In 1883, Capato arrived in the Sudanese port town of Suakin at the Red Sea as an agent of the Alexandria-based merchant house John Ross &amp; Co. In 1884, while the indigenous Mahdist rebellion escalated in most of Sudan, he started supplying provisions to the British Army and Navy. After the fall of Khartoum in 1885 to the Mahdist forces, Suakin remained under British control and became an all the more strategically important outpost.