The British Government is not sorry to find that it
can help Italy and itself at the same time. In threatening Kassala the Dervishes are threatening at once Italy and Egypt, and it has therefore, according to a telegram from Cairo, been de- cided to push forward the main body of the Egyptian garrison into Dongola, beyond the outposts at Wady Haifa. Don- gola is the Mahdi's storehouse on which his forces depend and an invasion will so threaten his power that his forces must retreat from Kassala. It seems clear that the Italian defeat before Adowa has greatly increased the hopes of the Mahdi's adherents—we use the old term for clearness though the present ruler at Omdurman calls himself not Mahdi but Khalifa—and that if that disaster is not repaired Egypt may be seriously threatened. The movement resolved on seems to be necessary, but before it begins the Government would be wise to add a regiment or two of Sikhs or Ghoorkas to the garrison of Egypt.
