From the time that Gessi Pasha put an end to the slave-trade in the Bahr el Ghazal by conquering Suleiman, the son of Zubeir Pasha, and dispersing his forces--as Gessi had often related to me--numbers of these runaway slave-dealers (as they afterwards assured me) owed their ruin to him. These men were all warriors, accustomed to every description of hardship, well trained in the use of firearms, and from their constant slave-fights well accustomed to war; they flocked in numbers to the Dervish, and he gave them elaborate promises of quantities of booty and a complete resumption of the slave-trade. Mohammed Ahmed had the power of inspiring these men with an extraordinary amount of fanatical ardour, so much so, indeed, as we shall presently see, that they would not hesitate to rush into certain death at one word from him. He would compare these men with the Government troops, and prove how far inferior were these latter; and, on the other hand, the Government troops made the fatal mistake of underrating their enemies, and conducting their operations with a complete disregard for the wary foes with whom they had to deal. What more obvious example of this blind self-confidence can there be than in the miserable defeat of Rashid Bey, Mudir of Fashoda, who, without any instructions, advanced against the Dervishes, and was cut to pieces on the 9th of December, 1881? Rashid Bey--so an eye-witness told me--was drawn into the middle of a forest, and there he and his men were massacred, before they could even alight from their camels, so completely taken by surprise were they. Thus the Dervishes gained an important and decisive victory, with, comparatively speaking, no loss at all. The German Berghof, inspector for the suppression of slavery at Fashoda, also fell in this fight. What wonder is it that such successes as these strengthened the belief of the people that the Mahdi could turn Egyptian bullets into water! This victory gave enormous impetus to the cause; not only was a quantity of arms, ammunition, and stores captured, but Mohammed Ahmed's moral influence was greatly increased. He was now believed in as the true Mahdi; men flocked to his standard from all parts, and were ready and willing to lay down their lives in his cause.