390 A FARMER'S YEAR 



regiment and a great mob of Swahili porters, who were expected 

 to bolt at any moment. 



The Soudanese enemy attacked them in enormously superior 

 force they numbered about three to one and with all proper 

 military precautions. Advancing up the slope, they partially out- 

 flanked the Englishmen, so that for some hours the two forces 

 seem to have been pounding away at each other at a distance 

 varying from a hundred to forty yards. 



Towards the beginning of this book I mentioned the extra- 

 ordinary insensibility to pain and shock shown by animals and 

 some races of men. Here is a strange example of it which 

 occurred in this battle as it was told to me by Mr. Jackson. One 

 of the leaders of the mutineers, a captain, whose name, I think, 

 was Suleiman Effendi, made a rush at the opening of the fight 

 and got quite close to the British position. Thereon Mr. Jackson 

 and three other people fired at him from a distance of about thirty 

 yards, and down he went. As the bullet which Mr. Jackson had 

 discharged was a split sporting bullet that is used to kill game 

 rapidly, and as he knew that he had hit the man fair in the 

 middle, and other pressing matters claimed his attention, he 

 troubled no more about him. Presently, however, his gun-bearer 

 exclaimed, 'Look out, Sir, Suleiman Effendi is shooting.' He 

 looked and saw the man resting on one elbow and drawing a cart- 

 ridge from his belt with which to reload the rifle he had just dis- 

 charged. Before he could fire again this unconquerable Soudanese 

 was shot through the head. It will scarcely be believed that after 

 the battle was over it was found that this man had four bullets in 

 or through his vitals, any one of which must have caused death 

 rapidly, as each of the wounds was mortal. Yet he had kept his 

 presence of mind and courage, and had found strength to load and 

 fire his rifle. 



A while after this Mr. Jackson was struck himself. It seems 

 that one of the enemy, who was a good shot, had crept round to a 

 position a little behind him and about forty yards away, whence 

 he is believed to have killed young Mr. Fielding, who, bravely 



