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CHAPTER XXVIII: Behring

For ten years after our purchase of Alaska from Russia, 1867, no encroachment was made on our seal fisheries in Behring Sea. Then with the growth of British Columbia, and the increase of the Canadian seal business in the North Pacific, an attack was suddenly made on the rights which Russia gave us to exclusive jurisdiction in Behring Sea on the American side. The American revenue cutters seized the Canadian poachers, confiscated their cargoes of seal-skins, and took their vessels and crews to Omalaska, or chased them from Behring Sea waters. The British government denied the right of the United States to exercise the jurisdiction in Behring Sea, always tacitly accorded to Russia, previous to the American purchase. Yet while denying our right to exclusive control in certain waters over which, previous to the transfer of Alaska by Russia to the United States, the Canadian poachers regarded, and still recognize, Russia's hold of the Sea as a mare clausum, and do not dare molest her seal fisheries. So accentuated had the difficulty become, that in 1891, the United States and Great Britain were on the verge of hostilities. Happily, however, Mr. Blaine, then Secretary of State, had the difficulty submitted to arbitration. The arbitrators will meet in Paris, in March, 1893, and another triumph will be registered of the civilization of the Nineteenth century, that has substituted the principle of arbitration for the barbaric arbitrament of war.

The condition of the Egyptian finances having become hopelessly involved, the revenue was put under the management of European Commissioners in 1876. The Khedive, Ismail, in June 1879, was disposed by his suzerain the Sultan, at the instance of the western powers, and was succeeded by his son Tewfik. France and England continued to administer the finances until 1885, when a rebellion broke out, under the leadership of Arabi Pasha, against foreign control. A British fleet bombarded Alexandria, and a British army under general Wolseley was landed on Egyptian soil, which defeated Arabi's army at Tel-el-kebir, putting an end to the rebellion. France having declined to aid in this exercise of force, was accordingly ousted from her position in Egypt, which was occupied, and is still held by Great Britain, against the protests of France and the Sultan of Turkey.

More than a dozen years previously, Darfur had been annexed, and other conquests made in the region of the Upper Nile. But in 1883, a Mahomedan fanatic, styled the Mahdi, or the False Prophet, raised the standard of revolt, and overcame the Egyptian authorities, Hicks Pascha an Englishman in the Egyptian service, was sent to quell the insurrection; but himself and his entire force of nearly ten thousand men were slain at El-Oheid, in Darfur, by the hordes of the Mahdi. Karthoum fell into the hands of the Mahdi, after a long and desperate defense by general Gordon, who was killed, and all the newly conquered country has since remained in possession of the Arab hordes..