THE SOUDAN CATASTROPHE.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 58, 5 February 1884, Page 3

THE SOUDAN CATASTROPHE.

tßi Abouibalu i'oitßßs; , .. ... . - liosSos, Nov. 26. - The annihilation of the force which Hicks Pasha was leading against the Mahdi is in itself a dreadful calamity, but the horror of it is overshadowed by the ominous contingencies which it renders probable, It is so dialcult to attain, through condensed and often inconsequential telegrams, to an accurate comprehension in regard to an event such as this, the circumstances that have led up to it, and the results that may flow from it, that it has seemed no useless undertaking tc embody in a lucid narrative form all the information bn the subject which I have been able to gather together. Probably, what fighting there was of a desultory character. It is not to be believed that the Egyptian troops made the desperate stand ascribed to them. O’Donovan describes them as cravens who might run away at any moment. Seckendorfl writes : " I have seen Egyptians in three battles, and should be at a loss to find one hero among them," I myself in one of the fights on the Lorn saw the whole Egyptian division rush ignominiously to the rear as soon as it came under fire. We may never know what happened those dark three days ; but if ever we do, I venture on the prediction that it will be found that when the fighting grew really Warm; and Hicks' Egyptians were being pressed by the regulars of the El Obeid garrison, who took service with the Mahdi when that place fell, they ceased to resist, and probably went over to the other side en masse. Of this we may be sure, that our countrymen died as beseemed men who had worn the British uniform. Probably Vizetally, the artist of the Graphic, and Alien, the German correspondent, who with 50 soldiers, are reported to have eome in and been outside the square and to have been carried prisoners into Obeid, were, with a detachment (composed of fifty soldiers), forming a guard over a portion of the baggage animals that had been left behind in the village of Malbeis.

Nov, 29. Since the above was written, despatches from HicluaPaaba, dated the 3rd and 17th November, have been published, which indicate the line of advance he was moving by to be precisely that which I had outlined in anticipation. He expresses disappointment at the enforced abandonment of a line of communication between his force and the advanced base at El Duem, an abandonment to which he had to submit in consequence of the representations of the Egyptian Governor of the Soudan. But Ido not gather that he regarded that functionary blameworthy ; the arguments used by him, as cited by Hicks, in favor of the relinquishment of the line of entrenched posts seems honest and convincing. Whether Hieks should not have allowed himself to recognise that, the plan of maintaining his communications having been pronounced impracticable, an advance in the rear was an operation so fraught with the risk Of disaster that it might be wiser not to advanoe at all until reinforcements should reach him; is a question to discuss which is now Useless; There was a great scare at first; but it is gradually coming to be recognised that the Mahdi need not be expected yet awhile to present himself in the neighborhood of Cairo. It is highly probable that an 0 may be struck off the figure given as the strength of his force | and that 30,000 is much nearer its amount than 600,000. Evon Arabs must live; end that is a long march which Sir Samuel Baker writes of so lightly, of 230 miles across the Nubian desert between Abou Hamed and Kororko, with only one well of “ bitter water for camels" along the whole route. " The Soudan is in a blaze," telegraphs the Timu correspondent from Khartoum. a This might be so, although there are indications that it is an exaggeration, and yet the conflagration need not spread beyond the Soudan. Telegrams still come through from Khartoum by the Nile line, which affords evidence that there is no serious trouble as yet in the Dongola country, The Mahdi is not the first " false prophet" by a long way who has reared his standard in the turbulent regions of the Upper Nile.