396 
EUROPE AND AFRICA 
ters. Meanwhile, his emissaries were intriguing with the 
local chiefs and stirring up a rebellion in all parts of the 
Sudan. Serious uprisings broke out in the vicinity of Sen- 
nar and Kassala, cutting off direct communication between 
those places and Khartoum. 
The Cairo authorities, finally aroused to action, engaged 
General Hicks, a British officer of considerable experience 
in India, to put down the revolt. He reached Khartoum 
in March, 1883, and in September, after vain attempts to 
secure an adequate equipment, set out with an undisci- 
plined force of 12,000 men (most of whom were unreliable 
Egyptian soldiers), 10 mountain guns, 6 Nordenfelts, 5500 
camels and 500 horses, to march over the desert from the 
Nile to El Obeid. Failing to take proper precautions to in- 
sure a sufficient supply of food and water and the safety of 
his column, he was misled by his guides and his army totally 
destroyed on November 5. General Valentine Baker tried in 
February, 1884, to relieve the garrisons at Tokar and Sinkat 
from Suakin, but was driven back with a loss of 2400 men 
out of approximately 3800. Sennar was completely in- 
vested; Suakin in a panic; Khartoum threatened; and the 
revolt of Hadendowa in the east (Kassala), as well as 
that of the Mahdi in the west, given great encourage- 
ment. 
At this moment, Great Britain, acting upon the advice 
of Sir Evelyn Baring, British Agent at Cairo, and the 
reports of Generals Wood, Stephenson, and Baker, who 
claimed that Egypt could no longer hold her southern 
provinces or hope to regain control of the rebellious dis- 
tricts, urged the Khedive to withdraw from the Sudan al- 
together. This the Egyptian authorities were loath to do, 
fearing the necessity of abandoning their own garrisons in 
distant Equatoria and Bahr-el-Ghazal and unwilling to 
sacrifice valuable territories. Tewfik Pasha wished to hold,