ProUgommes, II. 178. 
 
 14. For the doctrines of Mokhtar and the Mohh- 
 tariya, see Schahrastdni, loc. cit., I. 166-169; on 
 the life of Mokhtar, see the Chronique de Tahari, 
 translated into French by M. Zotenberg, IV. 80, et 
 seq. 
 
 15. Ormazd et Ahriman, pp. 212, 217. 
 
 16. Simrock, Handhiich der Deiitschen Mythologie, 
 preface of the 4th edition. 
 
 17. Ormazd et Ahriman, §§ 175-179. 
 
 18. Verses by the poet Kutair: 
 
 "In truth the imams of Koreish, the masters of truth, are 
 four in number equal among themselves ; 
 
90 NOTESo 
 
 Ali and three of his children, grandsons (of the Prophet by 
 their mother, Siht), on whom rests no doubt; 
 
 A grandson, the heir of his faith and of his generosity (Has- 
 san), another buried in the grave at Kerbela (Hussein). 
 
 A third hidden from the siglit of all until the day when he 
 shall appear at the head of his horsemen, preceded by the 
 standard (Mohammed). 
 
 This son conceals himself from all ej'^es for a long time, hid- 
 den in the valley of liadwa, where water and honey flow." 
 (Masoudi, Les prairies d'or, translated by Barbier de Mey- 
 
 nard, V. 183; Cf. Schalirasidai, loc. cit., I. 168.) 
 
 " The valley of Radwa is situated at the foot of a 
 mountain of the same name, near Yanbo, between 
 that town and Medina. The mysterious aspect of 
 this valley, with its caves and wooded gorges, lends 
 itself to the legend of the hidden imam,'''' (Barbier 
 de Meynard, Le Seid himyarite, Journal Asiatiqiie, 
 1874, II. 249, note.) 
 
 19. ProUgomenes, 11. 180. 
 
 20. On the life and works of this poet, see M. 
 Barbier de Meynard's monograph, in the Journal 
 Asiatique, 1874, 11. 159, et seq. 
 
 21. The name of the mother of Mohammed, who 
 belonged to the Hanefite tribe. 
 
 22. Prairies d''or, Y. 182. The last verses com- 
 posed by Seid, when dying, are in honor of the Hane- 
 fite Mahdi: 
 
 " Dost thou not know, j^et the news is spreading; dost thou 
 not know the words which Mahomet addressed 
 
 To the depositary of his knowledge, to the guide to salva- 
 tion, Ali, when Khawlah was handmaid in his house? 
 
NOTES. 91 
 
 Know (said the Prophet) that Khawlah will soon give thee a 
 
 son, a generous, brave, and noble hero; 
 He shall be glorified by the name and surname which I have 
 
 given him, and he shall be Mahdi after me; 
 He shall live long, unknown to men, and they shall believe 
 
 him to be hidden in the tomb at Tibah. 
 Months and years shall roll away and he shall be seen in the 
 
 valley of Radwa, in the midst of panthers and lions. 
 Around him, white gazelles, bulls, and young ostriches shall 
 
 wander in the midst of Hods. 
 Wild beasts shall spare them, and shall not seek to tear 
 
 them with their claws; 
 Death will respect their host, and the animals will feed tran- 
 quilly amid pastures and flowers. 
 I hope that my last hour will be delayed, and that I shall 
 
 await thy reign free from violence, and which none will 
 
 accuse as harsh. 
 Thou shalt triumph over those who persecute us because of 
 
 You, who are the best of refuges. 
 Thou shalt place us above them wherever they shall be, in 
 
 the depths of Tehamah and on the plains of Nedjd, 
 When coming from the holy land thou shalt show thyself 
 
 to the sons of Maad, assembled at Medina." 
 
 [Compare the above verses with Isaiah xi. 4, et 
 seq.; Ixv. 25.— A. S. B.] 
 
 23. Prairies d''or, Y. 471. 
 
 24. Prole gomenes, De Slane, I. 406. 
 
 25. Jelal-nddin as-Suyuti, History of the Caliphs, 
 Jarret's translation, Calcutta, 1881, p. 13, e^ seq. 
 
 26. Dozy, JEssai sur Vhistoire de VIslamisme, p. 
 240. 
 
 27. Scbefer, Ghrestomathie persane, p. 170, et seq. 
 Sinbad's real object was to restore the ancient reli- 
 
92 NOTES. 
 
 gion of Persia. When he spoke privately to the 
 Ghebers [the fire-worshippers] he said, " The reign of 
 the Arabs has come to an end as one of the Sassanide 
 books predicted. I will not renounce my enterprise 
 until I have destroyed the Kaabah, the worship of 
 which has been substituted for that of the sun, and 
 until we shall as of old make that planet our qiblah." 
 To explain to the Ghebers why in the mean while 
 they had fought under the Mussulman flag, he said, 
 "Mazdek became a Shiy and enjoined on us to 
 avenge the blood of Abu-Muslim" (ibid. p. 172). 
 
 28. The hero of Moore's poem, "The Veiled 
 Prophet of Khorassan." 
 
 29. On Ml-Mocanna^ see Guptav Weil, Oeschichte 
 (ler Chalifen, II. 101, et seq. 
 
 30. Tahari, IV. 371, e^ seq. 
 
 31. Tahari, IV. 382-421. 
 
 32. The following is one of the apocryphal tradi- 
 tions circulated at the time in order to bring about 
 the restoration of the Alides, which wis attributed 
 to a contemporary of Ali, Ibn Masud: 
 
 " While we were near the Prophet, said Abdallah 
 Ibn Masud, behold some young men of the family of 
 Hachem approached. When the Prophet saw them 
 his eyes filled with tears and he changed color. I 
 said to him, ' For a long time we have noticed some- 
 thing in your face which has pained us.' He re- 
 plied, ' God has preferred to give to us who belong 
 to a specially favored house, happiness in another 
 world rather than prosperity in this. After me the 
 
KOTES. 93 
 
 members of this family shall suffer misfortunes; they 
 shall be persecuted until men shall come out of the 
 east bearing with them black flags. They will de- 
 mand what is right, but they will not obtain it; then 
 thev will fight, will be victorious, and will gain what 
 they had demanded. They will only accept it in 
 order to give it to a man of my family who shall fill 
 the earth with justice as now it is filled with in- 
 iquity. Those among you who shall see this must 
 join them even if in order to do so they have to 
 drag themselves through snow.' It was Yezid Ibn 
 Abi Ziad who brought this message which is gene- 
 rally known by the traditionists under the name of 
 tradition of the flags''' [ProUgomenes, II. IIQ). The 
 men from the east were the army of Abu-Muslim 
 come from Khorassan; the black flag was the ban- 
 ner of the Abbassides. 
 
 33. Since the reign of Schah Abbah, who organ- 
 ized the pilgrimage to Mechhed, in order to retain in 
 Persia the caravans and the money which had gone 
 out every year to Mecca. The word Mechhed means 
 " place of martyrdom," and by extension, " tomb of 
 a saint." 
 
 34. As to the fate of the twelve Imams, see Rei- 
 naud. Description des Monuments Musulmans du 
 Cabinet Blacas, 1828, Yol. I. 367-377; Sr^hefer, Chres- 
 toraathie persane, 184-189. 
 
 35. Mouradgea d'Ohsson, Tableau de V empire Ot- 
 toman^ ed. in fol. I. 88. This picture is reproduced 
 as the frontispiece to the present volume. 
 
94 NOTES. 
 
 86. Barbier de Meynard, Yaqout, Dictionnaire de 
 la Perse, p. 435. 
 
 37. Voyages d''Ibn Botoutah (fourteenth century), 
 translation into French by Defremery and Sangui- 
 netti, II. 97-99. ProUgomenes, I. 404. 
 
 38. Reinaud, loc. cit., I. 377; II. 161. 
 
 39. Chardin, Voyage en Perse, ed. Langles, VII. 
 456; IX. 144. The last of the Sarbedarian princes (a 
 dynasty of Khorassan, end of the fourteenth cen- 
 tury), Khodja ali Mouied, acted in the same manner. 
 (D'llerbelot, Bihliotheque Orientale, art. Sarheda- 
 riens.) 
 
 40. The schism began as early as the sixth Imam, 
 Jafar. Jafar had appointed his eldest son, Ismael, as 
 his successor; but Ismael having died before him, he 
 transmitted his rights to his second son, Musa, 
 although Ismael had left children. The mass of the 
 Alides accepted Musa, but a powerful party refused 
 to acknowledge him, and remained faithful to Ismael 
 and his descendants. " Some partisans of Ismael re- 
 fused to believe in his death; he had simply disap- 
 peared, they said, and would return some day, even 
 if it was at the en^ of time. Strange reports circu- 
 lated about him; some persons claimed to have seen 
 him at Basrah. All those of the Ismaelites who put 
 faith in these propositions declared that they must 
 wait for the return of Ismael, and as he did not return 
 they concluded that he was the expected Messiah, the 
 Mahdi, and that no Imam was to come after him. 
 They received the name of Stationary Ismaelites; but 
 
NOTES. 95 
 
 the greater number of people proclaimed Ismael's 
 son, Mohammel ben Ismael " (Stanislas Guyard, Un 
 grand maitre des Assassms, Journal Asiatiqiie, \d>11, 
 I. 329). 
 
 41. On the life and work of Abdallah ben Meimun, 
 see Stanislas Guyard, loc. clt., 326-334. 
 
 42. A tradition attributed to Mahomet jDrevailed 
 in Africa that at the end of the world the sun would 
 rise from the West, which was interpreted by saying 
 that the Mahdi would appear in the West, Magh- 
 reb = setting of the sun ; but this did not prevent 
 the existence at the same time of a literal interpreta- 
 tion. On the Fatimide Mahdi, see Ibn Khaldoun, 
 ITistoire des Berbers, De Slane's French translation, 
 III. 496; Prolegomhies, III. 40, et seq., 128; Amari, 
 Storia del Miisulmani di Sicilla; Silvestre de Sacy, 
 Expose de la religion des Druzes, I. cclxv. 
 
 43. Vie du Khalife fatimide Moez-lidin- Allah, par 
 Quatremere (Journal Asiatique). 
 
 44. Silvestre de Sacy, loc. cit., I. 229. 
 
 45. On the Almohade Mahdi, see Dozy, Essai sur 
 Vhistowe de Vlslamisme,, pp. 368-380 ; Ibn Khal- 
 doun, Histoire des Berbers, De Slane, III. 161, et 
 seq.; Prolegomenes, I. 53, et seq., 467; II. 442; leKar- 
 tas. 
 
 46. "As a rule they expected to see him appear in 
 some distant province, in some locality situated at 
 the extreme limit of the habitable land, such as 
 Zab in Ifrikiya,* or at Sous in the Maghreb. f They 
 
 * In Algeria to the south of Auras, 
 
 \ On the Atlantic, at the mouth of the river Sous. 
 
,96 NOTES. 
 
 went there intending to remain until they met this 
 person, imagining that he would appear in the r«*- 
 hat and be inaugurated there. They chose this place 
 because it was in the neighborhood of the country 
 of the Guedalas, one of the veiled peoples, and they 
 thought that it was to this race that he would belong. 
 These suppositions are not justified in any way ex- 
 cept by the extraordinary appearance of the (veiled) 
 people. . . . Many individuals of limited intelli- 
 gence went to the rihat with the intention of deceiving 
 people, and posing as founders of a new doctrine, an 
 enticing prospect for the ambitious, when they yield 
 to the inspiration of the demon or of their own mad- 
 ness. But these attempts often cost them their lives" 
 {Prolego7nenes, II. 200). 
 
