THE SIEGE OF EL OBEID.

Terrible sufferings of the besieged—The Kababish—Fall of Bara—Fall of El Obeid—The Mahdi enters the town—Fate of the El Obeid Mission—Cold-blooded murder of the brave defenders—The Dervishes live a life of ease in El Obeid—The Mahdi makes laws—He sends out proclamations—Prestige increased by capture of town—News from Khartum—Bonomi and Ohrwalder summoned before the Mahdi—The interview.

The garrison in El Obeid now began to suffer from the effects of this close siege and blockade. The necessaries of life were failing rapidly; the price of provisions had gone up enormously. The commonest food, known as "dokhn" (a kind of millet) rose to 150 dollars, and eventually to 500 dollars the ardeb. Meat had almost entirely given out. Our Mission brethren in the fort possessed one camel, which was nothing but skin and bone, and which was sold for 1,000 dollars, and two days afterwards the purchaser offered it for sale for 1,500 dollars. Eventually the butcher bought it for 2,000 dollars. A chicken went for thirty dollars; eggs a dollar apiece; a loaf of sugar fifty dollars, and twenty dollars for a pound of coffee. A thimbleful of salt cost a dollar. The above were the prices a month after the close investment had begun. Butter and oil could not be had for any money. The poor began to starve quite at the beginning of the siege, and soon were dying in considerable numbers. A little later, matters came to a terrible pass. All the camels and cattle being finished, donkeys, dogs, mice, and even crickets were consumed, as well as cockroaches, which were considered quite tit-bits; white ants, too, were eaten.

And now the deaths by starvation had reached an appalling figure. The dead and dying filled the streets; the space within the fortifications being so limited, there was not room for all the people, and in consequence many lay about in the streets and open spaces. The air was poisoned by the numbers of dead bodies lying unburied, while the ditch was half full of mortifying corpses. Scurvy and dysentery were rife; the air was black with the scores of carrion-kites, which feasted on the dead bodies; these ugly birds became so distended by constant gorging that they could not even fly away, and were killed in numbers by the soldiers, who devoured them with avidity.

Later on gum became the only food; there was a quantity of this, but it brought on diarrh[oe]a, and caused the bodies to distend—indeed, numbers died from eating it. The ground was dug up in all directions in search of the white ants' nests; and the food which they had collected for the winter was greedily consumed. Some poor sufferers eked out a miserable existence by living on the undigested food found in the excrement of animals; all sorts of leather, shoes and sandals, were boiled and eaten. It was a terrible sight to see these human skeletons—their eyes sunk into the backs of their heads, wandering about in search of food. The Mudir extorted all the corn and money he could from the rich merchants, but of what good was a mere handful of corn to the soldiers? They became desperate, all discipline was at an end and they often broke into the houses by night in search of food.

During all this time the Dervishes outside kept on shouting out curses and insults, deriding those within for eating dog's-meat, for, during all this terrible famine in the city, there was abundance of food in the Dervish camp, and this made the besiegers bolder and more insulting than ever, for they knew that the town was practically in their hands. We often tried to establish some sort of communication with our Mission brethren in the city, but we never succeeded in getting any reliable information about them. At length, towards the end of December, we managed, through the kind offices of George Stambuli, to send in a letter and received a reply from the Father Superior, Johann Losi, which was brought to us by one of our female slaves. The news it contained was heart-rending; all our brethren were down with scurvy—that is to say, Father Rossignoli, brother Locatelli, and four sisters, whilst Father Losi himself was on the point of death. For a month they had lived on nothing but dokhn and rice; everything else was gone. Father Losi sent us some clothes, which were a godsend to us, and also 200 dollars, while we in return could do nothing for our poor besieged brethren. A few days later we heard that Father Losi died on the 27th of December of scurvy.

The

garrison frequently attempted small sorties, in the hope that they might be able to secure a sheep or bullock, or some wood, and these always caused some excitement in the camp. When anything of this sort took place, the usual cry was "Et Turki Marak" ("The Turks are coming out"), then the camp suddenly woke up, and, like a swarm of ants, moved towards the town to drive the garrison in again. On these occasions quantities of ammunition were expended without much result. In the meantime the Mahdi continued his daily preaching against the vanities of this life, of his divine message, and of the approaching end of the world. During these sermons the people stood wrapped in wonder and astonishment at the Mahdi's great wisdom.

The Egyptian guns frequently fired into the camp, and on two occasions shells burst close to our hut, but did no harm. The Dervishes also returned the fire, but their shots always fell far beyond; had they only been skilled in the working of the guns they had, the fortifications would have become untenable in a day, but the Mahdi seemed purposely to wish to prolong the siege, and to thus compass the death of its defenders through famine. The wells were only about one kilometre distant from the forts, and in consequence within easy range of the fire of the besieged; but the Mahdi was quite regardless of this, and often formed up his troops there—a proceeding which generally resulted in his losing some men.

It was about this time that the principal sheikhs of the powerful Kababish tribe, viz. Saleh and Tome, the sons of Sheikh Salem, came to pay their allegiance to the Mahdi. As a gift they brought him two hundred camels, and he in return ordered a great military display and a special bombardment of El Obeid in their honour. The two sheikhs did not, however, take a great interest in these proceedings; and one day Saleh suddenly took himself off, and from that date became the Mahdi's sworn enemy, until the day of his death, when, as we shall presently see, he was one of the last of the great sheikhs who was overthrown by the Mahdi. His brother Tome was suddenly thrown into chains without any warning, the Mahdi giving as his reason that the Prophet had appeared to him in a vision and told him to do so.