Abbas I (1848–54), each local shaykh or chieftain was required to supply the government with a specific number of men as part of their annual taxes. In 1859 his successor Muhammad Sa'id (1854–63) ordered the formation of a personal bodyguard of black soldiers, and slaves continued to be taken mainly for the Sudanese regiments and for this bodyguard even after the official prohibition of the slave trade. In 1852, the Egyptian army in Sudan was 18,000 strong, and by 1865 it had increased to over 27,000. The bulk of the Egyptian occupation forces in Sudan were either slaves, or voluntarily recruited from within the country. The officers and non-commissioned officers were 'Turks' (meaning Turkish-speaking, whether Turkish, Albanian, Greek, Slavic or Arab) and Egyptians, although in later years some trusted Sudanese of long service were promoted to the rank of corporal and sergeant, and indeed, under Khurshid, to commissioned officer ranks. Occasionally, Sudanese slave troops were used outside Sudan. In 1835, Kurshid received orders to raise two black regiments for service in Arabia against the Wahhabi insurgents. In 1863, Napoleon III asked Muhammad Sa'id to lend him a Sudanese regiment to fight in the humid, malarial climate of Veracruz in support of Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico. In January 1863, 447 Sudanese troops sailed from Alexandria. They proved to be excellent fighters against the Mexican rebels, and endured the climate much better than Europeans. An exceptional case of a Sudanese slave who ended up fighting outside his homeland was Michele Amatore, probably from the Nuba mountains, who joined the Bersaglieri regiment of the Piedmontese army in 1848. Territorial expansion The Egyptians gradually rounded off their domains. They advanced southwards along the White Nile and reached Fashoda in 1828. In the west the Egyptians reached the borders of Darfur. The Red Sea ports of Suakin and Massawa came under their control. In 1838, Mohammed Ali arrived in the Sudan. He fitted out special expeditions to search for gold along the White and the Blue Nile. In 1840, the regions of Kassala and Taka were added to the Egyptian domains. In 1831 Khurshid Pasha led a 6,000-strong force east to attack the Hadendoa. He crossed the Atbarah River at Quz Rajab, but the Hadendoa lured the Egyptians into a forest ambush, in which they lost all their cavalry. The infantry straggled back to Khartoum, first losing and then recovering their field artillery. in