Many a starving Egyptian began to try and invent some substance which would act as fulminate; there were still a few books on chemistry to be found, but all attempts failed to produce satisfactory results. At last, a certain Hassan Zeki, who had formerly been a doctor in Khartum, invented the substance required. The Khalifa told off Lupton Bey, who at that time was living in the most abject poverty, as his assistant. The first trials of the new fulminate were made in the presence of Yakub, and were most successful; the invention proved of the greatest use to the Khalifa. The unfortunate Lupton Bey died on the 8th of May, 1888, and Hassan Zeki continued the work. Within a comparatively short time he prepared a very large number of caps. Abdullah had a special laboratory made, and employed a number of boys as cartridge fillers. It was principally owing to this invention that the Khalifa was enabled to conduct his successful campaigns against Abyssinia. And now another difficulty arose--this was the scarcity of powder; numbers of persons presented themselves as prepared to make this commodity. An Indian, named Kamal ed Din, came forward amongst others; he had come from India to join the Mahdi, passed himself off as a doctor and proudly called himself "Physician-in-chief to the Khalifa." He had a ready tongue, and soon acquired respect and wealth; he painted his beard red with henna.[Q] He had immense powers of persuasion, and thereby obtained a concession from Abdullah to make powder. He demanded that a special laboratory should be built for him in Khartum, so as to be quite out of observation, and he asked for a quantity of money for the purchase of the chemicals he required. The laboratory was built in the course of a month in the old corn store in Khartum, and the work was taken in hand. The Indian declared that it was most necessary to obtain phosphorus, and therefore he had all the bones and skulls of the people who had been massacred in Khartum, collected, and these he pounded in mortars into very fine flour, much to the annoyance of people who objected to this desecration of the dead. Every now and then he applied for more money from the beit el mal, which was supplied to him at once, and now he began to work quite alone and in secret; he put the bone flour in earthenware vessels, poured water on it, and then sealed the vessels hermetically; he now declared that to prepare the chemical substance only, another month was necessary. He therefore stopped work and lived at his ease. At the expiration of the month he secretly opened the vessels; no one had a notion what he was going to do with the bone-paste, but he affirmed that so far everything was most successful, and invited the head of the beit el mal, as well as several emirs, to be present at the trial of the powder.