From Gallabat a dervish raiding party penetrated to Gondar, which they looted.
The mainland part of the town is surrounded by a high coral wall, built in 1884 to resist dervish attacks.
In the Sinan Tekke or Dervish monastery the ceremonies of the howling and dancing Dervishes may be witnessed.
On the 7th of August 1897 Colonel Hunter surprised and annihilated a weak Dervish garrison at Abu Hamed, to which place, by the 31st of October 1897, a railway had been laid across the Nubian desert from Wadi Haifa, a distance of 230 m., the record construction of 5300 yds surveyed, embanked and laid in one day having been attained.
In 1890 the Shilluks in the neighborhood of Fashoda rose against the khalifa, and the dervish amir of Gallabat, Zeki Tumal, was engaged for two years in suppressing the rebellion.