Among the papers captured on the "Abbas" was the cipher key Gordon used to code his messages in and out of Khartoum, which meant he could no longer read the messages he received, leading him to write in his diary: "I think cipher-messages are in some countries, like this, a mistake". During this period, Gordon was lionised by the British press, which portrayed him as a latter-day Christian crusader and a saint, a man of pure good, heroically battling the Mahdi, who was depicted as a man of pure evil. The "Pall Mall Gazette" in a front page leader wrote that Gordon stood "out in clear relief against the Eastern sky. Alone in , dauntless and unfaltering, he discharges his great trust, holding the capital of the Sudan against the beleaguering hordes". The defences Gordon had built with lines of earthwork, mines, and barbed wire presented the "Ansar" with much difficulty and their attempts to storm Khartoum failed, but the "Ansar" made good use of their Krupp artillery to gradually batter down the defences. To counter Gordon's armoured streamers, the Mahdi built a series of forts along the Nile equipped with Krupp guns that over time proceeded to make it almost impossible for Gordon's navy to operate.