1897] We Are Attacked by the Siwans 267 



" I had just settled that the servants were to go to town to buy what 

 we wanted when Suliman came to my tent to tell me of an armed party 

 approaching from the town towards us, and that we ought to get our 

 guns ready. I loaded my gun, and then looked through my glass, and 

 saw in fact a little army, some 200 men, on horse and on foot (and 

 with camels), advancing from the Western town, which, though evi- 

 dently armed, I could not believe had any intention hostile to ourselves. 

 The servants were for flight with the camels, and old Beseys and Salem 

 and the younger Arabs disappeared. Only Suliman and the good old 

 slave Osman stayed with me, and, seeing it was absurd to think of 

 defence, I told them to put up their weapons, and sat down again in 

 my tent waiting the event. Presently the Siwans arrived, and I heard 

 them call out ' Salaam aleykum,' and ' aman,' and supposed it to be all 

 right. But half a minute after I found myself surrounded by a number 

 of men, mostly Soudanis, who were pulling the tent over my ears. On 

 seeing me sitting there, they rushed forward and caught hold of me by 

 the wrists and pulled me to my feet. I expostulated with them, and 

 they became more violent, and though I made no defence except in 

 words one of them struck me a blow on the side of the neck and others 

 began to try and pull my clothes off me, others pointed guns and pistols 

 at me, and there was a vast hubbub and confusion, one dragging me one 

 way and another another. I received several blows on the head and 

 one from some weapon on the cheek. All I could make out of their 

 cries (for there was an immense uproar and they were shouting the 

 most part in a language — Berberi — I did not understand), was some- 

 thing about Sidi-el-Mahdi. 



" There were half-a-dozen sheykhs on horseback, with an old white- 

 bearded man brandishing a drawn sword, others with blunderbusses and 

 every kind of impossible weapon. I recognized in them several of 

 those who had drunk coffee with us the night before. My captors 

 hustled me towards the town, tearing me nearly in pieces in their desire 

 to get my pistol from my belt, which at last they tore away. The 

 sheykhs on horseback were evidently in direction of the whole affair. 

 I had lost sight of Suliman and the slave Osman, but I heard after- 

 wards that they, too, were considerably knocked about. I received a 

 rather nasty blow on the nape of the neck and another with some 

 weapon on my cheek bone, but neither very serious, and, not being 

 really hurt, I managed to keep my temper. The sheykhs made no effort 

 to protect me in any way; but, when they had got my pistol, my as- 

 sailants left me more or less alone, as there was a general rush to pillage 

 the baggage. Fortunately the leather bags with spring locks were a 

 puzzle to them, and they could not tear them open. But I had no 

 leisure to attend to this, and my captors marched me off towards the 

 town, every now and then having a drag at my cloak or my hezam 