 47. At the beginning of the eighth century of the 
 Hegira, under the Merinide Yussuf Ibn Yacub, a Sufi 
 named Toidzeri, the little Touzerian (from Touzer, 
 Tunisian Djerid), appeared at the ribat of Massa, 
 bringing a number of men from Sous, Guezoulas, and 
 Zanagas (Sanhejas), and was assassinated by the 
 alarmed Masmudian Emirs. 
 
 El-Abbas appeared among the Ghomaras of the 
 Marocco Rif between 690 and 700 (1291-1300 a.d.)„ 
 took Bades (Velez de Gomera), burnt the bazaars, 
 marched on El-Mezemma (Alhucema) and was assas- 
 sinated. 
 
 Mohammed Ibn Abrahim el-Abbeli, the master of 
 Ibn Khaldoun, making the pilgrimage to the rihat 
 of El-Obbad (the burial-place of the Zauia of the 
 
NOTES. 97 
 
 Sheikh Bu Medin), on the mountain above Tlemcen, 
 travelled with a descendant of the Prophet coming 
 from Kerbela, where he had dwelt, accompanied by 
 a numerous and admiring party, and who was re- 
 ceived everywhere by hospitable compatriots. He 
 came to establish the authority of the Fatimides in 
 Maghreb; but seeing the forces of the Merinide Yus- 
 suf Ibn Yacub, he prudently retired, saying: "We 
 have made a false step; the time has not yet come" 
 {ProUgomenes, II. 202). 
 
 48. In 1828 a Mahdi appeared in Senegal, Moham- 
 med ben A'mar ben Ahhmed; like Mahomet he re- 
 vealed himself in the month of Ramadan; he was 
 shut up as insane in a cell built for the purpose 
 according to the custom of the country; he left it 
 twelve days later at the time of evening prayer, took 
 up his parable in the manner of a prophet, and made 
 known his mission. Beaten by the Almamy (the 
 Emir Al-Mumenin of those parts), he brought back 
 his scattered partisans by offering a sacrifice for the 
 sins of the people; the sacrifice was his own infant 
 son. It is not known what became of him. The 
 contemporary evidence goes no further than that 
 event {Remie des Deux Mondes, 1829, I. 247). 
 
 49. Mouradgea d'Ohsson, Tableau de Vempire Ot- 
 toman^ in fol. I. 88. This is the Sunnite Code of 
 Omar Nessefy (born in the year 534 of the Hegira, 
 1142 of our era), with a commentary by Saad-eddin 
 Teftazani (808 of the Hegira, 1405 of our era). 
 
 60. Mouradgea d'Ohsson mentions several Mahdis 
 
98 NOTES. 
 
 under the Sultans, most of them were Dervishes: 
 Jelal under Selim I., Yahya Mohammed Seyyah 
 under Murad III., Ahmed Scheykh Sacariah, under 
 Murad IV. Unfortunately he gives no details re- 
 specting these Mahdis; but he says, '^It is believed 
 that there is even at present (1788) an impostor of 
 this name on the frontiers of Persia." 
 
 51. Hammer-Purgstall, Histoire de V empire Otto- 
 nian, Hellert's translation, XI. 239, et seq. Cf. Rein- 
 ach, Histoire des Israelites, 269, et seq. Another 
 Mahdi appeared under Ahmed II. in 1694; he declared 
 himself in the mosque at Adrianople. Summoned to 
 appear before the Kaimakan, he escaped by feigning 
 madness; when at liberty he began afresh, and was 
 exiled to Lemnos (Hammer-Purgstall, loc. cit. XII. 
 360). 
 
 52. Report dated Messidor 1st, Eighth Year (June 
 19, 1799). 
 
 53. Societe de Geographie reports for 1883, pp. 
 621-628. The number of rebels engaged is some- 
 times given to a man. 
 
 54. He is of middle height, coffee-colored complex- 
 ion, with a black beard according to Mousa Peney 
 {Bevue d^ Ethnographie, II. 473. Letter dated April 
 13, 1883). On each cheek he has three parallel scars, 
 which M. Goeje says, in a letter to the author, are 
 the marks of those gashes which in Africa are called 
 Meshdli (Welsted, Travels in Arabia, II. 206, 283) 
 2indi Tashrtt 2ki Mecca (Robertson Smith, Encyc. Brit. 
 art, *' Mecca"), a disfigurement which it is fashion- 
 
KOTES. 99 
 
 able to i^erform on children — according to some, for 
 the purpose of preventing ophthalmia; according to 
 others, as a sign of piety. He also bears the seal of 
 prophecy, see pp. 81-2, note 63. 
 
 55. " Even though the world should have but one 
 day more to live, it is certain that God will prolong 
 that day until He has revived a man like me, or a 
 member of my family, whose name shall be the same 
 as mine, and whose father shall bear the same name 
 as my father" (ProUgommes^ H. 162). This tradi- 
 tion probably dates from the time of the Mahdi Mo- 
 hammed, who was the son of a man named Abdallah, 
 the rival of Almansor. 
 
 56. Bosphore Egyptien^ June 8, 1884. 
 
 57. "It is very remarkable," says the eminent Ley- 
 den Orientalist, M. de Goeje, "and a proof of sin- 
 cerity that the present Mahdi does not set himself 
 up as of Fatimide descent" (in a private letter dated 
 March 13, 1885). Cf. note 65. 
 
 58. See the account, given by the Greek prisoners, 
 cited in note 69. 
 
 59. The following circular or general order from 
 the Mahdi was picked up after the battle of Kirbekan 
 on February 9 ±885, and although not written by 
 him it breathes his sentiments and shows the practi- 
 cal energy and faith of the writers: "In the name of 
 the most Merciful, Bountiful, etc., etc., etc. To the 
 Sheikhs of Dar Monister, Dar Robatat, etc., etc. 
 Twenty-five rifles have been distributed to every vil- 
 lage in your country, and in all the Shagyeh districts, 
 
100 NOTES. 
 
 No man therefore must come unto you without arms. 
 Should any join your camp without carrying a rifle, 
 he is to receive two hundred strokes of the kerbash. 
 Unarmed men are useless, and only eat up provisions; 
 besides they may be suspected of being lukewarm in 
 our cause and of being afraid of being seen by the 
 Giaour, or the Turks, who are not true Mussulmans, 
 and more to be cursed than the Giaour. All of these 
 ye shall destroy in due time. After much blood has 
 flown there shall be peace. See that these instruc- 
 tions of our Lord, the Long Expected One,* are fol- 
 lowed. "Woe to all the disobedient." Then follow 
 signatures of four dervishes. 
 
 " Mahomet Ali, 
 Ibeahim-Eran-Hasskin, 
 Hanid Ageil, 
 soleumann yousseff." 
 
 (Daily News, March 10, 1885; the letter is published 
 in the correspondence . from the battle-field, dated 
 February 11th). 
 
 60. Univers Israelite, 1885, February 16th. 
 
 61. According to an interesting article published 
 in the Daily iVetos for March 21, 1885, Osman Digna, 
 the most able of the Mahdi's lieutenants, is the 
 
 * Probably El-Muntazar, the ancient title of the Mahdi, or 
 last Im^m, [For particulars of a coin struck in the name of 
 El-Muntazar, and issued by the Vizier Abu- Ali in the year of 
 the Hegira 534 (1130 a.d.), see Catalogue of the Coins in the 
 British Museum, by Stanley Lane-Poole, Introduction, pp. ix. 
 etS6q,—A. S. B.] " 
 
NOTES. 101 
 
 grandson of a Turkish slave-merchant established at 
 Suakin in the beginning of this century; on the 
 mother's side he belonged to the non-Arab tribe of 
 the Hadendowas. The house of Osman Digna was 
 the richest and most influential in the country of 
 Suakin. In the course of his business travels in the 
 Soudan, where he went in search of profitable ex- 
 changes, negroes included, he allied himself with the 
 principal heads of the anti-Egyptian movement which 
 was hatching. Ruined by the Anglo-Egyptian Con- 
 vention against slavery, he assembled the sheikhs un- 
 der the sycamore which shadows the chief well of 
 Suakin, and exhorted them to rise against the Turks 
 (the Egyptians), those false Mussulmans who entered 
 into alliance with the Christians. The sheikhs thought 
 he was mad. He waited, and recommenced his 
 travels. When the Mahdi declared himself he became 
 one of his first followers, and went to seek him at 
 El-Obeid, receiving the title of "Emir of the Dervish 
 of God," with letters to the Soudanese sheikhs order- 
 ing them to obey him. Since then he has bravely 
 held his own against the English, often vanquished, 
 but regaining his positions, and always ready to be 
 on the offensive. At last his star seems to have sunk 
 before General Graham towards the end of March. 
 His camp at Tamai was taken in the beginning of 
 April; it had already been taken last year without 
 any great benefit to the English.* 
 
 *It was reported on April 17, 1885, that the enemy was 
 again at Tamai. — A. S. B, 
 
102 KOTES. 
 
 62. Henri Duveyrier, La confrerie niiisuhnane de 
 Sidi Mohammed heri'Ali JEs-Senousi et son domaine 
 geographiqiie eti Vannee 1309 de riiegire, Paris, So- 
 ciete de Geographic, 1884. 
 
 63. It is said that Mahomet bore between his 
 shoulders the seal of prophecy. " The Mussulmans 
 believe that it is a kind of wen covered with hair, 
 and as large as a pigeon's Qg^g. They add that all the 
 prophets had one like it, but that at the death of 
 Mahomet the seal of prophecy disappeared forever. 
 Mahomet made this natural deformity one of the 
 chief proofs of his divine mission" (Reinaud, Descrip- 
 tion du Cabhiet JBlacas, II. 79). 
 
 64. The angel of death. 
 
 65. An ingenious way of acknowledging that he is 
 not of Mahomet's blood. Cf. note 57. 
 
 66. This was a great sage of the seventh century, 
 who has become the chief saint of contemporary 
 Africa; he is supposed to return to earth once every 
 year at night, and to traverse the desert beneath the 
 rays of the moon on a magnificently caparisoned 
 horse. On the Qaderis, the brotherhood of his fol- 
 lowers, to which the Mahdi seems to belong, see 
 Commandant Rinn's book. Marabout et KJiouans, 
 Algiers, 1884, p. 173, et seq. 
 
 67. Between the Rohn and the MaJcdm. The 
 Rokn is the famous black stone brought from heaven 
 by the angel Gabriel, imbedded in the north-east 
 angle of the wall whence the pilgrims start for the 
 seven sacred turns round the temple. It is said that 
 
KOTES. 103 
 
 it was at first of a brilliant red and wonderfully 
 transparent; but that it has grown black under the 
 kisses of generations of sinners. The Makam or 
 Makdm IbraJmn is the place where Abraham stood 
 during the construction of the Caaba. 
 
 68. " The traitor Gordon" {Daily News, February 
 14, 1883). 
 
 69. This supposition is confirmed by a communica- 
 tion published in the Standard for March 4th, which 
 details the adventures of four Christian prisoners in 
 the Mahdi's camp, and contains the following pas- 
 sage: 
 
 " To account, however, for the stubborn resistance 
 which one single Christian successfully opposed to 
 the Prince of the Faith, he was fain to explain that 
 Gordon was no ordinary unbeliever, but the Anti- 
 christ himself, spoken of in the prophetic passages of 
 the Koran, whom the Mahdi is destined to overthrow 
 before the advent of the true Messiah and the estab- 
 lishment of the Islamic millennium." 
 
 This communication contains several interesting 
 details which explain some of the points already 
 touched upon. The prisoners were three Greeks 
 and a Copt established at Ghedarif, who, when the 
 town was taken, were seized by the rebels. 
 
