Fire and Sword in the Sudan / A Personal Narrative of Fighting and Serving the Dervishes 1879-1895

by Freiherr von Rudolf Carl Slatin

I was deposited in one corner of the immense zariba, where I was ordered to stay, and to hold no converse with any one without permission, on pain of instant flogging. At sunset, I, a number of slaves who were under sentence for having murdered their masters, and other gentlemen of this description were bound together by a long chain passing round our feet and fastened to the trunk of a tree; and at sunrise the next morning, we were unfastened, and I was sent back to my corner again. I could just see Lupton, in the distance, in another corner of the enclosure. He had been in here for some time, and had become used to it; he had permission to speak to others, but was under strict orders of the saier, or gaoler, not, on any account, to speak to me. On the day that I had been brought to the prison, Saleh Wad el Mek had been discharged; his brother, sons, and almost all his relatives had been killed, and he was now allowed to go and search for the survivors. As regards food, I now fared considerably worse; I had, in this respect, fallen out of the frying pan into the fire. I used to complain of being occasionally hungry; but now I received only uncooked dhurra, getting the same share as the slaves, and a very small share it was. Fortunately, the wife of one of my warders, a Darfur woman, took pity upon me, and used to take the corn away, boil it, and bring it back to me; but she was not allowed to bring me any other food, as her husband feared the principal gaoler might find out, and he, in his turn, was afraid of incurring the Khalifa's displeasure. I lay on the bare ground, with a stone for my pillow, the hardness of which gave me a continual headache; but, one day whilst we were being driven to the river—one hundred and fifty yards distant—to wash, I picked up the lining of a donkey saddle, which the owner had evidently thrown away as old and useless; and, hiding it under my arm, I bore it off in triumph, and that night I slept like a king on his pillow of down.

Gradually, my position improved somewhat. The principal gaoler, who was not really disinclined towards me, allowed me to converse occasionally with the other prisoners, and removed my lightest foot-irons; but the Hajji Fatma and her sister still remained, and I cannot say this pair of worthies conduced much to my personal comfort during those long and weary months of imprisonment.

One day, a Black woman came in with her child—a nice little girl—to visit her poor husband and the child's father, Lupton. The poor little thing wept bitterly, for, young as she was, she was old enough to understand the miserable plight of her father, who, before they left, sent them to say a few words to me. The poor woman looked at me for a few moments, and then, taking my hand, wept aloud. I remembered I had often seen her before; and, between her sobs, she reminded me that she had come to Khartum as a young girl, and had been brought up in Frederick Rosset's house, where, during my first journey to the Sudan, I had stayed for some weeks. Poor Zenoba! she reminded me of many little incidents which had happened in the old days; and, as she related them, she often broke down, comparing her former happiness with her present misery. I tried to console her, urging her to keep up hope, and that perhaps everything would end well. "Besides," I said, "it was never intended that human beings should always live well and comfortably." Little Fatma, whom we called Fanny, flung herself into my arms, calling me, ammi (my uncle); and it seemed as if her heart told her instinctively that, amongst all this crowd, I was next to her father in her affections. I then begged the poor woman to leave me, as I feared taking advantage of the gaoler's patience.

At this time, there was some difficulty in supplying food to the Black soldiers under Abu Anga, whose number had been further increased by the Khartum garrison. As there was no immediate fear of any movement on the part of the Government towards Khartum, it was decided to despatch Abu Anga to Southern Kordofan on a punitive expedition against the Nubas, and to procure slaves and send them to Omdurman. Shortly after the fall of Khartum, the Mahdi had moved his camp north; and the fort known as Tabia Ragheb Bey, and the ground in the vicinity, had been told off for Abu Anga's camp. When he was ordered off, and his place taken by his brother, Fadl el Maula, all my servants, male and female, left with him; and, although the latter were not permitted to visit me, I felt that, with Abu Anga's departure, yet another link was severed.

I now received news of the other servants I had left behind at El Fasher. On my arrival at Rahad, I had told the Khalifa I had left behind two horses, which were almost the best in Darfur, and which I hinted he might have if he wished; but, it being summer, and as they would probably have suffered from the long and hot journey, I had not brought them with me. Subsequently, I had requested him to give orders that not only the horses, but also my male and female servants who had been left behind, should also be sent on. He consequently had written to Mohammed Khaled to this effect; but, on the day on which I had been made a prisoner, he had written to Sayed Mahmud of El Obeid to seize my people as soon as they came from Darfur, but to send on the two horses. The latter had now arrived in Omdurman; and the soldier who had been in charge came to tell me that the Khalifa was much pleased with them, having taken one for himself and given the other to his brother Yakub.

A few days later, there was considerable commotion amongst the warders; and the saier told me privately that the Khalifa was coming to visit the prison. I asked him to advise me how I should behave; and he recommended me to answer all questions promptly, on no account to make any complaints, and to remain submissively in my corner. About midday, the Khalifa arrived, accompanied by his brothers and mulazemin, and began to walk round and view these victims of his justice. It seemed that the saier had given the same advice to all the prisoners that he had given to me, for they all behaved quietly; some were ordered to have their chains removed, and to be discharged. At length, the Khalifa approached my corner, and, with a friendly nod, said, "Abdel Kader, enta tayeb?" (Abdel Kader, are you well?). To which I replied, "Ana tayeb, Sidi" (I am well, sire); and with that he moved on. Yunes Wad Dekeim, the present Emir of Dongola, and a near relative of the Khalifa, pressed my hand, and whispered, "Keep up your spirits; don't be downhearted; everything will come right."

From that day my condition distinctly improved. Zenoba, the mother of Fanny, was allowed every now and then to send me a little food. I was also allowed to spend the day with a former head-Sheikh of the Hawara Arabs, who was suspected of having been friendly with the Turks, and had been thrown into chains; as our hatred for the Mahdists was mutual, we spent most of our time in talking about them, and criticising their rules and ordinances. Sheikh Mohammed Wad et Taka, for such was his name, was fed by his elderly wife, who, for his sake, had remained in Omdurman, and used to bring us meals. She may have had some good qualities, but she was a veritable Xantippe who by her sharp tongue made bitter every mouthful her husband swallowed. Carrying a large dish of baked dhurra-bread and some mulakh (a sort of sauce made with milk and other ingredients), she would place it before us, and then, sitting on the ground beside us, she would begin the battle. "Yes, indeed," she would say, "old women are quite good enough to cook, and do all the hard work; but when men have their freedom, they can do as they like; and then they always turn their eyes to the young and pretty girls." The Sheikh had the fortune, or rather the temporary misfortune, of having two young wives as well as this old one; but they stayed in the country with the herds; and this fact greatly annoyed the old lady, who exercised her ingenuity in making these sallies against her good man, who, famished by hunger, silently consumed the food she had prepared for him. She frequently related some piquant family details in which her husband's conduct in relation to herself, as compared with his more youthful helpmeets, was invariably open to severe criticism. I used to greatly enjoy these skirmishes, and generally took upon myself the task of mediator, telling her that when she was away, her husband had nothing but good words for her. This used to appease her; and she would affirm that she was doing her utmost to alleviate our condition. I thoroughly appreciated how valuable she was to me, and how her homely meals lessened my long hours of enforced fasting. All my efforts were therefore directed to pacifying her husband, who, goaded by her sharp tongue, would heap curses on her devoted head. His nature was very changeable: when he was hungry, and saw his old wife coming along carrying his food, no words of praise were sufficient for her; but once satisfied, and stung to the quick by her sarcasm, he would heap insults on her, and some such expressions as, "You who neither fear God nor man, leave me, and let me starve. Some women, as they grow old, instead of becoming more intelligent, gradually get silly; this is the case with you, I think you are possessed of the devil. Get away, and never come near me again; I never want to see you more." Then off she would go; but the next day, when he was famished, he would long to have his old wife back again. Not the least alarmed, she would almost invariably return with her dish full of food; he would be pacified, eat a hearty meal, and then the insults would begin again.

Thus the days slowly passed away. Small-pox had broken out in Omdurman, and every day the disease swept off hundreds,—indeed, whole families disappeared; and I believe that the loss from this disease was greater than that suffered in many battles. Curiously enough, almost all the nomad Arabs were attacked; and several of our own warders went down, and not a few of them died. We prisoners, however, entirely escaped; and, during the whole period of my imprisonment, I do not recollect having seen one of us unfortunates attacked, though most of us were much alarmed. Perhaps God in His mercy thought our punishment already more than we could bear, and spared us a further visitation.

I had now many opportunities of talking to Lupton, who daily grew more and more impatient; indeed, so furious was he at times, that I used to get alarmed, for he would complain most bitterly, and in a loud tone, of our miserable treatment. I did all in my power to pacify him; but the wretched life we were living had affected him to such a degree that I seriously feared for his health. Through constantly speaking to him, I succeeded to some extent in quieting him; but, although scarcely thirty years of age, the hair of his head and beard had, during our imprisonment, grown almost white. Nature, however, had treated me more kindly. I submitted to my fate with a better grace; and the thoroughly practical lesson I had received from my old friend Madibbo, entirely suited my character. I was still young; and, except for occasional slight ailments, I was endowed with a strong and healthy constitution. My fate was a cruel one it is true; but I felt I could gather from it many a useful experience. I kept on hoping against hope, that, sooner or later, I should return to the civilised world, though, when I thought over my chances of escape, the time seemed very far away.

In order to occupy the prisoners, the saier employed them in building a square house for their own habitation; they were therefore ordered to fetch stones which were found near the river; and Lupton and I were the only prisoners who were permitted to pass the day without work. Every now and then, however, we used to accompany them to the place where they got the stones; but my heavy ankle-irons, and my long neck-chain, impeded my progress so much when walking, that I preferred to act as the architect of the building, which now rapidly advanced towards completion. The walls were very thick, and about thirty feet square, and, in the centre, a pillar was erected which served as a support to the crossbeams.