This long detailed description of the regional situation mentions that the Rashāyda who had deserted the Mahdiyya, have joined the Italians in Maṣūwaʿ and told them that a Mahdist army was advancing on a port called Raḥīb, on the Eritrean coast, north of Maṣūwaʿ. The Italians chartered a steamer to check this by themselves and saw in Rahīb the Mahdist detachment of Shāʾib Aḥmad. After their return at Maṣūwaʿ, they arrested the leader of the city Ḥāmid Kantībāy and a man named al-ʿAqqād, whom they had suspected of having be in favour of Aḥmad ʿUrābi’s revolution in Egypt (1879-1882), and now believed could be responsible for having summoned the Mahdists to the region. Follows a rather intricate story about Kantībāy’s escape and an attempt at rising the Ḥabāb for the Mahdist cause.
05/08/1307