 " Their lives were spared on condition that they 
 pronounced the Mussulman confession of faith, ' There 
 is no God but God, and Mahomet is His Prophet,' 
 and surrendered all their property and goods and 
 chattels to the Beit -ul- Mai, or Public Treasure 
 
104 NOTES. 
 
 House. In the presence of the Mahdi's Ameer they 
 were then stripped of their semi-European clothing, 
 receiving in exchange a long strip of white linen 
 stitched with green and red— the Mahdi's colors — to 
 wind round their loins and throw over their shoulders, 
 a pair of leather sandals for their feet, and a gray 
 felt cap, round which is wound a bit of green and 
 red rag, to replace the fez. When thus arrayed in 
 the orthodox costume prescribed by the Prophet of 
 the Soudan they were made to recite the confession 
 of faith, and kiss the Ameer's hands. Each of them 
 then received from him two spears, with which they 
 were told to strike the ground three times while 
 uttering the Sacramental war-cry of the Mahdi's fol- 
 lowers, ^JFih zebu Allah ^ ('For the cause of God'). 
 Immediately after the ceremony, however, the spears 
 were taken away from them again, probably from 
 prudential considerations." 
 
 After a few weeks of irksome bondage, " they were 
 told to proceed with the Ameer to the Mahdi's camp, 
 which they joined, a few days' march from Khar- 
 toum. The Mahdi, who is always styled by his fol- 
 lowers * Se'idna el Imamn ' (' Our Lord the Imaum 
 or Prince of the Faith'), appears to have received 
 them with consideration. A tent was assigned to 
 them, and an allowance was made to them of fifteen 
 dollars a month per head from the Beit-ul-Mal, 
 Moreover, the Mahdi's personal influence was always 
 exercised to protect them against the ill-will of his 
 over-zealous followers, many of whom were, as is 
 
NOTES. 105 
 
 usual in such cases, plus Royalistes que le JRoi, 
 Some of the leading lights in the Mahdi's camp, for 
 instance, were much scandalized by the fact that 
 these converts to Islam had not been duly circum- 
 cised, but the Mahdi promptly silenced the grumblers 
 by receiving an opportune revelation that circum- 
 cision was not compulsory on adult converts. He 
 occasionally favored them with his conversation, and 
 used to make numerous inquiries about Constanti- 
 nople, which, after Cairo and Mecca, seems to be the 
 goal of his ambition, though, as he places it on the 
 confines of Hindostan, his geographical notions are 
 evidently eccentric." 
 
 Setting aside the liberty the Mahdi takes, after the 
 example of Mahomet, as to the number of his wives, 
 he submits to all the privations which he imposes on 
 his followers. Tobacco and intoxicating liquors are 
 absolutely forbidden; the sumptuary laws are very 
 strict, and even the possession of any Egyptian or 
 European article of dress is punished with a given 
 number of strokes from the kurbash. All taxes, 
 even the dime of the Koran, are abolished, the con- 
 fiscation of Christian property, contributions from 
 merchants, and pillage, being made to supply the 
 Beit-ul-Mal, or public treasury, on which the people 
 live. Every trace of administration has been ban- 
 ished in favor of the dictation of the Emirs, who 
 are generally relations or intimate friends of the 
 Mahdi. 
 
 70. Or for nine years. Mahomet is supposea to 
 
106 NOTES. 
 
 have said: " The Mahdi shall be of my people; if he 
 is to make a short stay (among you) he will remain 
 seven (years), if not (he will remain) nine. During 
 this time my people shall enjoy well-being the like 
 of which has never before been known; the earth 
 shall produce everything that is good to eat, and 
 shall refuse them nothing. Silver shall be as com- 
 mon as refuse ; and if any one shall say, ' Mahdi, give 
 me something! ' the Mahdi shall reply, * Take what 
 you want'" {ProUgomenes, 11. ITl). 
 
 71. In India also there is an opening for a Mahdi 
 as there is a Mussulman population. A Mussulman 
 Mahdi would, moreover, easily find a hearing among 
 the Brahmin population, for modern Brahminism has 
 its Mahdi — Vishnu in his last and not yet manifested 
 Avatar, the Avatar of Kalkl. At the end of time 
 Vishnu is to be born of a priestly family, under the 
 name of Kalki, and he will come on a white horse, 
 with a flaming sword in hjs hand, to exterminate the 
 barbarians. This conception, which does not appear 
 to be of very ancient Indian origin, probably arose 
 from the Perso-Mussulman idea of a Messiah — an 
 idea brought into India by the conquering Mussul- 
 mans. 
 
 In 1810 a Mahdi appeared at the little town of 
 Bodhan, about fifteen miles from Surat. He sent to 
 the governor, Mr. Crow, the following missive, sum- 
 moning him to become a convert: 
 
 " To all counsellors, and the Hakim of Surat, be it 
 
 « 
 
 known that the Emaumul Deen of the end of the 
 
NOTES. 107 
 
 world, or Emaum Mehdee,* has now published him- 
 self, and the name of this Durveish is Ahmud; and 
 that in the Hindevie they call him Rajah Nukluk. 
 Be it further known to you that if the Esslaum (the 
 Mahometan faith) is accepted, it is better; otherwise 
 empty the town, or, on the contrary, you may pre- 
 pare for battle. This fakir is now come down from 
 the fourth sky, Avith four bodies, combining Adam 
 (on whom be peace !), Essah, the son of Mariama 
 (Jesus, the Son of Mary), and Ahmud (on whom be 
 peace !) ; and they have all four come upon one place; 
 they have no guns nor muskets with them, but a 
 stick and a handkerchief are with me — be yourself 
 prepared." — Dated 11th Zilhij, corresponding with 
 17th January, 1810. H. G. Briggs, Cities of Gujar- 
 dshtra. Part II., Appendix. 
 
 The author of this strange epistle was attacked at 
 Bodhan by two squadrons, and killed with a few 
 hundred of his followers fighting desperately for the 
 new faith. 
 
 72. [John, the present King of Abyssinia, boasts a 
 direct descent from King Solomon, and, although a 
 Christian, is so proud of this, that he endeavors in 
 every possible way to imitate his august ancestor. 
 Some years ago he founded an Order which he called 
 " Chatem Suleiman" — Solomon's Seal, and he com- 
 missioned an Italian, Signor Nardi, to execute for 
 him a throne which was to be an exact copy of Solo- 
 
 * The Imam eddin, the chief of leligion, or Imam Mahdi. 
 
108 NOTES. 
 
 mon's famous throne, pictures of which are extant in 
 Abyssinian books. This throne has recently been 
 completed, and great rejoicings were held at its in- 
 auguration. It is made of silver gilt, as the required 
 gold was probably beyond the means of his sable 
 majesty's treasury. — A. S. B.] 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 By Ada S. Ballin, Aulhor of a " Hebrew Grammar." 
 
 A. 
 
 THE MAHDI OF 1884-5. 
 
 Of the private life of Ahmed Mohammed, the 
 Mahdi of 1884, but little is known. He lives simply, 
 and himself observes the strict discipline which he 
 imposes on his follow^ers, over whom he exercises 
 a paternal influence. He, however, exceeds in the 
 number of his wives the orthodox four prescribed in 
 the Koran; but in this he only imitates the example 
 of Mahomet, who, as far as regards women, seemed 
 rather to urge his people to " do as I say, not as I 
 do," on the "preach but don't practise" principle. 
 He is, nevertheless, extremely consistent in support- 
 ing his own dignity, and in his endeavors to impose 
 his religion not only on the Arabs, but also upon 
 Europeans. The following letters w^ill illustrate this 
 characteristic. The first was addressed by him to 
 
113 APPE]S"DIX. 
 
 the population of Arabia * in the form of a procla- 
 mation : 
 
 " Before God and the Prophet, I declare that I did 
 not take up»the sword to found a kingdom on earth, 
 or to gather treasures for myself and live in a fine 
 palace; but to bring consolation and succor to the 
 faithful; to deliver them from bondage; and in order 
 that the reign of the Moslems should shine forth 
 once more in* its ancient splendor. I am therefore 
 resolved to advance from Khartoum on Dongola, 
 Cairo, and Alexandria, and in each of those cities to 
 hand over the power and government to the Mos- 
 lems. I shall march from Egypt to the Land of 
 the Prophet, to drive out the Turks, who govern 
 no better than the unbelievers, and I shall transfer 
 the country, with its two holy towns, to the sons of 
 Ismael*. Be assured, O ye sons of Ismael ! that in a 
 little time I will be with you, sword in hand." 
 
 The second was brought to Sir Charles Wilson, on 
 January 29th, by a dervish bearing a flag of truce. 
 It ran thus: 
 
 " The Mahdi's Letter. 
 
 "In the name of the merciful God ! Thanks for 
 the honorable God and prayers be to our Apostle 
 Mahomed. 
 
 * See Daily Telegraph, March 24, 1885. 
 
APPENDIX. 113 
 
 "From the poor servant of God, Mohamed El 
 Mahdi, son of Abdullah, to the English officers 
 and the Shaggieh and all their followers. 
 
 " First thing, surrender yourselves and you will be 
 safe. I briefly tell you, perhaps God will direct you 
 in the way of the righteous. Let it be known to you 
 that the city of Khartoum and all the neighborhood 
 thereof has been destroyed by the power of God Al- 
 mighty, which no one can oppose. This thing was 
 done through us ; everything is now in our hands. As 
 long as you are a small force and very likely in our 
 hands you can do whatever you like, either give your- 
 selves up and prevent bloodshed of the servants of 
 the creatures of God, who are in your hands, and the 
 grace and the peace of God and his Apostle will settle 
 upon you. If you do not believe what I have writ- 
 ten, and you want to know the reality about Khar- 
 toum, send a special messenger from yourselves to 
 come here and assure yourselves of the truth of the 
 information, and the peace of God and his Apostle be 
 with your messenger. We shall not kill you till he 
 comes here and sees all about the matter for himself, 
 and we will send him back with a safe escort from us. 
 As God says in his precious Book, ' If any of the un- 
 godly come to you, you must keep him safely until 
 he listens to the words of God, and then do for him 
 whatever he wishes.' If, on the other hand, you like 
 to fight, we shall not oppose your wish. If it were 
 not that we pity you, we would not have written this 
 letter to you. If you yield, you should know that the 
 
114 APPENDIX. 
 
 peace of God will settle upon you, and you will be 
 saved from all hurt. If you do not wish to yield, you 
 shall be punished in this world and the next. It is 
 known that victory is for the believers. You must 
 not be proud of your steamers and many other things. 
 If you do not yield to my advice you shall repent. 
 You must be quick, or your wings will be cut. A 
 man who guides the people in the right way, God 
 will guide him also aright. 
 
 " 11th Rabbeah Tani, 1302. 
 
 " P.S. — No God but one God. Mohamed is the 
 Apostle of God. 
 
 " Mohamed El Mahdi, Son of Abdullah." 
 
 The Mahdi has accomplished the nationalization of 
 the land, and abolished rents and taxes, his Treasure 
 House (see note 69) being replenished by plunder 
 from the enemy, property confiscated from " unbe- 
 lievers," voluntary offerings, and forced contributions, 
 chiefly obtained from merchants. Apparently he has 
 recently been somewhat in difiiculties as regards 
 money, for a telegram from Dongola dated April 20, 
 1885, says: 
 
 " The Arabs on the White Nile, above Khartoum, 
 are said to be deserting the Mahdi, who is robbing 
 every one possessed of anything worth seizing." 
 
 The rebellion which broke out against him in the 
 early part of April, under the leadership of a Sheikh, 
 named Migummi, had its origin in a quarrel about 
 treasure. A telegram from Cairo, dated April 20th, 
 
APPENDIX. 115 
 
 stated that : " The rebel troops have left Berti and 
 Sani for Berber, which is in open rebellion against the 
 Mahdi." 
 
