which the merchants refused to accept, until all their houses and stock had been confiscated by the Khalifa. Gallows were erected at several places, and the frequency of their use loudly proclaimed the character of the Khalifa's rule.

The most striking object in Omdurmân was the Mahdi's Tomb, which was 36 feet square and 30 feet high, and had walls 6 feet thick. Above this was a hexagonal wall, 15 feet high, and above this rose a dome about 40 feet high; thus the whole building was 85 feet high. The tomb was built by the Khalifa, who compelled every man to help in the transport of the stones necessary for the work. The inside was lit by ten large arched windows in the square portion and by six skylights in the hexagonal portion; a small dome surmounted each corner. The whole building was whitewashed, and was surrounded by a trellis-work fence. Over the place in the ground where the Mahdî was buried stood a wooden sarcophagus covered with black cloth, and above it was suspended an immense chandelier stolen from the Palace at Khartum. For years Muḥammadans were compelled to make a pilgrimage to the Mahdi's tomb instead of the Hagg, or pilgrimage to Mekka, the Holy City. The dome of the tomb was struck by a shell from a gunboat during the bombardment of Omdurmân, and a large hole was made in one side of it; subsequently further damage was done to the whole building and it soon fell into ruins. It was, however, quite a mistake to suppose that the Arabs believed the influence of the Mahdi to be overthrown because his town was in the hands of the British; on the contrary, fanatics of all sorts crowded to it as a place of pilgrimage, and prayed there for a new manifestation of the dead man's power, which, they thought, was incarnate in the Khalifa. This being so, the notables among the Muhammadans in the district asked that the Mahdi's body might be destroyed, and the destruction of his tomb completed. Thereupon the Mahdi's body was taken out of his grave and burned, and the ashes were

thrown into the river; the head is said to have been in the possession of a British soldier, and afterwards to have been buried at Wâdî Ḥalfa. To have allowed the tomb to stand in a perfect state over the body of the Mahdî would have been a fatal error in administration, and the native population of the Sûdân would never have understood the action otherwise than as the result of fear on the part of the responsible Government officials.

Besides the remains of the Khalifa's buildings there is little of interest in Omdurmân, but the bazaars are beginning to be worth a visit, for the products of Central Africa are slowly filtering into them from the south. The native leather and silver work is particularly good. The battle-field of Kerreri, where the Khalifa's army of 40,000 men was practically destroyed by Lord Kitchener on September 2nd, 1898, is about seven miles to the north of Omdurmân.

A pleasant afternoon's ride may be taken to Kerreri and Gebel Surkab, about seven miles north of Omdurmân. At the former place the Egyptian cavalry, the British Horse Artillery, and the Camel Corps were posted on September 2nd, 1898; they were charged at 6. 30 a.m. by the Dervishes, who came on in two bodies, and were supported by Bakkâra horsemen, but by 8 a.m. the greater number of them were killed, and the remainder retired to the hills about three miles distant. The body of Dervishes led by the Khalifa's son Yakub, Shêkh ad-Dîn, numbered 10,000. On the night of September 1st the Khalifa bivouacked his army. of some 40,000 men behind Gebel Surkab, and the next morning divided his force into three sections; one of these attacked the front and left of the Sirdar's position, the second moved on to the Kerreri Heights with the view of enveloping his right, and the third, under the Khalifa himself, remained behind Gebel Surkab ready to fall on the

*

Commonly called Gebel Surgam.

L

Sirdar's flank as he advanced to Omdurmân. About 9.30 General Macdonald found himself faced by a strong body of Dervishes, some 20,000 in number, and commanded by the Khalifa himself; he at once halted, and deployed into line to the front to meet the attack. Whilst he was receiving and disposing of this attack, he suddenly found that the Dervishes under the Shekh ad-Din and ‘Ali Wäd Helu were advancing upon him from the Kerreri Heights, and that both his front and rear were threatened, and that he was also in danger of being outflanked. He at once moved some of his battalions to the right, and deployed them into line, so as to form with the remainder of his brigade a sort of arrowhead, one side facing north and the other west. With the help of Lewis's and Wauchope's brigades this second and determined attack was, crushed, and “the "masterly way in which Macdonald handled his force was "the theme of general admiration." Maxwell's and Lyttelton's brigades pushed on over the slopes of Gebel Surkab, driving before them the remainder of the Dervish forces, and cutting off the retreat on Omdurmân. The battle was then practically over. About 10,800 Dervishes were counted dead on the battlefield, and for some time after the battle groups of skeletons could be seen marking the spots where they were mown down by the awful rifle fire of the British and Egyptian troops, and the shell-fire from the gunboats. On the day following the battle numerous parties of British and Egyptian soldiers were told off to bury the dead, and of the 16,000 wounded Dervishes from 6,000 to 7,000 were treated in the hospital which Hassan Effendi Zeki improvised in Omdurmân. Visitors to the battlefield of Surkab-Kerreri may even to this day find weapons and small objects belonging to those who were killed there.

Five miles up stream from Omdurmân, on a tongue of land formed by the union of the Blue and White Niles, stands Khartum, in lat. 15° 36′ N. long. 32° 32' East; the name

Shendî, destroyed Prince Ismâ 'îl and his companions by burning down the house in which they were dining. Khartûm was the centre of the slave trade, and its merchants waxed rich through it; the Turkish officials took care to participate

means 'trunk of an elephant,' and the town was thus called because the tongue of land on which it stands resembled this object. Khartûm was founded between 1820 and 1823 by the sons of Muḥammad 'Alî, soon after Nimr, the Shekh of

in the profits, and they abused their power to the utmost. The Mahdi's rebellion was, at the beginning, the natural protest against Turkish misrule and veniality as illustrated by the awful success of the slave trade. In 1884 General Gordon went to Khartûm to withdraw the Egyptian garrison, but very soon after the city was besieged by the Mahdi and his followers, and Gordon's position became desperate: famine, too, stared him in the face, for he distributed daily among the destitute in the city the supplies which would have been ample for the garrison.

On January 15th, 1885, Faragalla, the commander of the loyal troops in the fort of Omdurmân, capitulated to the Dervishes, and the whole of that town received the Mahdi's pardon. During the whole of January Gordon continued to feed all the people in Khartûm; "for that he had, no doubt, "God's reward, but he thereby ruined himself and his "valuable men. Everyone was crying out for bread, and "the stores were almost empty" (Slatin, Fire and Sword, p. 338). On the night of January 25th, Gordon ordered a display of fireworks in the town to distract the people's attention, and in the early dawn of the 26th the Mahdists crossed the river, and, swarming up the bank of the White Nile where the fortifications had not been finished, conquered the Egyptian soldiers, who made but feeble resistance, and entered the town. Numbers of Egyptians were massacred, but the remainder laid down their arms, and, when the Mahdists had opened the gates, marched out to the enemy's camp. The Dervishes rushed to the Palace, where Gordon stood on the top of the steps leading to the diwân, and in answer to his question, "Where is your master, the Mahdi?" their leader plunged his huge spear into his body. He fell forward, was dragged down the steps, and his head having been cut off was sent over to the Mahdi in Omdurmân. The fanatics then rushed forward and dipped their spears and swords in his blood, and in a