However, there was no help for it; so he went at once down to the quay, and began inquiries about boats going up. Luck here turned in his favour, for there was one starting next day, and he engaged a passage by it. And what was still more fortunate, the next day was Friday, and so there was not any likelihood of the delay which is so charming to the Nubian sailor mind. For Friday is their lucky day, and they would not miss the chance of commencing any undertaking upon it on any account. Now we account Friday an unlucky day (or used to do so). So either we or the Soudanese must be utterly wrong—radically wrong. Which is it, I wonder?
The dreary business commenced again on the morrow. A fair breeze, and sailing; a foul one or a calm, and rowing; running on banks, and pushing off; getting nearly wrecked half a dozen times in the rapids, and escaping. And so they progressed until at length the mighty river divided into two streams, that to the left the Blue Nile, that to the right the White, and the real Nile, and they found at the junction the city of Khartoum, dazzling in the glare of the sunshine, with the governor’s house and the mosque rising above the flat roofs.
Opposite the city, and on the west side of the Nile, there were a number of tents visible, and Harry asked the reis what place that was.
“That is Um Durma, where the camp is,” he replied.
“And what is the camp for? It seems a very large one.”
“Yes, O traveller, it is large! Seven thousand foot soldiers, a thousand of them that fight on horseback; many cannon, many camels to carry powder, shot, provisions, water; thousands of those who fight not themselves, but load and lead the baggage camels, sell things to the soldiers, and live upon the camp. In all a large encampment, and must cost the Khedive much money.”
“Who commands the force, and what is it collected for?” asked Harry.
“Hicks Pasha commands it; he is an Englishman, and his principal officers are also English; the men are Egyptians and Bashi-Bazooks.”
The reis paused. He was a Soudanese; and a smile played over his face as he added, “They are going to do wonderful things; to take El Obeid back again, to destroy the Soudan army, take the Mahdi, and carry him to Cairo in a cage, I believe. Oh! But they are great warriors, and the Mahdi’s days are numbered.”
“Is El Obeid in the Mahdi’s hands, then?” asked Harry; for the last time he had heard news of that part of the country it had been still held by the Egyptians; and Mahomet Achmet, or the Mahdi, as he professed himself to be, had been repulsed with such heavy loss when he attacked it as to oblige him to sheer off, this being his first defeat. But he had returned in the January of that year, and taken the place after a fortnight’s siege.