 It is quite in harmony with what we have learnt 
 from" the preceding pages, that another Mahdi should 
 arise to dispute the claims of Ahmed Mohammed, by 
 proclaiming him to be Deddjld, the false prophet, who 
 is to precede the true Mahdi. This we find had ac- 
 tually happened, and a letter dated March 12th, from 
 El-Obeid, has been published in an Arab newspaper 
 describing the triumphal entry into that town of 
 Muley Hassan Ali, the so-called Anti-Mahdi. He 
 was mounted on a white horse, holding a drawn sword 
 in his right hand, which he declared to have been given 
 to him by Mahomet, in order to kill Mohammed 
 Ahmed and drive the Infidels out of Egypt. He was 
 accompanied by the Dervish of El-Obeid, and followed 
 by prisoners and his adherents also bearing drawn 
 swords. As he passed along the people bowed down 
 before him, kissing the ground and invoking blessings 
 on his head. He entered the mosque and remained 
 there some time in j^rayer. During this time a mound 
 of earth was raised outside, and on it was placed a 
 translation of the Koran, given by Mohammed Ahmed 
 to the Dervish of El-Obeid, with injunctions that it 
 was to be presented to Muley Hassan Ali, with the 
 object of converting him. 
 
 " When the Anti-Mahdi came out of the mosque he 
 addressed the people, saying he hoped soon to fulfil 
 the mission entrusted to him by the Prophet, and to 
 
116 APPENDIX. 
 
 expose and punisli the impostor who had sent him a 
 false translation of the Koran. The Dervish then 
 handed him a torch, with which he set fire to the 
 document." 
 
 Later reports state that the two Mahdis have met 
 in battle for the second time, with the result that the 
 original Mahdi was defeated and lost two of his pro- 
 vincial governors. Should these reports be true, 
 Ahmed Mohammed will soon go to swell the list of 
 false prophets, and Muley Hassan All's star will be in 
 the ascendant until he in turn falls, to give place to 
 another ; for, as has already been observed, a Mahdi 
 can only exist as long as he is successful. 
 
 B. 
 
 THE SIEGE OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 So few have been the particulars concerning this 
 memorable siege which have yet reached the British 
 public, that any which appear are endowed with a 
 value perhaps higher than they intrinsically merit, 
 and I therefore feel justified in quoting those which 
 have come to hand. According to the interesting 
 article published in the Standard for March 4th (see 
 note 69) — 
 
 " The number of fighting men congregated before 
 Khartoum seems to have been very fluctuating, sink- 
 
APPENDIX. 117 
 
 ing sometimes to seven or eight thousand, and again 
 rising to forty and fifty thousand, according to the 
 seasons and the requirements of agricultural pursuits, 
 as no impediment was ever placed in the way of their 
 going off, sometimes for weeks together — the fella- 
 heen to look after their crops and harvests, the Be- 
 douins to graze their camels, and their flocks and 
 herds. When in camp their time was wholly devoted 
 to prayers, recitations from the Koran, and sham 
 fights, often on a large scale. The actual number of 
 properly drilled and disciplined troops, chiefly blacks 
 from El-Obeid, was relatively very small, nor did 
 they seem to be implicitly trusted by the Mahdi. On 
 the other hand, the enthusiasm of the Dervishes, as 
 the Mahdi's true followers are styled, appeared to -be 
 wrought up to the highest pitch by the Prophet's 
 fervent preachings, and to be in no way abated by 
 the repeated checks they experienced before Omdur- 
 man." 
 
 Thus much for those outside the city ; but more 
 fraught with interest for the English is what went on 
 inside its walls. The military correspondent of the 
 Daily Neics was fortunate enough to encounter at 
 Korti an Egyptian who had formed one of the garri- 
 son and to obtain from him the following narrative 
 which there is reason to believe is authentic* 
 
 * By kind permission of tlic manager of tlie Daily JVews 
 I am enabled to reprint the following interesting narrative, 
 wliich appeared in tlie form of letters published in the issues 
 of that paper on April 16th and 22d. 
 
118 APPENDIX. 
 
 " We had a grand illumination the night Gordon 
 arrived. If all Christians were like him all men 
 would become Nazarah ; but you do not follow the 
 teachings of your own Prophet as we Mussulmans do. 
 Gordon told us he had come to save us. The officials 
 and Greeks illuminated their houses as you saw Khar- 
 toum illuminated on the anniversary of the restora- 
 tion of the 'Eifendina' (Khedive), and every native 
 Soudanese, however poor, lit his lamp; but soon bad 
 tidings came day by day of the approach of the 
 cursed Arabs. Soon we saw them, first in small 
 bodies at a distance, and then in large ones. They 
 had been hovering around us a long time before the 
 Pacha arrived. 'Now Gordon set every man to work; 
 he threw up a long parapet with a deep trench from 
 the Bahr-el-Abiad to the Bahr-el-Azrek, and he built 
 round towers on it and made one iron gate. He did 
 not turn put Arabs from dwelling in Khartoum; 
 there were none there, though we had many traitors. 
 They were known to the Pacha, but he said, 'Let 
 them alone; at the end they shall be punished.* 
 Among these was the principal baker. At first na- 
 tives used to bring in provisions every day through 
 the gate Gennet, in the Mogr quarter, near Gennet- 
 el-Noor (the Garden of Light). The boats crossed 
 over there by the dockyard, and brought from the 
 country all sorts of provisions. You remember when 
 you lay sick at Gordon's old house over the post- 
 office, how refreshing was the sight at early morning 
 of boatloads of huge sweet water-melons. The boats 
 
APPENDIX. 119 
 
 continued to bring across their cargoes for the two 
 months when melons are in season (May and June). 
 What splendid piles they made on the shore ! No 
 wonder you were tempted to eat of them, in spite of 
 the order of Georgio Demetrio, the doctor. I tell you, 
 he remained at Khartoum to the last. Many houses 
 belonged to him, and he had families by three wives. 
 Gordon used to say to all who wanted to leave, ' Stay, 
 my friends. The English are coming.' That hand- 
 some girl of sixteen, his daughter, remained; so did 
 the German tailor, Herr Klein, and his wife and 
 pretty daughter. He had resided twenty-five years 
 there. I cannot say who the European women were 
 that left in the steamer with Colonel Stewart, or 
 whether any did. 
 
 " Soon after Gordon's arrival Sheikh Wad-abou- 
 Gurgy made three forts opposite Khartoum on the 
 Bahr-el-Azrek ; for the time was now at hand when 
 we were to be beleaguered. In these he placed three 
 cannon, for his designs were evil — he was rebellious. 
 These forts were near the gardens of Boussi, and now 
 he"piled up outside great pyramids of dhoora, three 
 times higher than the forts themselves. When these 
 things were related to Gordon in the early morn (for 
 these piles were made at night) he despatched three 
 steamers, the Boudain, the Mansoua^ and the Tala- 
 lioioen; these fired first ball, then shell, to knock 
 down walls, and they succeeded. Mahomet Ali 
 Pacha, commanding ships, ran ashore, and landed 
 troops, while shrapnel was covered to command their 
 
120 APPENDIX. 
 
 advance. The black soldiers then stormed the fort, 
 while the Bashi-Bazouks took the outer circle. Many 
 Arabs were killed, and all the dhoora captured and 
 ammunition. After Moulid (anniv. birth Mahomet) 
 Wad Sheikh El Obeid came opposite Khartoum to 
 the other side of Bahr-el-Azrek, and encamped on 
 this isle. Gordon Pacha sent for the troops under 
 Hassein Abraham and Mahomet Abu Said, who had 
 been made pachas by Gordon Pacha. You remem- 
 ber large domes seen from your window over the 
 Post-office — taib; those were sepulchres of mighty 
 sheikhs of former days. One Englishman was buried 
 there too. Why not ? Directly we landed we 
 formed a four-deep square, such a formation as you 
 know we always kept when marching with Hicks 
 Pacha. Was it ever broken when we marched from 
 Rawa to Gebelain? You know it was not — taib. 
 Even so we marched boldly from shore One gun is 
 at an angle of the square. They charged us furious- 
 ly; but, ha ! how they scampered ! Shattered was 
 that great band of rebels ! It was near that spot we 
 did battle with the rebel; the place was called Ma- 
 laah. It was higher up than the island of Tuti. We 
 had 500 men. Now I must tell you of a wicked act 
 of treachery. Landing from the steamers we at once 
 attack the enemy. They run, routed, on account of 
 our furious fire; but now what I have to relate fills 
 my heart with grief. The traitor Abraham takes off 
 his tarbash, puts it in his breast, from which he takes 
 a dervish's cap, putting it on his head. Next to this 
 
APPENDIX. 121 
 
 what does he do ? He gallops up to the bugler, and 
 tells him to sound the *kus-rah' ('retreat'; this in 
 military Turkish signifies defeat). The brave boy 
 refused, and said, 'Pacha, we are not defeated; and 
 I will not sound as you order.' Then he cleaves the 
 brave boy's head with his scimitar, and smites others 
 who would not turn. Now, when our enemies see 
 these things come to pass, they, who had been in fear 
 and trembling, gain heart, return, and attack us 
 again. We become disorganized — why not ? We 
 fly back to the outworks and huts we had left, close 
 to the cemetery. But we did not let the traitorous 
 Pacha escape. We circle round his horse and com- 
 pel him to retire with us ; much does he struggle, beg, 
 and protest; he had endeavored to escape; but es- 
 cape for him was not. I cannot tell you what the 
 other Pacha did; I did not observe; but this man — 
 maledictions on his soul ! ma yeshuf el noem — may 
 he never see luxury ! (paradise) — slew several of our 
 soldiers. But we were too quick for him; we brought 
 him back, bound hand and foot. 
 
 "Now all these things (continued my informant), 
 and how the traitorous Pacha had been the cause of 
 our disgrace, Gordon Pacha had spied from the top 
 of his house. He was much grieved; and when the 
 wicked Pachas, who were both guilty, were brought 
 bound, as I said, hand and foot before him, he spake 
 never a word except ' Away with them ! ' He was 
 reading Holy Writ at the time. They were tried by 
 court-martial, and sentenced to death. Seven days 
 
122 APPEN"DIX. 
 
 afterwards they were executed in tlie inner yard, near 
 the large square of the prison. They were hewn in 
 pieces by a halbert. I saw the execution, so it is of 
 no use your saying ' they were shot.' I tell you, ac- 
 cording to Turkish military law, a military traitor is 
 always sentenced to be cut to pieces. The two were 
 bound up against the wall by chains and rings. Two 
 soldiers armed with sharp hatchets approached them 
 from out of the sides of the square we had formed. 
 The prisoners' crime was read out, and their sentence. 
 A hundred soldiers were present, some senior officers, 
 but not Gordon Pacha. The senior Bey cried out, ' Ex- 
 ecutioners perform sentence on the traitors ! ' Imme- 
 diately these advanced close, and lopped off first their 
 arms above the elbows, then the legs above the knees, 
 then cut their bodies in twain, then decapitated them. 
 They died not till they were cut asunder; then their 
 heads fell on their breasts, and they expired with a 
 hideous yell. Surely their fate was deserved ! I can- 
 not say whether Gordon Pacha knew of this manner 
 of execution. I tell you this is the Turkish mode of 
 punishing military traitors, and it is a just punishment. 
 "You would like to know the story of our lives 
 from day to day, but every day was like yester- 
 day, and yesterday and to-day like to-morrow; there- 
 fore perhaps I do not tell you correctly in order as 
 things occurred. Who could ? There were days and 
 nights of watching; we were like dogs guarding 
 sheepfolds from the wolf or hyena; but we were 
 not down-hearted. Gordon kept saying to us, * Pa- 
 
APPENDIX. 123 
 
 tience, the English are coming — are coming. God 
 watches over you.' He was a good man. *My faith 
 in God never fails,' he said; 'neither let yours.' In 
 the morning the band would play to him early as he 
 used to sit in the kiosque you will remember across 
 the road at the wall, over the Nile. He took his 
 coffee there; he then walked up and down on the top 
 of his house. After this he commenced the business 
 of the day in the rooms of the first story of the Pal- 
 ace. Many officials now visited him; among others 
 the big European Doctor, Macolopo Bey, the Austrian 
 and French Consuls, Georgio Demetrio (the Doctor), 
 the Mudir of the Mudireah, Ali Jeleb, and the Yakeel 
 Mahomet Abdullah. The former stayed to the last; 
 the other was killed with Gordon. Then came the 
 chief butchers and bakers. Often a woman visited 
 him called Zenoba. She was A'ery wealthy; she used 
 to pay into the Mudireah some sixty or seventy 
 thousand dollars at a time; lent to Government 
 on Gordon's security or note of hand. She owned 
 many shops, mills, and nuggars. She was an Egyp- 
 tian, wife of Hadj Mahomet, wood-turner. Suleiman 
 Esyah, too, a chief merchant in Khartoum, used to 
 lend money. He occupied two houses in the upper 
 market. After this, at mid-day, Gordon Pacha took 
 his lunch. Business was renewed in the afternoon. 
 At evening time he would ride along the intrench- 
 ments from Blue to White Nile. The enemy were 
 always firing in a desultory way. By accident peo- 
 ple used to be hit day after day. 
 
