CHAPTER XV 
THE REOCCUPATION OF NORTHERN AFRICA 
THE SUDAN 
A¥TER the intricate and difficult problem of reorganizing 
the Egyptian finances, no more important or perplexing 
task lay before the new Government of Egypt than the 
settlement of the Sudan question. Ever since its conquest 
by Mehemet Ali, that country had been a source of trouble 
and expense to the Egyptian rulers, although it embraced 
then only the region between Wadi Halfa and Khartoum. 
Ismail Pasha, ambitious and well intentioned, with the help 
of European officials whom he faithfully supported, sub- 
jugated all of the vast region extending from Khartoum 
south to the sources of the Nile and from the ancient king- 
dom of Dar-Fur to the Red Sea. 
From 1869 to 1878, Sir Samuel Baker was busy annexing 
the equatorial region of the Nile Basin and fighting the 
slave traders of Unyoro and Gondokoro, yet thwarted many 
times by the corrupt and inefficient Egyptian officials 
above him and the Governor-General at Khartoum. Gen- 
eral Charles George Gordon succeeded him as governor of 
Equatorial Africa. He surveyed the Nile from Gondokoro 
to Albert Nyanza, penetrated into the Bahr-el-Ghazal 
and Dar-Fur, stopped the slave raids, collected the taxes, 
and improved conditions generally, at the expense of his 
health and amid great physical exertions and discomforts. 
In spite of the assistance of an able staff of officers including 
Romola Gessi, Watson, Chippendale, and Enser, he too 
resigned his position in disgust, on account of the lack of 
support from the Egyptian Government and of the intrigues