he was initiated into the confraternity of Moula-et-Taib. From Fez, Es Senoussi passed along the Algerian Sahara to Tunis and Tripoli, and finally reached Mecca by way of Alexandria. After a stay of two years in the holy places, he returned to Alexandria, where he founded a _zaouia_, and commenced a crusade against the contamination of Islam by Christian contact, advocating at the same time an immediate return to the austerest principles of the faith, and vehemently assailing the Turkish Government for adopting European costume and copying European institutions. The doctrines of Es Senoussi were a refinement of Wahabiism. Excommunicated by the Sheikh-el-Islam at Cairo, an attempt was even made to poison him, but one of his followers, Muhamed Ben Abdallah, managed to convey him on a camel into the Libyan desert. Senoussi finally took up his abode at Djebel-el-Akhdar, or the Green Mountain, in the neighbourhood of Ben Ghazi, in Tripoli, where he married. Finding the locality too close to the Mediterranean for the execution of his projects, he removed to Djaghbub, or Djarbub, twenty- two days’ journey from the coast. Here he erected a magnificent _zaouia_, surrounded by palm groves and inhabited by nearly 1000 of his followers. His doctrines were soon received with enthusiasm in the Moslem kingdoms of Northern and Central Africa. He established no less than 300 subordinate convent-sanctuaries in every considerable place between Morocco and Mecca, and appointed _mukaddemin_, or vicars, in every part of Islam. In 1850 his agent, Muhamed Ben Abdallah, the Senoussian _mukaddem_ for Algeria, excited the revolts of Laghwat and Ouergla. He finally succeeded in escaping from Algeria, and returning to Djaghbub. In 1860 Muhamed es Senoussi died, leaving two sons, the eldest of whom bore the name of El Mehdi. Before his death, Senoussi the elder sent emissaries to all his _zaouias_ to convey guarded hints to his followers that a glorious future was in store for his son. The prosperity of the _zaouia_ at Djaghbub increased. The pilgrims to Mecca from North Africa, as well as those coming from Bornou and the Saharian provinces, were persuaded that the benediction of El Mehdi was necessary to complete the efficacy of their journey. They flocked in thousands with their offerings to Djaghbub, while the Sultans of the interior sent caravans laden with ivory and ostrich feathers and other costly presents to the great saint, while cargoes of arms and ammunition often arrived at the almost unknown harbours of the coast. El Mehdi now began to multiply the number of his subordinate _zaouias_, and the travellers Rohlfs, Nachtigal, and Duveyrier found their passage barred by Senoussian agents. Meanwhile, their tenets gained ground in countries far beyond the Libyan desert. “The Moslem’s object,” they said, “must be to combat Christian ideas and Christian innovations; the Moslems must employ all possible means to check further Christian advances into the