On this occasion Gordon treated him with the greatest consideration, pointing out that he had come expressly to advise Suleiman against the folly of thinking that he could attempt to thwart the Government by trusting in the bravery and loyalty of his Bazingers; he assured him that loyal service under Government would bring him into a position which could not fail to satisfy his ambitions, and, that, further he had no reason to be concerned about his father's detention in Cairo, that he was treated with the greatest respect and honour there, and that he had only to exercise a little patience. Finally Gordon instructed him to proceed to Shakka with his men, and await his arrival there.

The following morning Suleiman received orders that on his arrival at Shakka the new Governor had been instructed to make all provision for the troops, and that therefore he should start without delay,—an order which he at once carried into effect. Thus had Gordon, by his amazing rapidity and quick grasp of the situation, arrived in two days at the settlement of a question which literally bristled with dangers and difficulties. Had Suleiman offered resistance at a time when Darfur was in a disturbed state, Gordon's position and the maintenance of Egyptian authority in these districts would have been precarious in the extreme.

Gordon then returned to El Fasher and Kebkebia; already the disturbances which had been so rife in the country showed signs of abatement, and by his personal influence he succeeded in still further quieting the districts and establishing a settled form of government. Leaving El Fasher in September, 1877, he again visited Dara and Shakka, where he found that Suleiman had quite accepted the situation and was prepared to act loyally; he therefore appointed him Governor of the Bahr el Ghazal province, which had been conquered by his father; he further gave him the rank of Bey, with which Suleiman appeared much gratified, and expressed great satisfaction at Gordon's confidence in him. A number of slaves, with their masters, who, when Suleiman was in disgrace at Dara, had deserted him, and had gone over to Said Hussein, now returned to him; and thus, with a considerable acquisition to his strength, he left for Dem Zubeir, the chief town of his new province, which had been founded by his father.

Arrived here, he issued circulars to all parts of the country to the effect that he had been appointed Governor; and at the same time he sent a summons to a certain Idris Bey Ebtar to present himself forthwith before him. This Idris Bey Ebtar had, on Zubeir Pasha's departure for Cairo, been appointed by him as his agent in the Bahr el Ghazal. He was a native of Dongola, and in this fact lies, I think, the secret of the subsequent deplorable events.

The Bahr el Ghazal province is inhabited by an immense variety of negro tribes, who were more or less independent of each other until the Danagla and Jaalin Arabs, advancing from the Nile valley in their slave-hunting expeditions, gradually settled in the country and took possession of it. The Jaalin trace their descent back to Abbas, the uncle of the Prophet. They are very proud of it, and look down with the greatest contempt and scorn on the Danagla, whom they regard as descended from the slave Dangal. According to tradition, this man, although a slave, rose to be the ruler of Nubia, though he paid tribute to Bahnesa, the Coptic Bishop of the entire district lying between the present Sarras and Debba. This Dangal founded a town after his own name, Dangala (Dongola), and gradually the inhabitants of the district were known as Danagla. They are, for the most part, of Arab descent, but, having mixed freely with the natives of the country, have somewhat lost caste. Of course they too insist on their Arab descent, but the Jaalin continually refer to their Dangal origin, and treat them with contempt and derision. The relations between these two tribes must be fully recognised in order to understand what follows.

The friends of Idris Ebtar, who were for the most part Danagla, strongly urged him to disobey Suleiman's summons; and, in consequence, a situation arose which was entirely after the slave-hunter's own heart. To play off one chief against another, and thereby serve his own interest and derive personal benefit, is the Arab's delight; and in this instance it was not long before Idris Ebtar's defiance of Suleiman's authority developed into terror of being taken prisoner, and he fled the country to Khartum. Arrived here, he reported that Suleiman was now acting as if the country were entirely his own; that instead of performing his duties as a governor, he had usurped the position of his father, who was rather a king than a governor; that he had given the best positions to his own Jaalin followers, to the exclusion of all the other tribes, more especially the Danagla, who were being tyrannized over and oppressed in every possible way,—indeed, according to Idris Ebtar's story, Suleiman was about to declare himself an independent ruler; and in support of his statement he produced quantities of petitions, purporting to have been received from merchants, slave-dealers, and others in the Bahr el Ghazal, all urging the Government to dismiss Suleiman at once, and replace him by another governor. Assisted by his numerous relatives, Idris Ebtar made such a good case of it to the Khartum authorities that they offered him the post of governor in succession to Suleiman, on condition that he would supply a regular annual revenue of ivory and india-rubber, and that he would also provide annually a contingent of Bazinger recruits, trained to the use of fire-arms, for incorporation in the Egyptian army.

In order to give full effect to his new appointment, he was given an escort of two hundred regular troops under a certain Awad es Sid Effendi, to whom instructions were given to comply absolutely with his orders.

Idris, leaving Khartum, proceeded by steamer up the White Nile, and thence by the Bahr el Ghazal to Meshra er Rek, eventually reaching Ganda, whence he wrote to Suleiman informing him that he had been dismissed. The receipt of this document was naturally the signal for a general commotion. Suleiman instantly summoned his relatives and friends to his side, and informed them in the most resolute manner that he would utterly refuse to comply with such an unfair order, pointing out with a certain amount of justice that since his arrival in Bahr el Ghazal he had had practically no dealings with the Government, and that it was very unjust of them to act on mere suspicion, without giving him a chance of defending himself. He urged, moreover, that Government was not dealing fairly in discharging him from a position which was his by right. But here Suleiman was to a certain extent incorrect in claiming territory which, though conquered by his father, was now the actual property of the Government. The meeting over, he wrote a letter in the above sense to Idris Ebtar, protesting in the strongest terms against his interference, accusing him of base ingratitude, and of acting in defiance of every law of honour and justice in having recourse to such means to gratify his personal ambitions. He further reminded him of the assistance and support ever accorded to him by his absent father, Zubeir, who, on being obliged to leave Darfur, had appointed him his agent; and he finally upbraided him for having gone to Khartum as he did and intrigued to be made governor, instead of coming and seeing him as he had ordered, after Gordon had appointed him (Suleiman) governor; and he wound up his letter by an emphatic refusal to pay the smallest attention to Idris Bey's summons.

In answer to this letter, Idris sent Suleiman an ultimatum, calling on him to either submit instantly, or take the consequences of being proceeded against as a rebel; to which Suleiman