In Desert and Wilderness

by Henryk Sienkiewicz

And in fact the Arabs who joined the caravan did not fear the pursuit very much. They rode with great haste and did not spare the camels, but they kept close to the Nile and often during the night turned to the river to water the animals and to fill the leather bags with water. At times they ventured to ride to villages even in daytime. For safety they sent in advance for scouting a few men who, under the pretext of buying provisions, inquired for news of the locality; whether there were any Egyptian troops near-by and whether the inhabitants belonged to "the loyal Turks." If they met residents secretly favoring the Mahdi, then the entire caravan would visit the village, and often it happened that it was increased by a few or even a dozen or more young Arabs who also wanted to fly to the Mahdi.

Idris learned also that almost all the Egyptian detachments were stationed on the side of the Nubian Desert, therefore on the right, the eastern side of the Nile. In order to avoid an encounter with them it was necessary only to keep to the left bank and to pass by the larger cities and settlements. This indeed lengthened their route a great deal, for the river, beginning at Wâdi Haifa, forms a gigantic arch inclining far towards the south and afterwards again curving to the northeast as far as Abu Hâmed, where it takes a direct southern course, but on the other hand this left bank, particularly from the Oasis of Selimeh, was left almost entirely unguarded. The journey passed merrily for the Sudânese in an increased company with an abundance of water and supplies. Passing the Third Cataract, they ceased even to hurry, and rode only at night, hiding during the day among sandy hills and ravines with which the whole desert was intersected. A cloudless sky now extended over them, gray at the horizon's edges, bulging in the center like a gigantic cupola, silent and calm. With each day, however, the heat, in proportion to their southward advance, became more and more terrible, and even in the ravines, in the deep shade, it distressed the people and the beasts. On the other hand, the nights were very cool; they scintillated with twinkling stars which formed, as it were, greater and smaller clusters. Stas observed that they were not the same constellations which shone at night over Port Said. At times he had dreamed of seeing sometime in his life the Southern Cross, and finally beheld it beyond El-Ordeh. But at present its luster proclaimed to him his own misfortune. For a few nights there shone for him the pale, scattered, and sad zodiacal light, which, after the waning of the evening twilight, silvered until a late hour the western side of the sky.

XV

In two weeks after starting from the neighborhood of Wâdi Haifa the caravan entered upon the region subdued by the Mahdi. They speedily crossed the hilly Jesira Desert, and near Shendi, where previously the English forces had completely routed Musa, Uled of Helu, they rode into a locality entirely unlike the desert. Neither sands nor dunes could be seen here. As far as the eye could reach stretched a steppe overgrown in part by green grass and in part by a jungle amid which grew clusters of thorny acacias, yielding the well-known Sudânese gum; while here and there stood solitary gigantic nabbuk trees, so expansive that under their boughs a hundred people could find shelter from the sun. From time to time the caravan passed by high, pillar-like hillocks of termites or white ants, with which tropical Africa is strewn. The verdure of the pasture and the acacias agreeably charmed the eyes after the monotonous, tawny-hued sands of the desert.

In the places where the steppe was a meadow, herds of camels pastured, guarded by the armed warriors of the Mahdi. At the sight of the caravan they started up suddenly, like birds of prey; rushed towards it, surrounded it from all sides; and shaking their spears and at the same time yelling at the top of their voices they asked the men from whence they came, why they were going southward, and whither they were bound? At times they assumed such a threatening attitude that Idris was compelled to reply to their questions in the greatest haste in order to avoid attack.

Stas, who had imagined that the inhabitants of the Sudân differed from other Arabs residing in Egypt only in this, that they believed in the Mahdi and did not want to acknowledge the authority of the Khedive, perceived that he was totally mistaken. The greater part of those who every little while stopped the caravan had skins darker than even Idris and Gebhr, and in comparison with the two Bedouins were almost black. The negro blood in them predominated over the Arabian. Their faces and breasts were tattooed and the prickings represented various designs, or inscriptions from the Koran. Some were almost naked; others wore "jubhas" or wrappers of cotton texture sewed out of patches of various colors. A great many had twigs of coral or pieces of ivory in their pierced nostrils, lips and ears. The heads of the leaders were covered with caps of the same texture as the wrappers, and the heads of common warriors were bare, but not shaven like those of the Arabs in Egypt. On the contrary, they were covered with enormous twisted locks, often singed red with lime, with which they rubbed their tufts of hair for protection against vermin. Their weapons were mainly spears, terrible in their hands; but they did not lack Remington carbines which they had captured in their victorious battles with the Egyptian army and after the fall of Khartûm. The sight of them was terrifying and their behavior toward the caravan was hostile, for they suspected that it consisted of Egyptian traders, whom the Mahdi, in the first moments after the victory, prohibited from entering the Sudân.

Having surrounded the caravan, they pointed the spears with tumult and menace at the breasts of the people, or aimed carbines at them. To this hostile demonstration Idris answered with a shout that he and his brother belonged to the Dongolese tribe, the same as that of the Mahdi, and that they were conveying to the prophet two white children as slaves; this alone restrained the savages from violence. In Stas, when he came in contact with this dire reality, the spirit withered at the thought of what awaited them on the ensuing days. Idris, also, who previously had lived long years in a civilized community, had never imagined anything like this. He was pleased when one night they were surrounded by an armed detachment of the Emir Nur el-Tadhil and conducted to Khartûm.

Nur el-Tadhil, before he ran away to the Mahdi, was an Egyptian officer in a negro regiment of the Khedive: so he was not so savage as the other Mahdists and Idris could more easily make himself understood. But here disappointment awaited him. He imagined that his arrival at the Mahdi's camp with the white children would excite admiration, if only on account of the extraordinary hardships and dangers of the journey. He expected that the Mahdists would receive him with ardor, with open arms, and lead him in triumph to the prophet, who would lavish gold and praises upon him as a man who had not hesitated to expose his head in order to serve his relative Fatma. In the meantime the Mahdists placed spears at the breasts of members of the caravan, and Nur el-Tadhil heard quite indifferently his narrative of the journey, and finally to the question, whether he knew Smain, the husband of Fatma, answered:

"No. In Omdurmân and Khartûm there are over one hundred thousand warriors, so it is easy not to meet one another, and not all the officers are acquainted with each other. The domain of the prophet is immense; therefore many emirs rule in distant cities in Sennâr, in Kordofân, and Darfur, and around Fashoda. It may be that this Smain, of whom you speak, is not at present at the prophet's side."

Idris was nettled by the slighting tone with which Nur spoke of "this
Smain," so he replied with a shade of impatience: