EL BATHA 21 



The villagers turn upon the party, and I am told to 

 send more men. Naturally, I select Arabs of No. i 

 Company. They do look workmanlike as, getting 

 a pace out of their camels such as none but an 

 Arab can, they shoot out, loosening their rifles as 

 they go. Bimbashi Mahmud Eff. Hussein (Mahon's 

 A.D.C. and staff ofBcer) is being hustled out of the 

 village. My Arabs dismount with loaded rifles at 

 the " present." The Sudanese take their cue and 

 the tables are turned ; the sheikh is receiving a 

 mild reminder that his is not the reception to be 

 accorded to Government troops. The robber has 

 fled in the confusion, but his wife is taken as a 

 hostage. Alas ! others in the village shared that 

 lady's favours, for the same evening, at a camp some 

 twenty miles further on, a man was led in on a halter 

 — the robber. A few lashes and a caution and he 

 was free. 



I have heard it said that the most remarkable 

 thing in Ireland is the number of old boots one 

 finds lying about. In Kordofan it was the number 

 of children born since 1898. There were very few 

 between childhood and manhood, such was the mor- 

 tality by disease due to the crowding near the river 

 during the Mahdia. El Batha, at which we had now 

 arrived, was a place that experts supposed would be 

 so swampy that camels could proceed no further. 

 Fortunately neither it nor the river-bed close by were 

 impassable. El Batha at that period, with its sprout- 

 ing grass and scattered trees, looked like a well-laid-out 

 botanical garden. 



