Irrespective of the opinions expressed in the first four extracts given, extract No. 5 makes out a very good case for the Sirdar to write in large letters at the Soudan Frontier, “No Missionaries Admitted,” for Father Ohrwalder proves conclusively that they can do no good. Honestly I believe that for many years to come the only religious teachers allowed to penetrate into the Soudan should be enlightened exponents of the Quoran. Consider that for sixteen years the |322| Soudan has been in the throes—is still in the throes of one of the greatest religious upheavals known. While this revival of Islam has been in progress in the Soudan proper, the converts at Uganda and elsewhere have been snicking each other’s throats to evidence their zeal for the rival Christian creeds. In the Soudan, missionaries have openly avowed to thousands their acceptance of the “true faith”—Islam, the very religion from which they had gone out to convert the Blacks. I have not the slightest hesitation in saying myself that for some time to come religious revivalism in the Soudan will, if permitted to take place, very soon spell REBELLION. Time must be given for the bad (?) effect produced on the native mind by the conversion of the Soudan missionaries to die out, and goodness knows the poor country requires a rest. If missionaries must be sent, then let them be honest traders, the best missionaries for savage countries. When the Soudan has again been opened up, and the natives have become a little more civilized through their contact with trade, and so Europeanized that their simple faith, “There is one God, and He is God,” is not sufficient for them, but they must needs snarl and fight over creeds, then and only then remove the “No Admittance” signboard.
I trust that no religious body or society of earnest Christians will think from the foregoing that I am either sneering or scoffing at religion, or that their disinterested efforts to spread the gospel of peace to the remotest ends of the earth have not my sincerest sympathy. I have spoken plainly and to the point, |323| for I consider that the occasion calls for it. The missionaries required in the Soudan now are clean-minded, honest traders, who will do more for you by a few years’ preparing the ground for “talking” missionaries than the missionaries can do in a score of years of preaching. It is men like Gordon who, though not preaching religion, yet practise it in their every act, whom the Soudan requires. Ask any one in the Soudan what is his opinion about Gordon, and he will reply, “Gordon was not a Christian; he was a true Muslim; no Christian could be so good and just as he was,” and I believe that this saying, or estimate of him, emanated from the Mahdi himself. I draw your particular attention to the word “just,” which proves that, in the eyes of the Mahdists and Soudanese alike, his justice ranked with his goodness. If any Soudanese or Mahdist ridiculed to Father Ohrwalder Gordon’s generosity, and considered it a sign of weakness, it must have been done for a purpose. During my twelve years amongst all shades of people of the Soudan, I never heard a single word against Gordon, nor did I hear one until I came amongst his own flesh and blood. I cannot do better than relate another example of the esteem he was held in, and this example is from a Christian source.
My friend Nahoum Abbajee, when he reached Cairo, prepared a petition which he had intended forwarding to her Majesty the Queen, asking that the British Government should restore part of the fortune accumulated by him during his twenty-three years’ residence in the Soudan. His argument was that, trusting to |324| Gordon, he had delayed in Khartoum until Stewart’s departure was arranged for, when, acting on the advice of Gordon, he sold off his goods, realizing but half their value, accepted Gordon Bonds in payment, bought a boat, as no one then would hire one out, set off with Stewart, and was captured by the dervishes. This would not have happened, had not the commander of the gunboat disobeyed Gordon’s orders by steaming off to Khartoum, instead of bombarding Berber for three days, and Gordon was consequently responsible for the delinquencies of his subordinate.
On being asked what his personal impressions of Gordon were, he said that his thoughtfulness for every one, his goodness, justice, and innumerable virtues would take years to relate; and then when he was told that his claim could only be sustained on his proving that Gordon was to blame for the loss of Stewart’s party, ill as he was, he rose from his couch, tore up the petition, and, with his hand raised, prayed Heaven that if the bit of bread to save him from starvation should be purchased with money obtained through laying a fault upon Gordon, it might choke him. One had to witness the scene really to appreciate it. Ruined, broken down in health, too old to make a new start in life, his eyes lost their dulness and glistened as he breathed his prayer and fell back on his couch exhausted with the effort. Nahoum, I am afraid, will have joined Gordon by the time this appears in print.
HASSAN BEY HASSANEIN.
APPENDICES
APPENDIX I HASSAN BEY HASSANEIN
When Gordon heard of the murder of Colonel Stewart and his companions, he held a sort of court-martial on himself, and, after reviewing all the arrangements which he had made for their safety, he came to the conclusion that Stewart must have been invited on shore and murdered. Then, as if endowed with second sight, he almost exactly described what actually happened. The Abbas, drawing less than two feet of water, ought not to have stranded, as it was High Nile. Treachery on the part of the crew he had guarded against by sending a bodyguard of highly paid Greeks. The cutting adrift of their boats just after passing Berber contributed to the catastrophe, for had they been with the steamer at the time she struck, it is hardly likely that the inhabitants of the village would have planned the treachery they did. As interpreter to the party, Gordon gave them the man he could least spare, and one in whom he had every confidence—Hassan Bey Hassanein. Gordon himself writes, “thus the question of treachery was duly weighed by me and guarded against,” yet, in “Ten Years’ Captivity,” we find the contrary stated. “It is said that the interpreter, Hassan, arranged the betrayal.” Moreover, to clinch the matter, and to show that Gordon had selected a traitor in the very man whom the |326| lives of the party might depend upon, it is added, “And I was afterwards told that, when he got into difficulties later, he sent a petition to Mohammad-el-Kheir, in which he said that he was entitled to reward for having secured Colonel Stewart’s death. He is still living in Omdurman.”
Hassan Bey Hassanein has lived to come back to Egypt and bear witness to the goodness and virtues of the heroic defender of Khartoum. The only bit of treachery Hassan Bey acknowledges is that—with his fellow-clerk, Sirri—he cut the Khaleefa’s telegraph and telephone communications as the troops were advancing, to prevent communication between Omdurman and Khartoum and the outpost at Khor Shambat. It was Hassan Bey who ran out of the telegraph-hut as the gunboats advanced and attempted to get on board in order to warn them of the mines. He succeeded in attracting attention, and barely got off with his life, for his shouts in English were drowned by the report of the rifles as the men “potted” at his dervish dress.