The movement was a religious movement, and was not limited to the Sudan alone; the Mahdi's intention was to subdue the world. He was a prophet, and in his own and the estimation of his followers he was a greater man than the Prophet Mohammed. The world was to come to an end in his time. Had Gordon only known beforehand how boundless was the wild fanaticism, and how completely the Mahdi's followers were intoxicated by it, he would never have accepted the mission. As it appeared to us in Kordofan, and to the Mahdi himself, Gordon's undertaking was very strange; it was just as if a man were attempting to put out an enormous fire with a drop of water. Gordon's name alone could not suppress the revolt, and it was not on account of his name that the Khartum people rejoiced at his arrival; it was because they looked on Gordon as an English representative, and that he was only the precursor of an English expedition sent to take possession of the Sudan for England. That is what made the people glad, and caused them to put aside all idea of departure. Had they not been certain that an English expedition was coming, not a soul would have remained in Khartum, and I have no hesitation in saying that had the Egyptian Government not sent Gordon, then undoubtedly the evacuation originally ordered could have been carried out without difficulty. Those who escaped massacre in Khartum have often told me that they were perfectly ready to leave, and it was only Gordon's arrival that kept them back; but Gordon's arrival without troops had rather disappointed them. Had he been accompanied by five hundred British bayonets, his reputation in the Sudan might have been maintained, and probably the Mahdi would never have left Kordofan. Gordon himself committed a mistake, by which he gave a death-blow to himself and his mission. On his way to Khartum he stopped at Berber and interviewed the Mudir Hussein Pasha Khalifa; he imprudently told him that he had come up to remove the Egyptian garrisons, as Egypt had abandoned the Sudan. At Metemmeh also--a strong place between Berber and Khartum, and the headquarters of the powerful Jaalin tribe--he committed a similar imprudence, by giving the same information to Haj Ali Wad Saad, the emir of Metemmeh.