124 APPENDIX. . 
 
 "Soldiers lined the trenches all day and night. 
 There were four guns there, two pointing towards 
 Bahr Ahead, one facing from the iron gate near the 
 cemetery, one facing the village of Burdi. Of the 
 crowds of blacks you speak of living in the poor 
 quarters of Khartoum Gordon made soldiers. All 
 men were compelled to carry arms, regular soldiers 
 got rations of dhoora, the others got Government bis- 
 cuit. We were always expecting, from dawn to sun- 
 set, from sunset to dawn, the arrival of the English. 
 Whenever we heard news of them our hearts rejoiced. 
 The Arabs have a fear of the English, dating back 
 from the time of Arabi's defeat. They believe they 
 carry with them a piece of wood which they can ex- 
 tend to any height, that up this they climb, and spy 
 their enemies at any distance.* Now this I tell you, 
 their terror of you is so great that they will never 
 face you again. The sheikhs have informed Mahomet 
 Achmet that unless he leads them forth to do battle 
 they will not fight; this is since the battle of Abou 
 Tlea — not Klea — as you called it. All were at first 
 loyal in Khartoum, except a, few of the head men — 
 such as the chief baker and butcher; but Gordon, 
 who well knew these men to be traitors, said, ' Suffer 
 them to remain on at their work; we will show them 
 what justice is when the English come.' As time 
 wore on and provisions were become short by reason 
 of the strictness of the siege — for the Arabs were 
 
 * This idea they get probably from the Heliograph. 
 
APPENDIX. 1 25 
 
 closing around — Gordon sent away all the old men 
 and women who were nnable to work, out of Khar- 
 toum; they were afraid to go at first, but Gordon 
 gave them an introduction to Mahomet Achmet, writ- 
 ing as follows: * Be kind to these; treat them well, I 
 charge you. Behold, I have kept and fed all these 
 for four months; try how you will like doing so for 
 one month.' * Mahomet Achmet accepted them, and 
 they are with him to this day. 
 
 "As it was at the time of the Tou el Kebeah (great 
 flood); as it will be at El Achrah (last day); as it 
 has often been when in cities of the earth enemies 
 have been knocking at the gate Avithout, they bought 
 and sold; they married and were given in marriage; 
 yes, there were the usual nuj)tial rejoicings — the bride 
 soon, alas, to be sold into slavery! Mashallah! It was 
 their kismet. There were the same gatherings round 
 fires you remember witnessing when the Ihrunnahgah 
 (dancing girls) danced in the middle their ghan-ah- 
 ghat to the tune of the terbukat. The festivities and 
 feastings took place nightly. The Soudanese are a 
 
 * This was told me on two different occasions by more than 
 three Bishareen Arabs who had come from Onderman — the 
 same who told me of Gordon's fights; but it was thought most 
 improbable by the military authorities — and it was not thought 
 desirable to telegraph this. I therefore withdrew the news 
 from my telegram. I have since had confirmation of this from 
 good authorities who were in Khartoum, and who told me of 
 Ibis unasked. I am aware there is no mention of this in Gor- 
 don's diary. 
 
126 APPENDIX. 
 
 light-hearted people even when a cloud hangs over 
 them. You would have thought nothing was going 
 amiss. It is true they believed the English were 
 coming. Spirits were sold at high prices; date-spirit 
 two reals a pint bottle; vermouth, two and a half. 
 Meanwhile nothing was bought from outside; noth- 
 ing brought in. The town was surrounded before 
 the big feast, Eade-el-Kebar. 
 
 " I cannot say when, for one day was the same 
 as the other, but one day Gordon saw coming from 
 afar two foot-messengers across the desert from the 
 Bahr Abiad from opposite El Kalakli. He ordered 
 the sentinels to let them pass in peace. They waved 
 a white flag, and cried, ' Salamu ah la cum.' They 
 said they were ambassadors from Wad-el-Jumma, 
 Ameer of Mahomet Achmet. We replied in words 
 signifying, ' Peace and mercy of God.' Gordon had 
 them escorted to the Palace, and made them par- 
 take of coffee, and sit down on a carpet prepared 
 for them, as is the custom. They produced two 
 dervishes' coats and one cap, a rosary, and sandals. 
 * These,' said they, ' are sent by Wad-el-Jumma, 
 Ameer of our Lord, the long-expected one.' They 
 had a letter beginning *Hod dale wah dolan.' This 
 was the sense of it : ' Take these and Islam, and go 
 home to your country — you and the sons of Errect 
 (Egypt), and leave Soudan (Country of the Blacks) 
 to its relations (literal) ; and on you be the safety of 
 God and the Prophet; and we will lower you (let 
 you down) with safety (i.e., in good faith).' Gor- 
 
APPENDIX. 127 
 
 don took these things and gave them a koflan (robe), 
 pair of boots, tarbash (red fez with blue tassel), and 
 waist-vest, typical of Egyptian costume, saying, 
 *Give these to Wad-el-Jumma. Tell him, Islam 
 enter the Government, as you are a coward (literally 
 man frightened).' He added, ' The other man is a 
 clever man and brave.' These men were dressed as 
 dervishes. Gordon gave them twenty-five dollars 
 backshesh. As they left they said, ' Remember we 
 have plenty of soldiers and Arabs.' At this time 
 Mahomet Achmet was at El-Obeid. The 'other 
 man,' he alluded to, Wad-Abou Gergee, had brought 
 1,000 men to Gordon. Before this Gordon went out 
 to fight him, and beat him near the outer gardens of 
 Bouri; he took all their dhoora and arms. Wad- 
 Abou-Gergee kept on writing to Gordon, negotiating 
 a surrender. These 1,000 soldiers got into Khar- 
 toum. Why did he not come in himself ? Because 
 he stayed out to entice others in — mixed Egyptians, 
 Soudanese, and Turkish soldiers drilled by Turks. 
 But Wad-Abou- Gergee was played a shabby trick 
 by two men, Soudanese, named Wade Jerkock, a 
 merchant, and Wad-ma-quoi, chief butcher. These 
 wrote to Wad-el-Jumma, saying, 'O Sheikh, Wad- 
 Abou-Gergee has given the Turks 1,000 men and 
 arms (all Egyptians are called Turks).' When Wad- 
 el-Jumma read this he was wroth, and, catching 
 Wad-Abou-Gergee, enchained him. The messengers 
 were dismissed at the gate Bawabit-el-Mussel La- 
 mieh; Gordon made it near Boussi. 
 
128 APPENDIX. 
 
 " I would now tell you of the battle of El-effoon, 
 two days' march towards Sennaar. Sheikh El-Obeid 
 (?), Mahomed All Pacha, commanded. I went up 
 with the soldiers to battle with 500 Bashi-Bazouks. 
 On the first day we found Arabs in a building, and 
 drove them out. On the second day we were march- 
 ing up to a village called Omdoban (Mother of 
 Flies). We attacked the rebels under a dervish, and 
 firing killed many. But we were charged by cavalry 
 and foot. Many of us were then slain. Abou Ger- 
 gee and Wed Nejiim (Son of the Stars) encamped 
 on the sand south of Khartoum. Three months 
 after Gordon arrived these men sat down before the 
 place. Two sorties were made, and many of them 
 killed. During this time we got forage for our 
 horses from Tuti. Our guns could play on the 
 island. From there, too, melons and cucumbers were 
 brought. And now I would tell you about the 
 steamers. One plied between the rocks — En Mogrin 
 and Khartoum — with one gun. The Arabs intended 
 putting wires across the river at Gebel Ain; but the 
 force of the water broke these. Gordon did not cut 
 them. Behind the trenches were tents, one for 
 twenty-four men; one man kept guard at the trench 
 for the twenty-four; thus we lived, eat, drank, slept, 
 prayed, day and night. 
 
 *' We were besieged thrice, and thrice we defeated 
 the enemy. We killed many when we attacked Om- 
 durman, but more came on like swarms of flies. 
 Having killed some, their numbers were forthwith 
 trebled. 
 
APPENDIX. 129 
 
 " I forgot to say how Omdurman was taken from 
 us. It was thus: Hicks Pacha built a big trench 
 round it — well, perhaps it was there when you came. 
 Gordon built an inner one; or perhaps it was the 
 reverse. At any rate there were two rings. The 
 rebels crept in between the two and were thus pro- 
 tected. Then they cut off the little garrison's water. 
 Thus was Omdurman taken. 
 
 " Gordon lived alone with his servant in his pal- 
 ace. Power Bey lived in the Genesi (church of the 
 Roman Catholic mission) to guard the ammunition 
 which was kept in the cloisters. He superintended 
 the making of powder. Colonel Stewart used to 
 superintend the taking out of the powder and its dis- 
 tribution, and was also engaged in looking out. 
 Such was our daily occupation in that city, whose 
 kismet was already written. 
 
 "Yes; they used to fish, as in your time, with 
 hooks and nets, and catch those great fish with heads 
 like cats and long whiskers — the kabaross. (This is 
 a common fish in the Upper Nile; they call it 'cat- 
 fish,' from its head, I believe. It is, I think, a kind 
 of barbel, and when dressed well is of a very fair 
 taste.) You could put one on a homar (ass). You 
 could rest its head on the donkey's head, and its tail 
 on the animal's tail. There was also the el edgil 
 (calf -fish). 
 
 " We had still tobacco and shoes, for there were 
 shoemakers in the city. We strolled when off duty 
 through the bazaar as usual. Some would gamble 
 
130 APPEN^DIX. 
 
 with dominoes; some drink merissa, and the young 
 men would dress to please the young girls — ^with 
 cane under arm and cigarette in mouth. Bargains 
 would be struck, and houses sold, as jf the end was 
 not. I am told it has been so with gre'at cities in 
 time of siege. It was so, a Jew told me, with his 
 city in Syria. Do not blame me when I dwell on 
 this: I am a different man. Have I not lost a wife — 
 I had only one — and children ? With the young 
 girls, too, there was plaiting of hair and anointing 
 with butter, and ornamenting necks, ankles, and 
 arms with gold chains and shells. They would sit 
 in the bazaar selling onions and eggs and melons, and 
 butter and sweetmeats up to the day I left, and 
 would laugh and joke with their admirers, and court- 
 ship would go on, like butterflies, heedless. 
 
