Considerably before the events of the last chapter, Sir Samuel Baker, the English explorer, had travelled through the unknown regions of the Upper Nile, and found that the country was almost entirely devoted to the slave-trade. An effort was made to improve conditions there. The Khedive for a time asserted his authority over these regions, two Englishmen being appointed in succession as his governors, the first Sir Samuel Baker himself, and the second Charles Gordon. For many years Gordon, who had come fresh from China, struggled to free the natives from the slave-traders, but his labours were rendered useless by the accession of a worthless Khedive. Shortly afterwards he returned to England, and the Soudan relapsed into its old corruption. Then, in 1882, appeared one of those strange dramatic figures that in the East spring into prominence and disappear as abruptly—a fanatic named Mohammed Ahmed, proclaiming himself as Mahdi, and calling to his standard all true Mahommedans. The Arabs have ever been ready to follow the sword, and very soon 6000 troops under Yusef Pasha were almost annihilated. Swiftly one Egyptian garrison fell after another. The Mahdi advanced towards the north, and cut to pieces an Egyptian army under Colonel Hicks. The word passed from village to village, from mosque to mosque, from one solitary encampment to another that the Mahdi had indeed come at last, and with the defeat of Hicks’s army not only was Khartoum in hourly peril, but Cairo itself was threatened. Fortunately, the Arab—like the Highlander of old—is satisfied with the booty in hand, and very much prefers to see it safely put away before he takes to the field again in search of more. Such practical considerations were a check to the Mahdi’s religious zeal, and permitted England to collect her strength—or one should say such strength as lay to her hand; for at this time public interest in Egypt was very luke-warm. The result was the tragic page in history that closed with the death of Gordon in Khartoum. There was one man in Egypt who was later on both to avenge Gordon and to subdue the Soudan, but he as yet was unknown. The name of this young man was Kitchener, and the war correspondent, Mr. John Macdonald, has given the following little sketch of the future victor of Omdurman as he was in the year 1883—the year in which the Mahdi renewed his activities. It is not without interest at the present time.