Slatin, having given a good account of himself in his many fights, was, after his submission, looked up to as the military genius of the Mahdist army; he could not, as I did, play any pranks with the work he was entrusted with; the map he had drawn of Egypt, showing the principal towns and routes, and upon which the former telegraph-clerk, Mohammad Sirri, had been instructed to write the Arabic names, had given some the idea that no expedition might be planned without the aid of Slatin and this map. Abdullahi’s object in having the letter publicly read will be divined; first, it would assure the dervishes themselves that there was no fear of |205| Slatin, after his protestations of loyalty, returning at the head of the Government troops to overthrow the rule of the Mahdi, and without help from the exterior the wavering Mahdists could not hope to throw off the yoke of Abdullahi. Moreover, the reading of the letter to the Christian captives would confirm the opinion formed by many, that Slatin was at heart with the present Soudan dynasty, and that they could not expect any help as a result of his escape.
There is another incident, which must be here mentioned, to show how acute Abdullahi really was. Slatin had publicly proclaimed his conversion to Mahommedanism before his submission to the Mahdi, so that, when he did submit, he was accepted as one of the faithful, and treated as one of themselves. The remainder of the captives—those taken before and after the fall of Khartoum—had not, up to the time of the escape of Rossignoli, been actually accepted as Muslims. At the suggestion of Youssef Mansour, on January 25, 1895, the Khaleefa was gracious enough to take all into his fold as real converts to the faith, and, on the anniversary of Gordon’s death, all the Muslimanieh (Christians) were ordered to be circumcised, the only two people not being operated upon being, I believe, Beppo, who was overlooked while in prison, and an old Italian mason, who pleaded old age as an excuse for not undergoing the operation. The Christian quarter was, therefore, at the time of Slatin’s escape, considered as a Muslim community, and the practical immunity they had |206| enjoyed from a rigorous application of the Mahdieh laws was thereby put an end to.
Consequently, when Slatin escaped, leaving behind him such protestations of loyalty, the safest card the Khaleefa could play was to read to them his letter. The reading of it caused some little consternation and comment, no doubt, but I have already expressed my opinion as to the light in which this letter should be considered. It was a clever move of Abdullahi; the public reading of the letter blasted all hopes on the part of the discontented Soudanese of any assistance from Slatin in crumbling to dust the kingdom of the Khaleefa, and put an end to all hopes on the part of the former Muslimanieh captives of release, for the small proportion of old Government employés who had, up to then, firmly believed that Slatin was acting, as they express it, “politeeka” in all his dealings, now joined the ranks of those who believed differently. But in this they were, of course, mistaken.
After the public reading of the letter, the Khaleefa sent for the officials of the Beit-el-Mal and ordered them to take possession of Slatin’s house, wives, servants, slaves, land, and cattle, at the same time giving them strict instructions, in the presence of all, that the household were to be treated gently, as being the property of a true Muslim. His Darfurian wife, Hassanieh, whom he had married when Governor-General of Darfur, was claimed from the Beit-el-Mal by Dood (Sultan) Benga as of a royal family, and was by him married to another of the Darfurian royal |207| family. Desta, his Abyssinian wife, was within a few days of her confinement, and either, as a result of fright at the ransacking of the house and her reduction to the position of a common slave, or as a result of what would be to her, in her then delicate condition, rough handling, gave birth to a baby boy, who survived but a few weeks.
It was while the Khaleefa was awaiting the return of the scouts sent out to recapture Slatin that Hawanein put in his appearance at Omdurman. He was at once seized, accused of assisting in the escape of Slatin, and also of having returned to effect mine. Pleading ignorance of myself and Slatin, he was not believed; he was first sent into the Saier, and then, as he refused to confess, he was taken out and publicly flogged. Even this did not extort a confession; the Khaleefa, not being satisfied, ordered another flogging, but the Bisharas interceded for Hawanein, and succeeded in obtaining his release. As my would-be deliverer passed through the portals of the Saier, I passed in (March 26, 1895). Hawanein lost no time in returning to Assouan, where the relation of his experiences, with his torn back and unhealed wounds to bear him out, put an end finally to all attempts in that quarter to assist me in any way whatever.
