Khartoum and Omdurman 



Egyptian Army Stores, where one can buy any- 

 thing from a 12 -pounder gun to a luncheon 

 basket. 



Dropping down the Blue Nile for some two 

 miles to its junction with the White Nile, we see 

 Omdurman facing us on the left bank. These 

 twin towns are connected by a system of tram- 

 ways and ferries ; most convenient and invariably 

 crammed, and — so I was told — most profitable 

 to those who " run " them. 



At first sight Omdurman appears as an inter- 

 minable collection of low mud houses straggling 

 above a muddy foreshore, with, by way of fore- 

 ground, a picturesque tangle of masts and yards 

 of the large fleet of gyassas and nuggers, which 

 have brought the country's produce down the Nile 

 to this huge market ; the whole silhouetted against 

 the everlasting blue Eastern sky. One does not 

 realize the extent of the town nowadays, nor the 

 huge dimensions to which it must have attained 

 during the Dervish rule, until one has mounted 

 one of the long-suffering donkeys and has ridden 

 round. Everywhere is a sea of mud huts, in- 

 describably filthy hovels, opening on to narrow 

 streets, each successive one seeming more dingy 

 and gloomy than the last. Practically all over 

 the town, and more especially on the outskirts, 

 one sees numbers of houses fallen out of repair 

 and into disuse, washed down by the rains, till in 

 some cases merely the bare outline of the walls, 



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