Fauzi accompanied Gordon to the Albert Nyanza, returned with him to Khartoum, was gazetted major in consideration of his services, and appointed Mudir (Governor) of Bohr, but given two months’ leave of absence before taking up his post. Gordon left for England, and Fauzi came to Cairo for his leave, on the expiration of which he set out for the Soudan, but, on reaching Berber, he found a telegram awaiting him from Gordon telling him not to go further than Khartoum, as he (Gordon) was returning as Governor-General. When Gordon reached Khartoum, it was to hear that Darfur was in revolt, and that the Bahr-el-Ghazal province was joining the rebels. A council of war was held, when Gordon asked the officers present to select one of themselves to head an expedition to the Bahr-el-Ghazal province, while he took another into Darfur; he had expected all of them to volunteer for the command, but they believed that such an expedition had more the elements of defeat and death in it than of glory and distinction. Told that they must name an officer, they named Fauzi, who was not present, and Gordon at once accepted him, sending him off with 4000 troops and the clerks for the civil administration. Fauzi succeeded in setting the province to rights without fighting, and while travelling about setting the administration right in the districts, he often met, and assisted with food and money, a holy man then living as a sort of hermit at Abba and the neighbourhood. The man’s name was Mohammed Ahmed—whom the world was to hear of six years later as the Mahdi. Breaking down in health, Gordon ordered Fauzi to Khartoum, for rest, promoted him to the rank of full colonel, and named him Governor of Equatoria, in which province he spent about a year carrying out Gordon’s instructions to the |342| letter, and making a host of enemies amongst the officials whose peculations and interest in the slave-trade he put a stop to. He accompanied Gordon to Cairo in 1879, and when Gordon decided upon resigning, he asked Fauzi whether he would prefer to remain in Cairo or return to the Soudan. Fauzi saw that, without Gordon to back him up, his tenure of office would be but of short duration, unless he engaged himself in the maladministration of the provinces; he elected to remain in Cairo, where, at Gordon’s request, he was gazetted Colonel commanding the 1st Regiment of the 3rd Brigade. Gordon made it a point to be present at Fauzi’s first parade, congratulated him on the handling of his men, and bidding him farewell, gave him three hundred pounds as a souvenir of their days together in the Soudan. At the outbreak of the Arabist rebellion, Fauzi’s regiment, with others under the command of Kourschid Pasha, was ordered to Rosetta, and after the defeat of Arabi, at Tel-el-Kebir, he was, with other colonels, ordered to surrender to Sir Evelyn Wood at Kafr Dawar. Sent to Alexandria, he was tried, degraded, and then dismissed in disgrace.