 "We went to mosque, too, crowds of us, and the 
 * zikkah ' was said (in remembrance). We pray for 
 departed spirits — that they may be in luxury. Why 
 not ? 
 
 " Gordon's paper notes went round like cash. They 
 were looked upon as money. They were mostly one- 
 piastre notes ; others for five and ten piastres (a real, 
 or guinea) up to five hundred piastres. All mine are 
 gone. I spent them in the desert, where I would buy 
 water, a cup for ten piastres. 
 
 " The schools went on as usual, Mohammedan; also 
 at the Genesi, till the priests (Italian) left. The little 
 German tailor, Klein, remained till the last; twenty- 
 five years had he resided in Khartoum. His wife and 
 
APPENDIX. 131 
 
 four daughters remained too. They did not go with 
 Stewart, I am sure. 
 
 " There were several white women there when I 
 left — daughters of Europeans by Abyssinian wives, 
 whom they had bought. There were two or three 
 ladies at the Austrian Consul's. I think all these had 
 so many family ties they would not leave ; besides, 
 Gordon always said, *The English are coming.' 
 
 " I do not know that your coming would have 
 altered matters ; for this I tell you advisedly — the 
 will of God says it. 
 
 " There were traitors in our midst ; they met and 
 took counsel together against Gordon Pacha. He 
 was warned, but said, * Suffer it to be so.' 
 
 " The plan was to deliver over the city whenever 
 the English drew near. The number of traitors in- 
 creased daily as they got hopeless. Another thing, 
 and this decided many: after the battle of Abou Tlea 
 the rebels went down and collected all the helmets 
 they could find. They showed these to us, waving 
 them outside the trenches and saying, *Thus and 
 thus have we eaten up the Feringhees.' Thus even 
 faithful men were sorely tempted and became sick at 
 heart. 
 
 "At night the enemy used to be often at the south 
 end, at speaking distance ; and we used to revile each 
 other. We were called the cursed rebels who speak 
 evil of the fathers and mothers to the third and fourth 
 generation. We would call them 'sons of dogs' 
 (wadho kelps) (I should think our word whelp comes 
 
132 APPEN-DIX. 
 
 from this), and shout, * Allah bou rou Gehenna, ye 
 rebellious ones ; malediction on your fathers ; depart 
 to Gehenna ; ' and they would answer, ^ Ye are slaves 
 of the Infidels ; ye too are Infidels, as you do not be- 
 lieve in our book. We will eat you up, and wipe you 
 from the face of the earth of Allah.' 
 
 " Thus and thus did we call out to each other dur- 
 ing the long night. 
 
 " The English stayed too long at Matumna ; per- 
 haps had they gone on at once the gates would not 
 have been opened ; but still I tell you treachery was 
 planned long before. The rebels came over at night ; 
 or at any rate before dawn, when Tenza and another 
 opened the gate. 
 
 "The last river trip was made by Tujerat Ma- 
 haba. He had on board two Krupp guns. He started 
 at seven a.m. ; at ten he met a nuggar full of rebels. 
 They had a gun. They fired at each other for an 
 hour. At last the rebel boat sunk. He was still 
 under a heavy fire till he reached Shembat. At 
 Bou the rebels had one Krupp, four guns higher up, 
 and one mitrailleuse or Nordenf eldt. He ran aground. 
 Here he is — he will tell you the story." 
 
 A tall, stout black here entered my tent (writes the 
 correspondent), and kissed my hand. He wore naval 
 uniform — three stripes on arm, and Gordon's medal. 
 
 " Ha !" I said, referring to these, " you at least have 
 kept yours." The others had been selling their lead 
 medals given by Gordon in camp. I deprecated this 
 much ; but the reply I invariably met with was — " If 
 I don't buy it, some one else will." 
 
APPENDIX. 133 
 
 *'I," said the captain (he was the chief of all the 
 boats), " would not part with mine for £1,000." He 
 continued : 
 
 " The last words Gordon said were, * Bring the 
 English when you come back, if only three or four;' 
 but I was never to see him more. I have left my wife 
 and children at Khartoum! He has told you I sank 
 the rebel vessel. Well, I was fired at from all direc- 
 tions. I rammed her. I had 150 soldiers on board; 
 she had plenty. Down they all went — it was a glori- 
 ous sight ! None escaped. On passing Rezaree I 
 was fired at by 150 riflemen, but continued my voy- 
 age till I got to ,Gebel-el-Sheikh-el-Taeb (the good 
 Sheikh). The shots fell short. On the river, near 
 Mashed-el-Hamar (donkey's pasture) — six hours from 
 Khartoum — I went upon a rock; then three mountain 
 guns opened fire on me. Three hours afterwards 
 three steamers came, the Boiidain, Telehowah 
 Tepagny^ and Sophia. Troops were landed, and we 
 killed many Arabs. I used to be captain of Hicks 
 Pacha's ship, and flew the Pacha's flags. Many 
 times I have taken you down to Omdurman, and I saw 
 you up at Kowa, but you were on shore. General 
 Hicks was very kind, but I was a small Reiss then. 
 If Gordon had lived I should have become as high as 
 this tree — pooh! I have left a thousand of Gordon's 
 notes at Khartoum with my family, and all my clothes. 
 
 "Latterly the chief men of the town were traitors; 
 all were concerned in opening the gates. They were 
 afraid of starving. This I tell you, and I do not lie. 
 
134 APPENDIX. 
 
 All the white and all the black women are now made 
 slaves. My poor wife, I shall never see her again. 
 When I say white I mean also those whose mothers 
 were Abyssinian and fathers European, and there were 
 some Turkish ladies who wore the achmet, wives of 
 officers; all will now be slaves. I have finished. I 
 must leave you." 
 
 He had to present himself to Captain Baker, R.N., 
 who himself was with Sir Samuel Baker up the Nile. 
 
 Sergeant-Major Hannoar, of the Commissariat, was 
 enabled to assist in interpreting, he having a perfect 
 knowledge of the language, as they spoke. He is the 
 clever son of a missionary, and was born near Jerusa- 
 lem. He is extremely able, speaking five languages. 
 I trust he may rise, as a useful man such as he is 
 not met with every day. 
 
 My interview for the time was now over, and the 
 two gallant men took their departure, seeming de- 
 pressed and sorrowful. These men had a genuine 
 love for Gordon; you could feel this in every word 
 when they referred to him. " Ah !" they would ejacu- 
 late, "no one like him on this earth." 
 
 THE ENDo 
 
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 In Two Volumes. With Portrait. Vol. I., pp. x., 308; Vol. 
 II., pp., viii., 288. 8vo, Cloth, $3 00. 
 
 No English autobiography with which we are acquainted is compar- 
 able with Sir Henry Taylor's book in respect of simplicity, sincerity, and 
 candor. With a modesty that is never strained or misplaced, with a 
 frank recognition of his own earnest efforts to do praiseworthy things, 
 and a just appraisement of the measure of success attending them, with- 
 out the faintest indication of a wish to disparage the talents or the tri- 
 umphs of other men, or to depict himself as greater or better than he 
 was, the author in his green old age tells the story of a busy, useful, 
 and interesting life, which has had its share of honor, and will leave be- 
 hind it fruitage of a rare and sterling sort. — N. T. Sun. 
 
 In the midst of so much that is necessarily inharmonious and provoca- 
 tive of envy, malice, and all uncharitableness, in the avalanche of personal 
 detail, it is delightful to come upon an autobiography like this of Sir 
 Henry Taylor's, with its panorama of life critically yet kindly presented. 
 . . . The work is thoroughly entertaining, and the entertainment is of a 
 high order. One recalls what Gladstone said of Taylor, that he " only 
 needed ambition to make him a great man." — Boston JSvenivg Ti'aveller. 
 
 It is an exceptionally interesting and entertaining book, as it tells 
 the history of a long life spent in many useful works, and in intimate 
 connection with the important Englishmen and English events of the 
 past eighty years. . . . His recollections of men and his record of the 
 striking events of his time are extremely readable, and the whole book 
 may be taken as a representative autobiograph}' of one of the literary 
 men of the old school who did something beside write books. — Brooklyn 
 Union. 
 
 These two volumes are worthy to flank any of an autobiographical 
 nature which have been published. Mr. Taylor knew all the literary and 
 political lions of his time, and tells much that is new and entertaining 
 about them. He is strong in the critical faculty, and makes many wise 
 comments on his contemporaries. — iV. Y. Journal of Commerce. 
 
 No other man in England, probably, or at least none who would write 
 it out, possessed such an intimate personal knowledge of the conspicu- 
 ous men and women of the present era. His knowledge of the literary 
 world began with Southe}'^, and embraced the very youngest poets now 
 writing. With novelists, historians, scientists, he had an intimate per- 
 sonal relation, visiting them in their homes and receiving them in his. 
 He knew the men and women of whom the world delights to hear, and 
 he therefore fills many pages with interesting reminiscences. . . . The two 
 volumes are certain to be widely read. — N. Y, Times. 
 
 Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 
 
 J8Si" Habpkb & Beotheks will send the above work "by mail, postage prepaid, to any 
 part of the United States or Canada, on receipt of the price. 
 
BOOTS AND SADDLES; 
 
 Or, Life in Dakota with General Custer. By Mrs. Eliz- 
 abeth B. Custer. With Portrait of General Custer, 
 pp. 312. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50. 
 
 A book of adventure is interesting reading, especially when it is all true, 
 as is the case with " Boots and Saddles." * * * She does not obtrude the 
 fact that sunshine and solace went with her to tent and fort, but it in- 
 heres in her narrative none the less, and as a consequence " these simple 
 annals of our daily life," as she calls them, are never dull nor uninterest- 
 ing. — Evangelist, N. Y. 
 
 Mrs. Custer's book is in reality a bright and sunny sketch of the life 
 of her late husband, who fell at the battle of " Little Big Horn." * * * 
 After the war, when General Custer was sent to the Indian frontier, his 
 wife was of the party, and she is able to give the minute story of her 
 husband's varied career, since she was almost always near the scene of 
 his adventures. — Brooklyn Union. 
 
 We have no hesitation in saying that no better or more satisfactory life 
 of General Custer could have been written. Indeed, we may as well 
 speak the thought that is in us, and say plainly that we know of no bio- 
 graphical work anywhere which we count better than this. * * * Surely the 
 record of such experiences as these will be read with that keen interest 
 which attaches only to strenuous human doings ; as surely we are right 
 in saying that such a story of truth and heroism as that here told will 
 take a deeper hold upon the popular mind and heart than any work of 
 fiction can. For the rest, the narrative is as vivacious and as lightly and 
 trippingly given as that of any novel. It is enriched in every chapter with 
 illustrative anecdotes and incidents, and here and there a little life story 
 of pathetic interest is told as an episode. — N. Y. Commercial Advertiser. 
 
 It is a plain, straightforward story of the author's life on the plains of 
 Dakota. Every member of a Western garrison will want to read this 
 book ; every person in the East Avho is interested in Western life will 
 want to read it, too; and every girl or boy who has a healthy appetite 
 for adventure will be sure to get it. It is bound to have an army of read- 
 ers that few authors can expect. — Philadelphia Press. 
 
 These annals of daily life in the army are simple, yet interesting, and 
 underneath all is discerned the love of a true woman ready for any sacri- 
 fice. She touches on themes little canvassed by the civilian, and makes a 
 volume equally redolent of a loving devotion to an honored husband, and 
 attractive as a picture of necessary duty by the soldier. — Commonwealth, 
 Boston. 
 
 Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, N. Y. 
 
 J8®* Haepeb & Brothers will send the above, work by mail, postage prepaid^ ta any 
 part of th* United States or Canada, on receipt of the price, ^ y 
 
FLY-RODS AND FLY-TACKLE. 
 