It might be as well that I should not attempt to describe my mental condition on finding myself again in the Saier. I have a faint idea of what my state must have been; despair cannot describe it; insanity at blasted hopes might. Yes, I must have been insane; but I was mentally sound, if such a contradiction |208| of terms is permissible. I remember that for days I shuffled about, refusing to look at or speak to any one. Perhaps what brought me round was that, in my perambulations, I came near the Saier anvil and heard a man crying. It was Ibrahim Pasha Fauzi, Gordon’s old favourite, who was being shackled. My expostulations on his acting as a child and bullying him into a sense of manhood, again prevented that slender thread between reason and insanity snapping. It must, in some way, have calmed and comforted me to be brought to the knowledge that others were suffering as much as I was; and just as a child, which requires care and attention itself, gives all its affection and sympathy to a limbless doll, so must I have given my sympathy to Fauzi, and in so doing taken a step back from the abyss of insanity, which I was certainly approaching.
CHAPTER XVII A NEW OCCUPATION
When Said Abdel Wohatt was transferred from the Khartoum to the Alti saltpetre works, his father-in-law, Ali Khaater, the storekeeper of the Omdurman arsenal, considered that he was no longer under the obligation of risking his neck by mixing the Khartoum product with the Fellati’s, or substituting it with good saltpetre in stock. A consignment of mine was consequently sent direct to the powder factory, and was used in making what Abd es Semmieh and Hosny, the directors, believed would be a good explosive. The result, while being eminently satisfactory to myself, was just the reverse for the people responsible for making the powder. Not being certain where the fault actually lay, they mixed this powder with a quantity of really good powder made from the Fellati’s product, only to succeed in spoiling the whole bulk. When my next consignment was sent in they carried out some experiments, and, discovering where the fault lay, sent me an intimation that if our works did not turn out saltpetre equal in quality to that formerly supplied by us, I should be reported to the Khaleefa. Nahoum Abbajee, hearing of the affair, came to me in |210| a state of excitement, and pointed out the danger I was running into, and as he was then trying to think out an invention for coining money, he suggested that he should apply to the Khaleefa for my services in assisting him. This request Abdullahi was only too glad at the time to accede to; saltpetre was coming in in large quantities, and he was in great trouble about his monetary system.
As Khaleefa, he was entitled to one-fifth of all loot, property, taxes, and goods coming to the Beit-el-Mal; and as all property of whatever description was considered to belong primarily to this administration, it followed that Abdullahi was entitled to one-fifth of the property in the Soudan; but as he had not much use for hides, skins, gum, ivory, and such-like, he took his proportion in coin—after putting his own valuation upon his share. As the money he took from the Beit-el-Mal was hoarded and never came into circulation again, a sort of specie famine set in. Attempts had been made in the early days of Abdullahi’s rule to produce a dollar with a fair modicum of silver; but Nur-el-Garfawi, Adlan’s successor at the Beit-el-Mal, came to the conclusion, evidently, that a coin was but a token, and that it was immaterial what it was made of, provided it carried some impression upon it. The quantity of silver in his dollars grew less and less, and then was only represented by a light plating which wore off in a few weeks’ time. When people grumbled, he unblushingly issued copper dollars pure and simple. All the dollars were issued from the Beit-el-Mal as being of equivalent value to |211| the silver dollar, and when these coins were refused, the Khaleefa decreed that all future offenders should be punished by the confiscation of their property and the loss of a hand and foot. The merchants, though, were equal to the occasion; when an intending purchaser inquired about the price of an article, the vendor asked him in what coinage he intended to pay; the merchant then knew what price to ask.
As the silver dollars gradually disappeared, the few remaining went up enormously in value, until in the end they were valued at fifty to sixty of the Beit-el-Mal coins, so that an article which could be bought for a silver dollar could not be purchased under fifty to sixty copper dollars. Although a rate of exchange was forbidden, the Beit-el-Mal took advantage of the state of affairs by buying in the copper dollars, melting them up, recasting, and striking from a different die. These coins would be again issued at the value of a silver dollar, and the remaining copper dollars in the town were put out of circulation by the Beit-el-Mal’s refusal to receive them. To make matters worse, the die cutters cut dies for themselves and their friends, and it was worth the while of the false (?) coiners to make a dollar of better metal than the Beit-el-Mal did, and these we re-accepted at a premium. The false coinage business flourished until Elias el Kurdi, one of the best of the die cutters, was permanently incapacitated by losing his right hand and left foot; and this punishment, for a time at least, acted as a deterrent upon others, leaving the Beit-el-Mal the entire monopoly of coinage. |212|