At length the day was ended and the Khalifa's army annihilated—11,000 killed, 16,000 wounded, and 4000 prisoners! The Khalifa himself escaped. His harem and servants deserted him, and he who in the morning had been absolute ruler over an immense kingdom, wandered about in the woods like an outlaw. He fled to the south-west and succeeded in collecting another army, which was completely cut to pieces the following year in a battle in which he himself also perished.
When all was quiet in Omdurman, the victors had a solemn duty to fulfil. Thirteen and a half years had passed since the death of Gordon, and at last the obsequies of the hero were to be celebrated in a fitting manner. In the court in front of Gordon's palace the troops are drawn up on three sides of a square, and on the fourth stands the victor, surrounded by generals of divisions and brigades and by his staff. Kitchener raises his hand, and in a moment the Union Jack rises to the top of the flagstaff on the palace, while a thundering salute from the gunboats greets the new colours and the Guards' band plays the National Anthem. Another sign, and the flag of Egypt goes up beside the Union Jack and the Khedive's hymn is played. Then the belated funeral service is impressively conducted by four clergymen of different Christian denominations, the Sudanese band plays a hymn which Gordon loved, and lastly Kitchener is saluted with the greatest enthusiasm by the officers and men under his command.
Ostriches
Now all is changed in the Sudan. A railway runs from the Nile delta up to Khartum, and another connects Berber with the Red Sea. In Khartum there are schools, hospitals, churches, and other public buildings, and one can travel safely by steamboat up to the great lakes. Gordon's scheme to connect the Victoria Nyanza with Mombasa on the coast has been carried out, and a railway has been constructed through British East Africa. White men have advanced from all sides deeper and deeper into the Black Continent, and have made themselves masters of almost all Africa. Wild animals have suffered by this intrusion into their formerly peaceful domain, and their numbers have been diminished by the chase. In some districts game has quite disappeared, the animals having sought remoter regions where they can live undisturbed.
In the Sahara, in the Libyan desert, on the open grasslands along the Upper Nile, on the veldt of South Africa, wherever the country is open and free, lives the ostrich; but it does not occur in the worst desert tracts, which it crosses only in case of necessity, for it likes to have water always near at hand.
The appearance of the ostrich is no doubt familiar. It is powerfully built; its long bare neck supports a small flattened head with large bright eyes; the long legs rest on two toes; and the wings are so small that the animal is always restricted to the surface of the ground, where, however, it can move with remarkable swiftness. The valuable feathers grow on the wings. The ostrich attains a height of eight feet, and when full grown may weigh as much as 165 pounds.
Ostriches live in small flocks of only five or six birds. They feed in the morning, chiefly on plants, but they also devour small animals and reptiles. By midday their stomachs are full, and they rest or play, leaping in circles over the sand, regardless of the blazing sun or the heated ground. Then they drink and wander about eating in the afternoon. In the evening they seek their roosting-places.
Sight is the ostrich's acutest sense, but its scent and hearing are also sharp. When it is pursued, it darts off with fluttering wings, taking steps ten or twelve feet long. It is always on the look-out for danger, and the zebra likes to keep near it to avail itself of the bird's watchfulness. In North Africa the Arabs hunt the ostrich on swift horses or running dromedaries. Two or three horsemen follow a male, which after an hour's course is tired out, and gradually relaxes its pace. The horses also are tired after such a chase, but one of the riders urges on his steed to a last spurt, rushes past the ostrich, and hits it on the head so that it falls to the ground. The bird is then skinned, the skin being turned inside out so as to form a bag for the feathers. The feathers of the wild ostrich are much finer and more valuable than those of the tame. A full-grown ostrich has only fourteen of the largest white feathers.
The hens lay their eggs in a shallow hollow in loamy or sandy soil, and it is the male bird which sits on the eggs. In the daytime the nest may be left for hours, but then the ostriches cover the eggs with sand. The young ones leave their shells after six weeks and go out into the desert. They are already as large as fowls, but then an ostrich egg weighs as much as twenty-four hen's eggs, and measures six inches along its greatest diameter.
The ostrich is remarkably greedy, and turns away from nothing. The great zoologist, Brehm, who had tame ostriches under his care, reports that they ate rats and chickens and swallowed small stones and potsherds, and once or twice his bunch of keys disappeared down the stomach of an ostrich. In one ostrich's stomach was found nine pounds of "ballast"—stones, rags, buttons, bits of metal, coins, keys, etc.