Church parade much as usual. I expect they exhibited the captives of yesterday. It is extraordinary if we are employing Mahmound Khalifa, when his father, Hussein Pasha Khalifa, is a so-called prisoner of the Mahdi. Stewart knows, I think, that the father gave up Berber by more or less treachery.
I hope the Mudir of Dongola will look after this man. The sergeant-major says “that the Mahdi declares” he will execute the Sheikh el Islam (whom I put in prison) for preventing our surrendering, by which bit of news I read that an adherent of the Sheikh el Islam got some friends of his to bribe the sergeant-major to say this while on his way to the Palace.
Three men more have come in—one sergeant, one corporal, and a slave—from the Arabs at Omdurman. They say many Arabs leave daily for Kordofan; the Mahdi has sent three companies of regulars to bring back deserters; the Mahdi has been taking women from others, which makes the Arabs doubt his holiness; he has only forty rounds for each Krupp gun, of which he has two. The slave was a great fat bull-faced fellow. He was honest, for when I asked him why he came here, he said, “because he got so little to eat with the Arabs.” His appearance belied his words. These men said nothing of the cave business. The living skeleton in hospital (Stewart knows him) departed this life yesterday—I will not say, deeply regretted, except by me in a small way, for I knew him so long. It turns out that the Shaggyeh chief who commanded in the North Fort slept in town the day before yesterday night, and so was absent at yesterday morning’s catastrophe; also the officer Osman Bey, who went down to Berber with steamers to escort the Abbas past Berber, and who let the Fascher pursue the Abbas never reported this man’s absence; I have turned them out, and cut them each a month’s pay. (No sentry as usual, on North Fort. They are incorrigible. 2 p.m. Though their men have gone to look for missing rifles, I ordered them thirty blows: i.e. the sentries.)
Two cows have kindly walked into Omdurman Fort. The Arabs fired a few shots on the lines near the White Nile, which did not reach them; I expect the Arab chiefs send out the regulars and tell them to fire on the lines, and the regulars obey orders much as my orders are obeyed here. The North Fort hate my telescope; day and night I work them. It is one of Chevalier’s, of Paris, which I picked up here and gave £5 for, it is by far the best glass I ever saw. Commander J. Baker, R.N., has the best opera-glasses; he got them from me at Berberah in 1878, in exchange; they belonged to the Egyptian Government. It was the father of Hussein Pasha Khalifa who led the Egyptians into the Soudan in 1823. The family comes from Assouan, for this, the grant of monopoly of commerce through Korosko desert was given to the family. It was taken away from them in Ismail Pasha Ayoub’s time, about 1872, and I restored it to them. I heard the Mahdi gave them this monopoly after the fall of Berber, or rather agreed to their retaining it. I think the only good one of the family was Sheikh Hamid, who died this year. I sent the horsemen of these Shaggyeh out to the scene of yesterday’s disaster; they recovered a horse! two donkeys! and three Remingtons! and found the body of one of their slaves. I am going to make them pay for the lost Remingtons, nineteen in number now. I cannot afford to have Remingtons thrown away like that. This recalls to my mind how, when I had 700 men in the North Fort, which consisted of two houses distant sixty yards apart, the great Melon, who was in the house where the telegraph office is, declined to open the door of his house and sent a message to the other house, for fear of the Arabs, who were camped three miles distant. It was like this:
I have ever felt the greatest insecurity respecting the lines, for I believe one hundred determined men would carry them with ease, if they made their attack on the Shaggyeh or Bashi Bazouk part. These creatures used to shut themselves into the houses at about 7 p.m., and never go out till it was broad daylight; they were not eighty yards from the river. The Cairo Turkish Bashi Bazouks, the Shaggyeh, and the Fellaheen soldiers, I will back against any troops in the world for cowardice! I expect the reason why the Arabs did not take the three recaptured horses was because they were as frightened nearly as our men (vide p. 259); the worst of it is, that it is taken generally as a thing of “matter of course” by the Kartoum people, and, one may say, officers; no one is a bit put out or ashamed; it teaches no experience. Vide the absence of sentries on the fort to-day, who, I expect, cannot sit down over-comfortably to-night after their thirty blows.
One cannot help feeling amused at these Shaggyehs, for they are the most arrant braggadocios, as are the Cairo Turkish Bashi Bazouks, and when you come up, if you do, you will see how they will exhibit. They have little kettledrums about a span in diameter; whenever I hear them I feel viciously inclined. This dates back many years. The Shaggyeh are very quiet to-day; they are all boxed up in the houses; very few have ventured out more than 2000 yards. The report is that they are ashamed, which, if words could make them so, they ought to be; but I doubt it. They have not beaten their kettledrums to-night; yes, they have begun to beat them now. On one occasion, when I had two guns in their fort, I had a truly miserable night; for a cow would have taken the fort, though there were 1200 men in it. It was more for the guns than for them that I was anxious. The horse, which was recovered to-day, was saddled and was bridled, but, like a wise brute, as he could not eat with the bit in his mouth, he put his foot on the bridle and broke it off. I telegraphed to the rider “that I felt sure he could not look him in the face after leaving him out all night for nothing with the saddle on.”[178]
November 1.—The Arabs came up to their old fort in front of Bourré this morning and fired a few shots; they did not stay five minutes there. A Boulak Basha, his son, and two slaves came in to Omdurman and report the Mahdi is in the cave; that Slatin has retained all his property; that the Arabs continue to desert the Mahdi, who sends the regulars after them; that the deserting Arabs fight the soldiers, and have killed many of them; that the Arabs generally doubt the mission of the Mahdi, and wish for the return of the Government. The Mahdi is not going to fight during Moharrem and Saphia months. Two hundred and fifty Arabs deserted yesterday. The Mahdi sent the regulars after them, and four regulars were killed, and the deserters got away. Fifty to one hundred per diem run away. These people are a fine lot. The merchants of the market have been refusing to give more than three and a-half reals for a sovereign, five to six reals being the proper rate; so I captured nine of the chief of them, and have sent them to the lines with a pretended order to send them out to Waled a Goun, but with orders to keep them on the lines. I hope this will cure them. I shall let them in again when they sign a paper agreeing to my terms. Of course it is tyranny, but there is no other course to be pursued. The nine culprits, three soldiers with fixed bayonets before, three soldiers with ditto behind, and a mounted cavass on each flank, are wending their way to the lines through the market. Quite a procession! My servants are my staff. I never hear these sort of things from the officials, who are bribed, I expect, to keep silence.
7 p.m. A small bright fire in direction of and below Halfeyeh, lasting scarcely a minute. I flatter myself I keep a good look out.[179]
Two soldiers came to Omdurman, escaping from the Arabs this evening. Nothing new.