The moon had risen, and far away on the horizon gleamed the Southern Cross, like that celestial symbol which inspired the Roman Conqueror in his bivouac centuries ago, and helped to shape the destinies of Christendom. Per hoc vince—good men of our victory's true worth, and presage of our future work in these unhappy regions! The day's carnage had indeed been cruel; blood had been poured out like water; but there is a mysterious law in the working of Providence which forbids the continued existence of systems which have ceased to subserve the cause of progress. Mahdism has proved the most shameful and terrible instrument of bloodshed and oppression which the modern world has ever witnessed. It has reduced whole provinces to utter desolation, so that tracts once smiling and fertile are now but solitary wastes, the habitation of wild beasts. Thousands upon thousands of homesteads have been laid in ruins, and the innocent villagers outraged and tortured and murdered. As I entered the Mahdi's tomb on the following morning, I saw a band of natives casting stones with loud curses upon the spot where his body lay; and scores of unhappy creatures who on the night of the battle were liberated, after long years of imprisonment, lifted up their hands, and with streaming eyes thanked God for the destruction of their oppressor's rule. Mahdism has vanished, never to return, and once more the arms of Great Britain have advanced the cause of civilisation and "made for righteousness" in the history of the century.
R. V. Darbishire 1898.
{Click on map for larger image.}
Battle of Omdurman.
First Dervish attack.
Battle of Omdurman.
Second Dervish attack.