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

by Freiherr von Rudolf Carl Slatin

Of late years numbers of new wells have been made. Those north of the mosque give good water; but those in the southern quarters of the city are mostly brackish. They vary in depth from thirty to ninety feet, and are generally dug by the prisoners under the direction of the saier.

"He has been taken to the Saier," is an expression one frequently hears; and it means that some wretched creature has been carried off to the prison. The mere mention of this word awakens feelings of horror and dread in the minds of all who hear it. The prison is situated in the southeastern quarter of the city, near the river, and is surrounded by a high wall. A gate, strongly guarded day and night by armed Blacks, gives access to an inner court, in which several small mud and stone huts have been erected. During the day-time, the unhappy prisoners, most of them heavily chained and manacled, lie about in the shade of the buildings. Complete silence prevails, broken only by the clanking of the chains, the hoarse orders of the hard-hearted warders, or the cries of some poor wretch who is being mercilessly flogged. Some of the prisoners who may have specially incurred the Khalifa's displeasure, are loaded with heavier chains and manacles than the rest, and are interned in the small huts and debarred from all intercourse with their fellow-prisoners. They generally receive only sufficient nourishment to keep them alive.

Ordinary prisoners receive no regular supply of food; but their relatives are allowed to provide for them. It often happens that long before a meal reaches the person for whom it is intended, a very large portion of it has been consumed by the rapacious and unscrupulous warders; and sometimes the prisoner gets nothing whatever. At night, the wretched creatures are driven like sheep into the stone huts, which are not provided with windows, and are consequently quite unventilated. Regardless of prayers and entreaties, they are pushed pell-mell into these living graves, which are generally so tightly packed that it is quite impossible to lie down. The weaker are trampled down by the stronger; and not infrequently the warder opens the door in the morning to find that some of his victims have succumbed to suffocation and ill-usage in these horrible cells. It is a painful sight to see scores of half-suffocated individuals pouring out of these dens, bathed in perspiration, and utterly exhausted by the turmoil of the long and sleepless night. Once emerged, they sink down, more dead than alive, under the shade of the walls, and spend the remainder of the day in trying to recover from the effects of the previous night, and gain sufficient strength to undergo the horrors of that which is to follow.

One would think that death was preferable to such an existence. Still these unfortunates cling to life, and pray to God to relieve them from their sufferings. In spite of the prison being invariably overcrowded, and notwithstanding the horrors of prison life, I do not ever remember having heard of a case of suicide amongst the unfortunate inmates.

Charles Neufeld has spent some years in the Saier, often ill, subject to the greatest privations, and merely kept alive by the occasional supplies which reached him through the Black servant he brought with him from Egypt, and who, in turn, was assisted by the other Europeans in Omdurman. He managed to survive, though heavily chained by the neck, and wearing two large irons round his feet. On one occasion, he refused to spend the night in one of the stone huts, which he aptly described as "the last station on the way to Hell," and for this act of disobedience he was severely flogged; but he bore it without a murmur, until his tormentors—amazed at his powers of endurance—cried out, "Why do you not complain? Why do you not ask for mercy?" "That is for others to do, not for me," was the strong-hearted reply which gained for him the respect of even his gaolers. After enduring three years of imprisonment, his irons were lightened; and, with only a chain joining his ankles, he was removed to Khartum, where he was ordered to refine saltpetre for the manufacture of gunpowder, under the superintendence of Wad Hamednalla. Here his condition was much improved; and he received a small monthly remuneration for his work, which sufficed to provide him with the bare necessaries of life. As the saltpetre refinery adjoins the old church of the Mission, the latter has thus been saved from destruction. After his daily hard work is over, Neufeld is allowed to rest in the Mission gardens; and here, no doubt, his thoughts often revert to his family at home, and he must in his heart curse the evil day which induced him to quit Egypt, and thoughtlessly venture into the clutches of the Khalifa. For him fate has indeed been cruel; and most fervently do I hope that ere long he may be reunited with his relatives, who have not abandoned all hope of seeing him again. In Europe, there is no lack of friends who are ready to do all in their power to help him; but it rests with God alone to release this poor captive from his misery.

It makes my heart ache to think of all the horrors that have been enacted in that dreadful prison. There was the sad case of poor Sheikh Khalil, who had been despatched from Cairo with letters to the Khalifa, informing him of the number and names of the prisoners who had been captured at the battle of Toski, all of whom, he was assured, were being well cared for, and would eventually be set free; and he was requested to hand over to the Sheikh the sword and medals of General Gordon, which, it was assumed, were in his possession. Khalil's companion, Beshara, was sent back with the letters unanswered, whilst the unfortunate emissary, who was an Egyptian by birth, was thrown into chains, under the pretext that he had been sent as a spy. Ill-treated and deprived of nourishment, he became so weak that he could not rise from the ground. His tormentors even refused him water to drink; and at last death came to him as a happy release from his sufferings.

Malech, a Jewish merchant of Tunis, who had come to Kassala with Abu Girga's permission, was seized by the Khalifa's orders, and brought to Omdurman, where he remains in captivity in the Saier to this day. He is as thin as a skeleton, and is driven almost to despair. He is kept alive by the efforts of his own community, who have been forced to become Moslems, and who succeed in providing him with small quantities of food.

Two Ababda Arabs, arrested on suspicion of carrying letters to Europeans in Omdurman, were seized and imprisoned, and died soon after of starvation. The alarm in the European colony was great; but fortunately it transpired that the letters were for a Copt from his relations in Cairo.

The great Sheikh of the Gimeh tribe, Asakr Abu Kalam, who had shown such friendship and hospitality to the Khalifa and his father in early days, was ruthlessly seized and thrown into chains, because it came to the Khalifa's ears that he had spoken disparagingly of the present condition of the Sudan, and had expressed regret at having taken up arms against the Government. He was eventually exiled to Reggaf, whilst his wife, who was a well-known beauty in the Sudan, was torn from the arms of her husband at the hour of his departure, and carried off to the Khalifa's harem.