A last paper reorganization took place in 1882. Schools were to be set up, a proper system of justice established, the slave-trade was to be again suppressed. A capable Governor-General, Abd-el-Kader, who might have made a great mark in happier times, was appointed to supersede Raouf. But it was too late. The promised reforms could be no more than acknowledgments of past deficiencies. Egypt had wasted the golden opportunities created for her by Baker and Gordon. The day of retribution was at hand. From every quarter of the horizon the clouds had long been gathering, and the tempest was now to burst. In August, 1881, the Mahdi had proclaimed himself publicly during the Feast of Ramadan as the prophet foretold by Mahomet. Sheikh Mohammed Ahmed, strangely enough the son of a carpenter, and a little over thirty years of age, was a native of Dongola, but had been living for some time in the neighbourhood of Khartoum, where he had acquired a great reputation for sanctity. The Soudan was then, and still is, a soil peculiarly suitable for the growth of prophets. The creed of Islam, as is well known, has a peculiar fascination for the natives of Africa, owing, perhaps, to the simplicity and directness of its essential formula. But it has generally only overlaid, and not displaced, the old superstitions of pagan days. The people are naturally credulous and excitable, and in the entire absence of any education or learning there has been nothing to restrain them. Almost any holy man can gain some kind of a following—at any rate for a time. But the Mahdi was more than an ordinary prophet, and the times were ripe for rebellion. The venality and corruption of the Egyptian officials had produced widespread discontent among the agricultural and trading classes. The oppressive exactions of the tax-collectors had reduced many to ruin and beggary. It seemed that any change of rulers must be a relief. The spasmodic efforts to suppress the slave-trade had seriously alarmed the nomad tribes, whose chief source of wealth it was. The one thing wanted was some strong influence to bind together the discordant elements of revolt. It was found in the idea preached by the Mahdi of the regeneration of Islam by force of arms. After the long years of wrong and oppression the promise of universal equality, with one law and one religion for all, was sweet to hear. To the people that sat in darkness it seemed that a great light had indeed arisen. The four great sects of the Mohammedan Soudan sank their differences in favour of the Prophet of the new dispensation. The stern character of his teaching, his earnest denunciation of earthly vanities and pleasures, his prohibition of the use of intoxicants and smoking, did much at the outset to rouse the fanatical fervour of his adherents. It was a social as well as a religious revolution. The simple jibbeh, or cotton shirt, became the badge of his followers and the emblem of his doctrine.