Ten Years' Captivity in the Mahdi's Camp 1882-1892

by Josef Ohrwalder; Sir F. R. Wingate

WAD EN NEJUMI.

From a photograph of a drawing made by an Egyptian officer of the great Emir, as he lay dead on the field of Toski.

The Emirs Hassan en Nejumi—a relative of Wad Nejumi—and Siwar ed Dahab, who had escaped from the massacre, returned with all speed to Dongola, and thence to Omdurman. They reported that it was madness of Nejumi to have attempted what he did; that all his emirs were opposed to it, and that they had told Nejumi that they were sure, if the Khalifa were fully informed of all the circumstances, he would never have permitted him to advance. As it was, famine, want of water, and the unseasonable time of the year, ought to have been sufficient reasons for postponing the expedition; but Nejumi turned a deaf ear to all their protests, he feared the Khalifa; his plundering and cruelties cried to heaven for vengeance, and the instruments of that vengeance appeared in the persons of General Grenfell and Colonel Wodehouse.

Saleh Bey, the son of Hussein Pasha Khalifa, and a subsidized sheikh of the Egyptian Government, drove his nephew out of Murat, advanced almost to Abu Hamed, and we fondly hoped that the Government would at least advance to Dongola, which is the key of the Sudan; but we were again doomed to disappointment.

And now Mahdiism was far too exhausted to make any further attempts on Egypt. The province of Dongola had been utterly ruined, and Yunis's ill-treatment of the inhabitants was beyond description. Complaints of his evil deeds eventually reached the Khalifa's ears, and fearing that the inhabitants might be induced to join the "Turks," he relieved Yunis of his appointment, and replaced him by Zogal, who, in spite of his former fall from power, was known to be a just man, and the Khalifa trusted to him to restore the confidence of the people. Yet the Khalifa did not entirely trust Zogal, and still left Mussaid to watch him, he also sent another Baggara called Arabi with three hundred troops to observe his doings.

Dongola now became a hotbed of spying and cross-spying. Matters became so serious that it seemed a fight between the rival parties was imminent, and every post brought letters from either section, accusing the other of malpractices. The Khalifa therefore summoned these two emirs—Mussaid and Arabi—to Dongola, and on their arrival they reported that it was Zogal's intention to deliver up the province to the Egyptian Government. Thereupon the Khalifa recalled Zogal, and replaced him by Yunis.

Zogal, on his arrival in Omdurman, was well received, and did not hesitate to refute the misstatements of the emirs; but he was not believed, and was thrown into chains, where he remains to this day. Zogal's only fault is, that he is a Dongolawi, and a relative of the Mahdi, whilst his opponents are all Baggaras, who are the governing party, and therefore he is not likely to receive any pity from them.

Besides Wad en Nejumi and Abu Anga, there yet remained one of the greatest of the Mahdi's old emirs. I mean Osman Digna, to whom I referred in the early pages of this work. He had been sent to the Eastern Sudan after the fall of El Obeid, and in July 1883, had taken up a position near Sawakin. The Mahdi had given him proclamations to distribute to all the tribes in the neighbourhood of Kassala and Sawakin, ordering them to rise against the Government. The summons was obeyed, and by the end of 1883 Osman Digna was in possession of all the principal posts in the vicinity. The most important work which Osman Digna performed for the Mahdi was cutting the communication between Sawakin and Berber, and thus blocking the shortest and best road into the Sudan. Fully alive to the importance of this route, the Government made repeated attempts to re-open it, but Osman, with his dauntless Hadendoas, caused every effort to fail.

On the 3rd of February, General Baker Pasha made a vain attempt, but was cut to pieces at El Teb, losing over two thousand men and all his arms and ammunition. After Baker's defeat, the English made another effort, and after General Graham had defeated Osman Digna at both Teb and Tamai, the proposal was made to open the road to Berber, and thus relieve Gordon, then besieged in Khartum; but it was thought impossible to fight Osman Digna's hordes, and to overcome the difficulties of the desert, so the idea was abandoned.