 Suggestions as to their Manufacture and Use. By Henry 
 P. Wells. Illustrated, pp. 364. Post 8vo, Illumi- 
 nated Cloth, |2 50. 
 
 Mr. Wells has devoted more time and attention to the materials used in 
 fly-fishing than any person we know of, and his experience is well set forth 
 in this most valuable book. * * * The author is an amateur rod-maker who 
 has experimented with every wood known to rod manufacturers, as well as 
 with some that are not known to them, and therefore he is an undoubted 
 authority on the subject. This chapter and the one following, which gives 
 directions in rod-making, forms the most perfect treatise on rods extant. 
 * * * The book is one of great value, and will take its place as a standard 
 authority on all points of which it treats, and we cannot commend it too 
 highly. — Forest and /Stream^ N. Y. 
 
 Since Izaak Walton lingered over themes piscatorial, we have learned to 
 expect, in all essays on the gentle art of angling, a certain daintiness and 
 elegance of literary form as well as technical utility. Publisher and author 
 have co-operated to meet these traditional i^equirements in "Fly-Rods and 
 Fly-Tackle." * * * Mr. Wells's competence to expound the somewhat in- 
 tricate principles and delicate processes of fly-fishing will be plain to any 
 reader who himself has some practical acquaintance with the art discussed. 
 The value of the author's instructions and suggestions is signally enhanced 
 by their minuteness and lucidity. — N. Y. Sun. 
 
 "A complete manual for the ambitious lover of fishing for trout. * * * All 
 lovers of fly-fishing should have Mr. Wells's book in their outfit for the 
 sport that is near at hand. — Philadelphia Bulletin. 
 
 Mr. Wells reveals to us the mysteries of lines, leaders, and reels, rods, 
 rod material, and rod-making. He lets us into the secret of making re- 
 pairs, and gives all due directions for casting the fly. * * * Moreover, Mr. 
 Wells writes in an attractive style. There is a certain charm in the heart- 
 iness and grace wherewith he expresses his appreciation of those beauties 
 of nature which the angler has so unlimited an opportunity of enjoying. 
 Thus what may be called not only a technical, but also a scientific, knowl- 
 edge of his subject is combined with a keen delight in hill, stream, and for- 
 est for the sake of the varied loveliness tliey display. — N. Y. Telegram. 
 
 A book of practical hints about the manufacture and use of anglers' 
 gear. Fish-hooks, lines, leaders, rods and rod-making, repairs, flies and 
 fly-fishing, are among the important subjects discussed with great fulness. 
 The essay on "Casting the Fly" and "Miscellaneous Suggestions" are 
 rich in points for beginners. It is to the latter, and not to the experts, 
 that Mr. Wells modestly dedicates his work. His object is to supply pre- 
 cisely the kind of information of which he stood so much in need during 
 his own novitiate. — iV. Y. Journal of Commerce. 
 
 Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 
 
 The above work sent by mail, postage prejjaid, to any part of the United State% 
 or Canada, on receipt of the price. 
 
HOME STUDIES IN NATUllE. 
 
 Bv Mary Treat, Author of " Chapters on Ants," &c. Illus- 
 trated, pp. 244. 12mo, Ornamental Cloth, $1 50. 
 
 Mrs. Treat roams through the fields in search of rare knowledge about 
 birds, wasps, spiders, and those wonderful plants that entrap insects and 
 thrive on their juices. Her originality in these researches is undoubted, 
 and she adds a great deal to our stock of facts for use in the interpreta- 
 tion of nature. She has a pleasant style, and a winning knack of making 
 disagreeable things seem otherwise. The pictures are many and good. — 
 i\\ y. Journal of Commerce, 
 
 A worthy {ribute from a lover of nature to the animated world about 
 her. It treats of birds, insects, plants that consume animals, and flowering 
 plants. It has nearly seventy handsome illustrations, and the story is told 
 in fascinating and clearly-expressed language. It is an admirable work 
 with which to educate a family. — Boston Commonivealth. 
 
 To those who have given attention to the beauties of nature as devel- 
 oped in the winged world and the insect and floral branches, this little 
 volume will be peculiarly grateful. — Albany Press. 
 
 Books on this subject are generally regarded by every one not profes- 
 sional scientists as dreadful bores. An exception must be made, however, 
 in favor of Mrs. Mary Treat's " Home Studies in Nature." The only 
 echoes of science between the two covers are the Latin names of birds, 
 insects, and plants ; all else are most curious and readable accounts of 
 the doings of some creatures so tiny that they frequently are near us, and 
 watching us, when we imagine ourselves alone. * * * This would be a capi- 
 tal book to give a bright-eyed boy or girl who complains that about home 
 " there is nothing to look at." Adults, however will also enjoy the volume, 
 and may make their eyesight keener by reading it. — N. Y. Herald. 
 
 The public should feel glad that occasionally a man or a woman finds 
 highest pleasure in studying the ways and habits of nature, and publishing 
 the result of such study to the world. This is what Mrs. Treat has done. 
 * * * Her book is divided into four parts — observations on birds, habits of 
 insects, plants that consume animals, and flowering plants. It is, moreover, 
 helped by nearly seventy illustrations, which in a work of this character 
 are of material assistance ; for the great majority of readers are unfamil- 
 iar with the appearance of the birds, flowers, and insects, the habits of 
 which are described. The author shows herself to be a keen, conscien- 
 tious, and affectionate observer. — iV. Y. Telegram,. 
 
 Mrs. Treat can always command a delightful audience ; for next to the 
 pleasure of searching fields, woods, and streams for the beautiful or curi- 
 ous, it is charming to hear from so close an observer so much that is in- 
 tei-esting and new, especially when all is told with vivacity and genuine 
 enthusiasm. * * * The volume is finely illustrated, and its contents cannot 
 tail to entertain the reader, young or old, who has learned, or is learning, 
 about the busy world out-of-doors. — Worcester Daily Spy. 
 
 Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 
 
 The above work sent by mail, postage prepaid, to anif part of tJie United States 
 or Canada, on receipt of the price. 
 
BISHOP SIMPSON'S SERMONS. 
 
 Sermons of the Rev. Matthew Simpson, D.D., LL.D., late 
 Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Chm'ch. Edited by 
 the Rev. George R. Crooks, D.D. pp. x., 454. 8vo, 
 Cloth, $2 50. 
 
 This is a welcome volume. The Christian community was awaiting it. 
 It is the best we can have, now that the man and his eloquent tongue, 
 which clothed them with life and beauty, is gone. They are able and 
 eloquent, even on the printed page, and full of evangelical truth. — Pres- 
 byterian, Philadelphia. 
 
 The discourses given in this volume possess the impressive character- 
 istics of their author — they are fresh, vigorous, clear, and telling. Only 
 two of them were ever committed to writing, and nearly all of them were 
 taken down as uttered from the lips of the living speaker, glowing with 
 intense emotion and pathos. — Lutheran Observer. Philadelphia. 
 
 The simplicity and directness of language in these sermons, their ear- 
 nestness and vigorous, penetrating force, the spirit of sympathy that they 
 breathe, are but a faint indication, after all, of the power that the preacher 
 had over his congregations. — Boston Daily Advertiser. 
 
 Our pastors and people will welcome the volume as a rich addition to 
 their libraries. — Zion^s Herald. 
 
 American Methodism has produced no man more revered by the entire 
 denomination than Matthew Simpson. To executive abihties of a high or- 
 der Bishop Simpson added a general character so pure, consistent, and 
 noble that men who knew him unconsciously accepted his words almost 
 as if they were direct results of inspiration. . . . Although they cannot 
 reproduce his voice nor the peculiar expression which his face always 
 wore when he was preaching, they show the secret of his pulpit strength 
 to have been drawn from the same sources as that of the great preachers 
 of the other churches — sincerity of behef, sense of responsibility, and no- 
 bility of character. — N. Y. Herald. 
 
 Bishop Simpson must be regarded as one of the great pulpit orators of 
 his day in this country, and his utterances always had a gracefulness and 
 a brilliancy that were exceptionally charming and moving. He never 
 spoke save with the earnestness of absolute conviction, and the powerful 
 quality thus imparted to his discourses is apparent in a measure in these 
 printed pages. The sermons here presented are twenty-five in number. 
 They are thoroughly religious, not a little doctrinal, but with scarcely a 
 breath of sectarianism about them. They are marked by religious fer- 
 vor, deep conviction of the truth, a perfect frankness of expression and 
 earnestness of purpose. They are admirable specimens of pulpit oratory, 
 and have also a value beyond that in the thoughts which they present. — 
 Boston Gazette. 
 
 Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 
 
 Hakpku & Brothers will send the above work by mail, postage prepaid^ to 
 any part of the United States or Canada, on receipt of the price. 
 
OATS OR WILD OATS? 
 
 Common-sense for Young Men. By J. M. Buckley, LL.D. 
 pp. xiv., 306. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50. 
 
 It is a good book, which ought to do good on a large scale. . . . Such 
 passages as those headed Tact, Observation, Reflection, Self-command, and 
 the like, may be read and re-read many times with advantage. — Brooklyn 
 Union. 
 
 A book which should be recommended to the consideration of every 
 young man who is preparing to go into a business career or any other in 
 which he may aspire to become an honorable, useful, and prosperous citi- 
 zen. . . . Dr. Buckley knows the trials and the temptations to which 
 young men are exposed, and his book, while written in most agreeable 
 language, is full of excellent counsel, and illustrations are given by an- 
 ecdotes and by examples which the author has observed or heard of in 
 his own experience. Besides general advice, there are especial chapters 
 relating to professional, commercial, and other occupations. So good a 
 book should be widely distributed, and it Avill tell on the next generation. 
 — Philadelphia Bulletin. 
 
 It is a model manual, and will be as interesting to a bright, go-ahead 
 boy as a novel. — Philadelphia Record. 
 
 The scheme of the book is to assist young men in the choice of a 
 profession or life pursuit by explaining the leading principles and char- 
 acteristics of different branches of business, so that the reader may see 
 what his experiences are likely to be, and thus be enabled to make an 
 intelligent selection among the many avenues of labor. In order to make 
 his work accurate and comprehensive. Dr. Buckley has consulted mer- 
 chants, lawyers, statesmen, farmers, manufacturers, men in all walks of 
 life, and specialists of every description, visiting and examining their es- 
 tablishments, offices, and studios. From the knowledge thus gained he 
 has prepared the greater part of his book The remainder is given to 
 general advice, and contains the old maxims familiar to all young men 
 from the time of Poor Richard. Success is won by good behavior, intelli- 
 gence, and industry. These are the "Oats." The "Wild Oats" of lazi- 
 ness, carelessness, and dissipation bring ruin, disaster, and misery. The 
 work is likely to attract readers fi'om its practical value as a compendium 
 of facts relating to the various departments of labor rather than on ac- 
 count of its moral injtmctions. It cannot help being very useful to the 
 class of young men for whom it is intended, as also to parents who have 
 boys to start out into the world. — N. Y. Times. 
 
 Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 
 
 K^ Hakpeu & BnoTHEBS will send the above work by mail, postage prepaid^ to 
 any part of the United States or Canada, on receipt of the price. 
 
GEORGE ELIOT'S LIFE AND WORKS. 
 
 LIBRARY EDITION. 
 
 14 vols., 12mo, Cloth, $1 25 per vol. Complete Sets, $15 15. 
 
 ADAM BEDE. Illustrated. 
 DANIEL DERONDA. 2 vols. 
 ESSAYS AND LEAVES FROM A 
 
 NOTE-BOOK. 
 FELIX HOLT, THE RADICAL. 
 
 Illustrated. 
 GEORGE ELIOT'S LIFE. By J. 
 
