23 AUGUST 1902, Page 3

The death of Senussi El-Mabdi at Kanem, reported in last

Saturday's Times, closes an interesting chapter in the history of North Central Africa. According to the Times corre- spondent, the Senussi was by no means the sort of Emperor and Pope combined of the deserts of North Africa which many people imagined him. Instead we are told that he was merely a harmless missionary to the Soudanese infidels. We are inclined, however, to believe that the writer in the Times errs on the unsensational side almost as greatly as others have erred on the sensational, and that, in truth, the Senussi wielded a very great power in North Africa, and power of a semi-political as well as religious kind. That he was a perfectly sincere, if fanatic, Mahommedan we have no doubt.