You have heard of the dervishes who were killed in thousands at Omdurman, outside Khartoum, in the great battle at which Lord Kitchener won his title when he freed the Soudan from the power of the Mahdi? Now, having seen the Bisharin, you can imagine what dervishes looked like. For they dressed their hair in the same way, they wore the same dirty-white garments, and as they came yelling onward at a run, brandishing their weapons, it must have taken some courage for the Egyptian soldiers to meet them steadily.
All the men in the carriage with us are going on up to Khartoum and beyond. They are soldiers, administrators, and Government officials, men whose lives are passed on the outposts of civilisation, and who carry the British ideals of cleanliness, honesty, and straight-dealing far into the desert; but they do not talk about it, as Kipling says they speak:—"After the use of the English in straight-flung words and few—"
"Go to your work and be strong, halting not in your ways,
Baulking the end half won for an instant dole of praise.
Stand to your work and be wise—certain of sword and pen,
Who are neither children nor gods, but men in a world of men."
Khartoum is the capital of the Soudan, but we have not arrived in the Soudan yet. This great province was won from barbarism and brutality by the English, who had trained and commanded the Egyptian army for the purpose through years of heart-breaking work, and it is held jointly by England and Egypt.
Then we arrive at Shellal, the station where the steamer waits, and in a moment we are plunged into a turmoil of confusion and shouting.
The red sun is setting in a flame of glory over the great lake-like expanse studded with black rocks; this is the huge dam or reserve of water held up for the use of the crops when the Nile goes down. The scene beggars description; bags, bundles, bales, boxes are pitched out pell-mell. Gleaming black faces are lit up by the flames of leaping fires lit on the sand. Petticoated porters thrust metal numbers at us so that we may be able to recognise them again and reclaim our luggage safely. We make our way to the steamer and mount to the first-class deck and look down on the whirl of turbans and red fezes (also called tarbooshes) below. The perpetual chatter, the long low cries, the beating shout of men staggering under heavy loads make up a resounding din. Clamped boxes, camp-chairs, enamel basins, dispatch-boxes, helmet-cases are carried swinging up the gangway. Here is a man wildly waving a gun-case which a non-commissioned officer wrenches from him; another is struggling under a folded tent, the end of which catches on a post and nearly precipitates him into the water. Black Nubian sailors in white and blue jumpers are wrestling with an endless series of mail-bags; third-class passengers, lost under piles of bedding, straggle into a great barge alongside. In the midst of it all one sailor detaches himself a little from the rest and drops down on his knees on the quay, prostrating himself and bowing with his forehead to the ground; he rises again, stands straight, with head erect, then down he goes again. He is praying at sunset, as a good Mohammedan is told to do. No one notices him or ridicules him. What would happen to an English sailor who knelt to say his prayers on an English dock? We feel that we have something to learn from this people, who are at all events not ashamed of their religion.
A man is selling oranges on the quay, another has large round flat loaves of bread tucked well under his arms and hugged against his body. A black hand, extended from the lowest deck beneath us, grasps one of these loaves and begins to finger it with a view to purchase; we cannot see the owner of the hand, but we can see his fingers feeling cautiously all around that loaf; he nips it between finger and thumb, he prods it, kneads it, rubs it, and finally, when no inch of it has been untouched, he hands over reluctantly a small coin and withdraws with the bread.
"Hope that isn't for us," says the cheerful voice of a young officer leaning over the rail beside us in the dark. "Think I'll cut off my crust at dinner to-night on the off-chance, anyway!"