... D. him nothing, and on June 25th Mr. Lascelles, the 1879. British Consul-General, and M. Tricon, the French

Consul-General, together with Sherif Pâshâ, waited upon Isma'il to inform him that he must at once abdicate in obedience to the orders of his sovereign master, the Sulțân, which had been received from Constantinople. Isma'il of course refused to do this, but about 10.30 a.m. a telegram addressed to Isma'il Pâshâ, late Khedive of Egypt, was received at the Abdin Palace, and it was taken to him by Sherif Pashâ, who called upon his master to resign in favour of Tawfîķ Pâshà. Almost at the same hour Tawsîk received at the Ismâ‘iliyya Palace a telegram addressed to Muḥammad Tawfik, Khedive of Egypt, and when he went to the Abdin Palace with Sherif Pasha, who had come from there to tell him about the telegram to Ismâ il, he found his father ready to salute and to wish him better fortune than he himself had enjoyed. On Monday, the 30th of June, Ismâ'il left Egypt in the Khedivial yacht for Smyrna, taking with him a large sum of money and about 300 women; in 1887 he settled in Constantinople, where he died in 1895. Under Tawfik's rule the Control was restored, and on

September 4 Riaz Pashâ became Prime Minister. 1880. Commission of Liquidation appointed, and a number of

reforms, including a reduction of the taxes, are made. 1881. I rebellion headed by Ahmad Arabi or “ Arabi

Pasha" and others breaks out. Arabi was born in the year 1840 in Lower Egypt, and was the son of a peasant farmer. He offended Ismâ'il, and was accused of malpractices and misappropriation of army stores, but this the despot forgave him, and promoted him to the rank of colonel, and

A.D.

1881.

gave him a royal slave to wife. Arabi was the leader of a secret society, the aim of which was to free Egypt from foreign interference and control, and to increase the army, and make Tawfik appoint an Egyptian to the office of Minister of War in the place of Osmân Rifki. These facts coming to the notice of the authorities, Arabi and two of his colleagues were ordered to be arrested, and when this had been done, and they had been taken to the barracks in Cairo for examination, the soldiers who were in their companies rushed into the rooms and rescued them. The rebel officers and men next went to the palace where Tawfis was, and compelled him to grant their requests, and to do away with the cause of their dissatisfaction.

BRITISH RULE IN EGYPT. 1882. On February 2 of this year Tawfîş was called upon

to form a new Cabinet, and Arabi became Minister of War, and Mahmûd Sami was appointed President of the Council; Arabi was created a Pâshâ by the Sultân and his power became paramount. In May a serious dispute arose between Arabi and his colleagues and the Khedive; and on the 19th and 20th three British and three French vessels arrived at Alexandria. On May 25th the Consuls-General of England and France demanded the resignation of Mahmûd Sami's Cabinet, and the retirement of Arabi from the country. These demands were conceded on the following day, but shortly after Tawfik reinstated Arabi, with the view of maintaining order and

A.1).

the tranquillity of the country. “On June 3 three 1882. more British and three more French warships

arrived at Alexandria. On June u a serious riot
broke out at Alexandria ; and the British Consul
was stoned and nearly beaten to death, and Mr.
Ribton, a missionary, and a British naval officer and
two seamen were actually killed.” The massacre
had been threatened by Mahmûd Sami, and the
riot was pre-arranged, and the native police and
soldiery were parties to the murders of the
Europeans which took place on that day; Mr.
Royle (Egyptian Campaigns, p. 54) estimates the
number of Europeans killed at 150. On June
25 the Sulțân decorated Arabi with the Grand
Order of the Medjidieh! On July 11 at 7 a.m.
the bombardment of Alexandria was begun by
H.M.S. “ Alexandra” firing a shell into the newly
made fortifications of the city, and the other
British ships, “ Inflexible,” “Superb,” “Sultan,"
“ Téméraire,” “Invincible,” “Monarch,” and
“Penelope,” soon after opened fire. After the
bombardment was over the city was plundered
and set on fire by the natives, and an idea of the
damage done may be gained from the fact that
the Commission of Indemnities awarded the
claimants the sum of £4,341,011 sterling (Royle,
op. cit., p. 102). On July 14th British seamen
were landed to protect the city, and on the 15th
many forts were occupied by them. Early in
August Arabi was removed from his post, and he
at once began to prepare to resist the English
soldiers who were known to be on their way to
Egypt; on August 15 Sir Garnet Wolseley arrived
in Egypt; on the 18th the British fleet arrived at
Port Sa'id ; on the 20th the British seized the

A.D.

Suez Canal, and the British Government was 1882. declared by M. de Lesseps to have paid to him

£,100,000 for loss of business! (Royle, op. cit.,
p. 152). On September 13 Sir Garnet Wolseley
was victorious at Tell al-Kebir, at a cost ot'
about 460 British officers and men; the Egyptians
lost about 2,000, and several hundreds were
wounded. On the 15th Cairo was occupied by
the British, and the 10,000 Egyptian soldiers there
submitted without fighting. On December 26th

Arabi' left Egypt for exile in Ceylon. 1883. A rebellion led by the Mahdi breaks out in the

Súdân. The Mahdî was one Muḥammad Ahmad, a carpenter, who was born between 1840 and 1850 ; his native village was situated on an island near Arkó, in the province of Donkola, and though poor, his parents declared that they belonged to the Ashraf, or “nobility,” and claimed to be descendants of Muhammad the Prophet. His father was a religious teacher, and had taught him to read and write. He studied at Berber under Muhammad al-Khêr, and later at Khartûm under the famous Shekh Muhammad Sherif, and when he became a man he led a life of great asceticism on the Island of Abba in the White Nile. His piety and learning secured for him a great reputation in the Sûdân, and the greater number of the inhabitants sided with him in a serious quarrel which he had with Muhammad Sherît. He wandered about preaching against the Christians, and he declared that the decay in the Muḥammadan religion was due to the contact of Arabs with Christians, that true faith was dead, and that he was deputed by God to restore it. He then attached a number of important people to himself,

AD.

1883.

and having retired to Abâ, or Abba Island, he declared himself to be the “Mahdî,” or the being whose advent had been foretold by Muḥammadan writers, who would restore the religion of the Arabs to its former purity. In July, 1881, Rauf Pâshi, the Governor-General of the Sûdân, sent for him to come to Khartûm, but the Mahdî refused, and six weeks later he and his followers defeated the Government troops which had been sent to bring him, and slew half of them. In December he defeated Rashid Bey, the Governor of Fâshoda, and slew nearly all the 400 soldiers which he had with him at Geddîn. In April, 1882, Giegler Páshâ, the temporaryGovernor-General, next attacked the Mahdî, and under his able generalship considerable loss was inflicted on the rebels ; but on June 7 the Mahdi and his Dervishes massacred the combined forces of ‘Abd-Allah and Yussuf Pâshâ, and in September he besieged Al-Obéd,* which capitulated on January 17, 1883. In the same month Colonel W. Hicks, a retired Indian officer, was appointed head of the Army in the Sûdân, and on February 7 he left Cairo for Khartûm vià Berber, which he reached on March 1; in April he set out against the Dervishes, and on the last day of the month he defeated about 4,000 of them and killed about 500. On September 9 he set out with reinforcements for Duwêm, intending to recapture Al-Obêd, but early in November the Mahdi attacked his force of about 10,000 men with some thousands of soldiers from the old Egyptian Army, near Lake Rahad, it is said, and the gallant Englishman and his officers and men,

* More correctly 'Al-Lübeyyad,