A leading event this year is expected to be the reconquest of the Egyptian Sudan by the British and Egyptian forces, which was really begun in 1896. The step has been decided upon, and it is believed the undertaking will not be extremely difficult; and yet if there is any fighting the British will meet the very men who in 1885 showed that half-civilized peoples can do all that any men can do on a battle-field. Fiercer fighting was never seen than that the Mahdi's Arabs gave General Wolseley's forces on those desert battle-fields; and no men could fight as those Arabs did, with nothing but spears in their hands against trained soldiers with the best of modern fire-arms, if they had not been consumed with fanatical zeal.
Their leaders had no guns to give them, and so the orders were; "You are not to fight the enemies of God with ammunition, but with spears and swords." The Mahdi sent them word that Mohammed had proclaimed to him that on the day of battle thousands of angels would be with them to help them vanquish the unbelievers. Wild with religious zeal these hordes would rush across the sands, poising their spears, and fall upon the square in which the British army was formed. They were not checked for an instant by the withering fire or the wall of bayonets, and the very force and fury of their onslaught at Abu-Klea, the greatest of these battles, carried them through the line; and soldiers on the opposite side, firing at the Arabs in the square, killed their own comrades on the broken line. There are few things finer in the history of warfare than the story of the old sheikh on horseback at Abu-Klea, his banner aloft in one hand, his book of prayers in the other, advancing with his men and chanting his prayers till he had planted his banner in the centre of the British square, where he fell pierced with bullets.
The Mahdi is gone. The Sudan has been half depopulated and ruined by his successor. The people hate the Khalifa Abdullah, who has ground them to earth. Fanaticism is dead. But if the flame the Mahdi kindled, which consumed Hicks's large army, killed Gordon, and turned Wolseley's forces back down the Nile, were burning yet, the British would think long and seriously before undertaking the reconquest of the Sudan.
[BRONISLAU HUBERMANN AND LEONORA JACKSON.]
BY W. J. HENDERSON.
Bronislau Hubermann is a boy who plays the violin very much like a grown man. Now that means something more than merely sounding the tones correctly and smoothly. It means to show an understanding of the music and an artistic taste in its performance—two things which many adult players fail to do. Young Hubermann is therefore a remarkable boy, and it is not surprising that thousands of persons go to his concerts and sit as if spellbound while the youngster plays, for amazement joins with admiration to deepen the emotions caused by his fine performances. Just how old Hubermann is it is difficult to tell. He looks like a lad of sixteen; but his parents say that he was born in 1883 in Warsaw. They ought to know; but sometimes people like to make a gifted child appear younger than he really is, so as to increase the public wonder at his achievements. It really is not necessary in the case of Hubermann, because his playing would be sufficiently astonishing in a boy of sixteen.
He showed his musical ear when a mere child by singing the melodies which he heard. When he was six years of age he began the serious study of the violin, and in three months he had made such marvellous progress that he was able to play Rode's Seventh Concerto, a very difficult composition. This story sounds incredible, but we must remember that Mozart actually played the second violin part in a quartet when he had never had any instruction at all. He told his father it was not necessary to study in order to play the violin. After his childish appearances in public little Hubermann devoted a few years to further study, and then left his native land to seek glory in the most musical of all countries—Germany. He was enthusiastically praised there by the critics, while the public applauded him wildly. He made his first appearance in America at a concert in Carnegie Hall, New York, early in November, and achieved an immediate success.
He is a tall and rather awkward boy, but all his awkwardness disappears as soon as he begins to play. He produces from his instrument a very beautiful tone, and he always plays in tune, which shows that his ear is correct, and that his left hand has been trained carefully. But what is of more importance is that he plays with a great deal of feeling, and with an insight into the emotional meaning of the music which is altogether uncommon in so young a person. It is an interesting fact that Hubermann comes from Poland, which has produced so many admirable musicians. Among those who are familiar to living music-lovers are Paderewski, the great pianist, Jean and Edouard de Reszké, the famous singers, and young Josef Hofmann, who created so great a sensation when he gave his piano concerts at the age of ten.
Perhaps, however, we would do well to remember that all the musical genius of the world does not belong to those who are born on the other side of the Atlantic. To be sure, we are likely to incline to the opinion that it does, when we read about Mozart and Hofmann and other "wonderful children," as the Germans call them. But American boys and girls are just as full of artistic possibilities as those born abroad. And sometimes intelligence and hard work accomplish wonders even in music. Pasta, the famous soprano, had a very poor voice to begin with, and in our own time Lillian Norton, a Maine farmer's daughter, has made herself one of the foremost singers of the world just by study, and she is now famous everywhere as Madame Nordica. Now comes the story of Leonora Jackson, a California girl, who has carried off one of the great musical prizes of Germany.