 W. Cross. With Portraits and 
 
 Illustrations, 3 vols. 
 
 MIDDLEMARCH. 2 vols. 
 
 ROMOLA. Illustrated. 
 
 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE, and 
 SILAS MARNER. Illustrated. 
 
 THE IMPRESSIONS OF THEO- 
 PHRASTUS SUCH. 
 
 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS. Illus- 
 trated. 
 
 POPULAR EDITION. 
 
 11 vols., 12rao, Cloth, 75 cents per vol. 
 
 ADAM BEDE. Illustrated. 
 
 DANIEL DERONDA. 2 vols. 
 
 ESSAYS AND LEAVES FROM A 
 NOTE-BOOK. 
 
 FELIX HOLT, THE RADICAL. 
 
 Illustrated. 
 
 MIDDLEMARCH. 2 vols. 
 
 ROMOLA. Illustrated. 
 
 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE, and 
 SILAS MARNER. Illustrated. 
 
 THE IMPRESSIONS OF 
 PHRASTUS SUCH. 
 
 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS, 
 trated. 
 
 THEO- 
 
 Illus- 
 
 PAPER EDITION. 
 
 BROTHER JACOB.— THE LIFTED VEIL. 32mo, 20 cents. 
 
 DANIEL DERONDA. 8vo, 50 cents. 
 
 FELIX HOLT. 8vo, 50 cents. 
 
 GEORGE ELIOT'S LIFE. By J. W. Cross. With Three Hlustrations- 
 3 vols., 4to, 15 cents each. 
 
 MIDDLEMARCH. 8vo, 15 cents. 
 
 ROMOLA. Illustrated. Svo, 50 cents. 
 
 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. Svo, 50 cents. Separately, in 32nio : 
 The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton., 20 cents ; M7\ GilJiVs 
 Love Story., 20 cents ; Janet 's Repentance., 20 cents. 
 
 SILAS MARNER. 12ino, 20 cents. 
 
 THE IMPRESSIONS OF THEOPHRASTUS SUCH. 4to, 10 cents. 
 
 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS. Svo, 50 cents. 
 
 Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 
 
 riABrEU & BnoTnERS will send any of the above worM ly mail, postage pre- 
 paid, to any part of the United States or Canada, on receipt of the price. 
 
CHARLES READE'S WORKS. 
 
 LIBRARY EDITION. 
 
 Illustrated. 12mo, Cloth, $1 00 per vol. Complete Sets, 14 vols., Cloth, 
 $12 00; Half Calf, $36 00. 
 
 A SIMPLETON, AND THE WAN- 
 DERING HEIR. 
 A TERRIBLE TEMPTATION. 
 A WOMAN-HATER. 
 FOUL PLAY. 
 GOOD STORIES. 
 GRIFFITH GAUNT. 
 HARD CASH. 
 
 IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO 
 
 MEND. 
 LOVE ME LITTLE, LOVE ME 
 
 LONG. 
 PEG WOFFINGTON, &c. 
 PUT YOURSELF IN HIS PLACE. 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE 
 
 HEARTH. 
 WHITE LIES. 
 
 A PERILOUS SECRET. 12 mo, Cloth, 75 cents. 
 
 PAPER EDITION. 
 A HERO AND A MARTYR. With a Portrait. 8vo, 15 cents. 
 A PERILOUS SECRET. 12rao, 40 cents; 4to, 20 cents. 
 A SIMPLETON. 8vo, 30 cents. 
 
 A TERRIBLE TEMPTATION. Illustrated. 8vo, 25 cents. 
 A WOMAN-HATER. Illustrated. Svo, 30 cents; 12mo, 20 cents. 
 FOUL PLAY. Svo, 30 cents. 
 GOOD STORIES OF MAN AND OTHER ANIMALS. Illustrated. 
 
 12mo, 50 cents; 4to, 20 cents. 
 GRIFFITH GAUNT. Illustrated. Svo, 30 cents. 
 HARD CASH. Illustrated. Svo, 35 cents. 
 IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO MEND. Svo, 35 cents. 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 16mo, 15 cents. 
 LOVE ME LITTLE, LOVE ME LONG. Svo, 30 cents. 
 MULTUM IN PARVO. Illustrated. 4to, 15 cents. 
 PEG WOFFINGTON, CHRISTIE JOHNSTONE, AND OTHER TALES. 
 
 Svo, 35 cents. 
 PUT YOURSELF IN HIS PLACE. Illustrated. Svo, 35 cents. 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. Svo, 35 cents. 
 THE COMING MAN. 32mo, 20 cents. 
 THE JILT. Illustrated. 32mo, 20 cents. 
 THE PICTURE. 16mo, 15 cents. 
 
 THE WANDERING HEIR. Illustrated. Svo, 20 cents. 
 WHITE LIES. Svo, 30 cents. 
 
 Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New Y^ork. 
 
 HABrER & Brothers loill send any of the above works by mail, postage prepaid^ 
 to any part of the United States or Canada, on receipt of the price. 
 
W. M. THACKERAY'S WORKS. 
 
 LIBRARY EDITION. 
 
 Illustrated. 12mo, Cloth, $1 25 per vol. Complete Sets (11 vols.), 
 $12 00; Half Calf, $31 25. 
 
 NOVELS. 
 ADVENTURES OF PHILIP. 
 HENRY ESMOND, AND LOVEL 
 
 THE WIDOWER. 
 PENDENNIS. 
 
 THE NE\yCOMES. 
 THE VIRGINIANS. 
 VANITY FAIR. 
 
 MISCEL LA NEO US WRITINGS. 
 
 BARRY LYNDON, HOGGARTY 
 
 DIAMOND, &c. 
 BOOK OF SNOBS, SKETCHES, &c. 
 CATHERINE, CHRISTMAS 
 
 BOOKS, &c. 
 
 FOUR GEORGES, ENGLISH HU- 
 MORISTS, ROUNDABOUT PA- 
 PERS, &c. 
 
 PARIS AND IRISH SKETCH 
 BOOKS, &c. 
 
 PAPER EDITION. 
 
 DENIS DUVAL. Illustrated. 8vo, 25 cents. 
 
 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 2 vols., 32mo, 50 cents. 
 
 HENRY ESMOND. 8vo, 50 cents ; 4to, 20 cents. 
 
 HENRY ESMOND, AND LOVEL THE WIDOWER. Illustrated. 8vo, 
 
 60 cents. 
 LOVEL THE WIDOWER. Svo, 20 cents. 
 PENDENNIS. Illustrated. Svo, 75 cents. 
 THE ADVENTURES OF PHILIP. Illustrated. Svo, 60 cents. 
 THE FOUR GEORGES. 32mo, 25 cents. 
 THE GREAT HOGGARTY DIAMOND. Svo, 20 cents. 
 THE NEWCOMES. Illustrated. Svo, 90 cents. 
 THE VIRGINIANS. Illustrated. Svo, 90 cents. 
 VANITY FAIR. Illustrated. Svo, 80 cents. 
 
 Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 
 
 Hauper & Brotiikrs will send any of the above works by mail, postage pre- 
 paid^ to any part of the United States or Canada^ on receipt of the price. 
 
It surpasses all its predecessors. — N. Y. Tribune. 
 
 A Dictionary of the English Language, Pronouncing, Etymological, 
 and Explanatory, Embracing Scientific and Other Terms, Numer- 
 ous Familiar Terms, and a Copious Selection of Old English 
 Words. By the Rev. James Stormonth. The Pronunciation 
 Carefully Revised by the Rev. P. H. Phelp, M.A. pp. 1348. 
 4to, Cloth, $6 00; Half Roan, $7 00; Sheep, $7 50. 
 
 Also in Harper's Franklin Square Library, in Twenty- 
 three Parts. 4to, Paper, 25 cents each Part. Muslin covers for 
 binding supplied by the publishers on receipt of 50 cents. 
 
 As regards thoroughness of etymological research and breadth of modern inclusion, 
 Stormontli's new dictiouary surpasses all its predecessors. * * * in fact. Stormonth's 
 Dictionary possesses merits so mauy and conspicuous that it can hardly fail to estab- • 
 lish itself as a standard and a favorite. — N. Y. Tribune. 
 
 This may serve in great measure the purposes of an English cyclopaedia. It gives 
 lucid and succinct definitions of the technical terms in science and art, in lawand 
 medicine. We have the explanation of words and phrases that puzzle most people, 
 showing wonderfully comprehensive and out-of-the-way research. We need only add 
 that the Dictionary appears in all its departments to have been brought down to meet 
 the latest demands of the day, and that it is admirably printed. — Times, London. 
 
 A most valuable addition to the library of the scholar and of the general reader. 
 It can have for the present no possible rival. — Boston Post. 
 
 It has the bones and sinews of the grand dictionary of the future. * * * An invalu- 
 able library book. — Ecclesiastical Gazette, London. 
 
 A work which is certainly without a rival, all things considered, among the dic- 
 tionaries of our language. The peculiarity of the work is that it is equally well adapt- 
 ed to the uses of the man of business, who demands compactness and ease of reference, 
 and to those of the most exigent scholar. — N. Y. Commercial Advertiser. 
 
 As compared with our standard dictionaries, it is better in type, richer in its vocab- 
 ulary, and happier in arrangement. Its system of grouping is admirable. * * * He 
 who possesses this dictionary will enjoy and use it, and its bulk is not so great as to 
 make use of it a terror. — Christian Advocate, N. Y. 
 
 A well planned and carefully executed work, which has decided merits of its own, 
 and for which there is a place not filled by any of its rivals. — X. Y. Sun. 
 
 A work of sterling value. It has received from all quarters the highest commenda- 
 tion. — Lutheran Observer, Philadelphia. 
 
 A trustworthy, truly scholarly dictionary of our English language. — Christian Intel- 
 ligencer, N. Y. 
 
 The issue of Stormonth's great English dictionary is meeting with a hearty wel- 
 come ever}^ where. — Boston Transcript. 
 
 A critical and accurate dictionary, the embodiment of good seholarship and the 
 result of modern researches. Compression and clearness are its external evidences, 
 and it offers a favorable comparison with the best dictionaries in use, while it holds an 
 unrivalled place in bringing forth the result of modern philological criticism. — Boston 
 Journal. 
 
 Full, complete, and accurate, including all the latest words, and giving all their 
 derivatives and correlatives. The definitions are short, but plain, the method of mak- 
 ing pronunciation very simple, and the arrangement such as to give the best results 
 in the smallest space. — Philadelphia Inquirer. 
 
 Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 
 
 MS' Hakpeb «fe Bbothekb will send the above work by mail^ postage prepaid^ to any 
 part of the United States or Canada, on receipt of the price. 
 
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 render them advantageous mediums for advertising. A limited number 
 of suitable advertisements will be inserted at the following rates : — In the 
 Magazine, Fourth Cover Page, $1500 00; Third Cover Page, or First 
 Page of advertisement sheet, $500 00; one-half of such page when whole 
 page is not taken, $300 00; one-quarter of such page when whole page is 
 not taken, $150 00 ; an Inside Page of advertisement sheet, $250 00; one- 
 half of such page, $150 00; one-quarter of such page, $75 00; smaller 
 cards on an inside page, per line, $2 00 : in the Weekly, Outside Page, 
 $2 00 a line ; Inside Pages, $1 50 a line : in the Bazar, $1 00 a line : in the 
 Young People, Cover Pages, 50 cents a line. Average : eight words to a 
 line, twelve lines to an inch. Cuts and display charged the same rates for 
 space occupied as solid matter. Remittances should be made by Post- 
 Ofllce Money Order or Draft, to avoid chance of loss, ' J^f^/"^^^ 
 
 Addres^: HARPER & BROTHERS, 
 
 :, , V. ^ - Franklin Square, New York. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 029 957 897 5 
 
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