Let me make it perfectly clear that the grand master of the Senussiyeh is a man of altogether exceptional ability. Under his direction the order has advanced with amazing strides, for he is a remarkable organiser and administrator, two qualities rarely found among the Arabs. The destruction of the Mahdi and of the Khalifa, and the more recent dethronement of Abdul-Hamid, resulted in bringing a large accession of force to his standard by the extinction of all religious authority in Africa except his own. Though the Sultan of Turkey is, as I have said, the titular head of the Moslem religion, and is venerated as such wherever praying-rugs are spread, the chief of this militant order is undoubtedly regarded by the average Mohammedan as the most actively powerful figure, if not as the saviour, of Islam. The first Senussi was powerful enough to excommunicate the Sultan Abdul-Medjid from the order because of his intimacy with the European powers; the father of the present Khedive of Egypt was accustomed to address the second Senussi in such terms as a disciple would use to a prophet, while Abbas Hilmi II, the reigning Khedive, a few years ago journeyed across the Libyan desert to pay his respects to the present head of the order. Those who are in a position to know whereof they speak believe that the Senussiyeh would actively oppose any attempt on the part of the Italians to occupy the hinterland of Tripolitania, for it is obvious that such an occupation would not alone bring the Christian in dangerous proximity to the chief stronghold of the order, but it would effectually cut off the supplies of arms and ammunition which caravans in the pay of the Senussiyeh have regularly been transporting to Jof from obscure ports on the Tripolitanian coast. It has been the policy of the Senussiyeh, supported by the Turkish administration in Tripolitania, to close the regions under its control to Christians, so it is scarcely likely that it would do other than resist an Italian penetration of the country, even in the face of a Turkish evacuation. Though the order encouraged resistance to the French advance in the Sudan, considering that the extension of the French sphere of influence threatened its own prestige in those regions, it has, as a rule, refrained from displaying antagonism toward the rulers of the adjoining regions. Aside from proselytism, the Senussiyeh has performed a great work in the Sahara in the colonisation and cultivation of the oases, the encouragement of trade, the building of rest-houses, the sinking of wells, and the protection of trans-Saharan caravans.