78 



KNOWLEDGE. 



[April 1, 1901. 



ended and the sunlight began was in reality the point 

 at which the Blue Nile, with its clear dark blue waters, 

 joined with the White Nile, the waters of which are 

 heavily charged with sand and have a whitish appear- 

 ance. As we passed over the line of junction, the idea 

 of the shadow still prevailed, and so definitely was the 

 thick grey water separated from the clear dark water 

 that no mixing appeared to be taking place. We 

 steamed across the united rivers, which form the Nile 

 of Egypt, and tied up to the bank at Omdurman along- 

 side thi-ee of the gunboats which had played so impor- 

 tant a part in the " river war." Near by stood the works 

 where many an old steamer, which most engineers would 

 have broken up for scrap iron — one at all events dating 

 from Gordon's days — has been miraculously patched up 

 and made to work again. 



There was much to be done at Omdurman, and the 

 dust and heat as well as the extent of the place by no 

 means facilitated matters. The town is a most be- 

 wildering place. It is built on a fairly flat piece of bare 

 desert about six miles long by an average of two miles 

 wide. This piece of desert is a mass of low mud houses 

 surrounded by compounds and separated by high walls. 

 A few broad straight roads, which are mere sand, and 

 innumerable narrow wdudiug alleys, intersect the col- 

 lection of huts and compounds, while here and there is 

 a yawning 23it, or an acre or so of broken-down houses, 

 such as those in the Baggara quarter, which is now but 

 a heap of mud. Although the place itself has a peculiar 

 fascination, perhaps on account of its history and the 

 many unlooked-for secrets these numerous walls may 

 even now be hiding, there is not much of interest to see 

 in Omdxu-man. The houses are mostly built on the 

 same plan — four mud walls with a flat roof made of 

 rafters covered with straw or matting, a verandah in 

 front, and sand for the floor. The few which have two 

 stories were formerly occupied by the Khalifa and his 

 chiefs. The Khalifa's own house stands at the corner 

 of an immense square some GOO yards long. Outside 

 the house in the square one can see the remains of what 

 was once a brick platform, from which the Khalifa 

 iised to preach to his thousands of fanatical followers 

 packed in the great square. There on the last day 

 of August, 1898, he held his last review, inciting the 

 assembled hosts in a vigorous harangue to fall upon the 

 invading army of British and Egyptians, to drive them 

 into the river and annihilate them, and there the dense 

 mass of misguided savages clad in their patched jibbehs 

 shook their spears and became mad for the blood of the 

 accursed infidels. 



In 1900 in the same square a few orderly squads of 

 Soudanese, dressed in neat khaki uniforms, might be seen 

 industriously drilling to words of command given by a 

 sergeant as black as themselves, with neither an English- 

 man nor an Egyptian present. Yet most of these 

 Soudanese were the same men who had thirsted for and 

 spilt our blood such a short time before. That they were 

 no less eager to fight one could tell by the fierce energy 

 of their drill, but above them, near their former master's 

 house, floated two flags side by side — the Union Jack and 

 the Crescent and Star, and around them, working in the 

 houses so lately occupied by their ignorant and brutal 

 chiefs, were a few British ofiicers in their shirt sleeves 

 administering the Soudan. Just outside the great square 

 is a small enclosure surrounded by high walls, and in 

 this may be seen a great heap of bricks with a square 

 of arches round it — all that is left of the Mahdi's tomb, 

 for ten years the most sacred and revered object in the 



Soudan. Leading out? of this enclosure is a compound 

 with a small mud house, the English Officers' Club, and 

 here every evening the Soudanese may catch a glimpse of 

 the members playing tennis or racquets. One of the 

 most interesting places in Omdurman, although now in 



Mr' Kiiiiis ol tlje ALilidi's Tomb. 



ruins and difficult to find, is the " Saier,'' the awful 

 prison in which Charles Neufeld and so many other 

 victims of the Khalifa sjient years in torture. Slatin 

 Pasha writes thus of the horrors of this place: — "A 

 gate, strongly guarded day and night by armed blacks, 

 gives access to an inner court, in which several mud and 

 stone huts have been erected. During the day-time, 

 the unhappy prisoners, most of them heavily chained 

 and manacled, lie about in the shade of the buildings. 

 .... At night the wretched creatures are driven 

 like sheep into the stone huts, which are not pro- 

 vided with windows It is a painful sight to 



see scores of hall'-suflocated individuals pouring out of 

 these dens, bathed in perspiration, and utterly exhausted 

 by the turmoil of the long and sleepless night." 



The walls round this awful place are now broken and 

 crumbling, and only portions of the huts remain. 

 But enough can be seen to make it almost impossible 

 of belief that any of the crowd who were forced into 

 these dens could have lived through one night. That 

 many succumbed we know. Outside the huts in the 

 small comjjound could be seen the remains of three or 

 four brick platforms on which the most favoured 

 prisoners were allowed to rest at night. 



To turn to pleasanter things. Of the birds of Omdurman 

 itself there is little to say. There is not a tree near the 

 town, nor is there any vegetation. Consequently there 

 is little else but carrion on which a bird could feed. 

 Kites and Egyptian vultures, || both excellent scavengers, 

 are the most conspicuous birds. And all over the town 

 are homely house sparrows,11 a little smaller and more 

 brightly coloured than our familiar birds, but every whit 

 as cheeky and pushful. Down by the river one may 

 often see a striking black and white kingfisher,** hover- 

 ing over the shallow water, and every now and again drop- 

 ping down to the surface like a stone. If you watch 

 carefully you will notice that this graceful action is 

 repeated many times before the bird makes a successful 

 plunge and rises with a fish. 



Across the river, on a sandbank, a few pelicans.tt sonic 



II 2f eophron percnoplervs, Jjinn. If Fassei- rufidorsalis, 'Bvchm. 

 ** Ceryle nidis, Liiiii. ft Pelicanux onocrotalus, Linn. 



