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Letters from 
 
 Khartoum 
 
 WRITTEN DURING THE SIEGE 
 
 BY THE LATE 
 
 FRANK POWER 
 
 |t.B.M. s acting-consul; correspondent for the "times," etc. etc. 
 
 LONDON 
 SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE & RIVINGTON 
 
 I CROWN BUILDINGS, i88 FLEET STREET 
 
 1885 
 \^ All rights reserved'] 
 
Xi^tTZ^ 
 
I 
 
 VT\o8, 
 f4 
 
 PEEFACE. 
 
 I HAVE been induced to publish the following 
 letters, not from any idea of their literary 
 merit — they pretend to none — but because I 
 feel certain that every Englishman at this 
 moment is anxious to receive any items of 
 information that can be gleaned about General 
 Gordon and his gallant defence of Khartoum. 
 
 An account, however hastily written, and 
 comprising however short a period, when given 
 by one who was present and saw wdiat things 
 were done; who shared the dangers of the 
 siege with England's latest hero and his brave 
 lieutenant, Colonel Stewart; who enjoyed 
 Gordon's confidence, and who was capable of 
 understanding and appreciating what he saw, 
 should surely be of great interest to every one. 
 These conditions the account contained in my 
 brother's letters fulfil. He was in Khartoum 
 
 6323 
 
4 PREFACE. 
 
 from the ist August, 1883, until the loth 
 September, 1884, ^-nd, as stated in a recent 
 article in the Times, "it was almost exclusively 
 through Mr. Power's despatches that England 
 and Europe first of all learnt of the disaster 
 which befell Hicks Pacha's army, the triumph 
 of the Mahdi, and the gradual closing of the 
 enemy around Khartoum. Afterwards it was 
 from him we had the graphic and stirring 
 accounts of General Gordon's arrival, of his 
 energetic efforts to establish order and to keep the 
 hostile tribes around him at bay ; of his victories 
 and his misfortunes ; of the valour of his Bedouin 
 foes, and the treachery and cowardice of his 
 Turkish and Egyptian troops." And, again, after 
 nearly half a year's silence (and what message 
 could tell of the closeness of the siege more 
 than did that silence ?) it was his voice, " which," 
 says the Globe, "the English people had learned 
 to trust for an authentic account of affairs at 
 Khartoum," that once more made itself heard, 
 and on the 29th September last a telegram from 
 him was published in the Times, which carried 
 the story of the siege down to the 31st July, 
 
PREFACE. 5 
 
 1884. Could, then, any further information 
 from him, however slight, be without general 
 interest ? 
 
 I have said the letters are free from any literary 
 pretensions. Written for his home circle only — 
 some of them in illness, some of them piecemeal 
 and at intervals between daily duties, some of 
 them in hurried moments to catch an unexpected 
 post — they are naturally careless in style. Then 
 so thoughtful of those at home was he, so ever 
 present were they in his mind, that in many of 
 his letters allusions to home and to us all are 
 so intermixed (by comparisons with things in our 
 knowledge only or otherwise) with the descriptive 
 matter that in omitting these the continuity of 
 the letters is broken, and they appear much more 
 disconnected than they really were in their 
 entirety. 
 
 Except for such references to family and private 
 matters, and occasionally some expressions of 
 opinion which were so mingled with as to be in- 
 s eparable from them, I have omitted nothing, and 
 not in even the slightest degree altered the text 
 of the letters. 
 
6 PREFACE. 
 
 No doubt, amid the strange surroundings and in 
 the stirring times in which he lived, he might 
 have written more fully than he did ; but it should 
 be borne in mind how he came to be in Khartoum 
 at all, and his reasons for not doing so will be 
 understood. 
 
 It was on May 17, 1883, that the late Edmond 
 'Donovan, the celebrated correspondent of the 
 Daily News, whose name will be always associated 
 with that of Merv, sailed from Gravesend in the 
 Orient steamer CuzcOy en route for Khartoum, 
 there to attach himself to Hicks Pacha's army, 
 which, having beaten the Mahdi's lieutenants at 
 Merebele, was resting there a breathing space 
 before marching on the strongholds of the arch- 
 rebel himself in Khordofan. My brother accom- 
 panied Mr. O'Donovan. Their objects were 
 similar, their purpose was partly a joint one. 
 Each was the correspondent of an English news- 
 paper, and, as such, anxious to follow the fortunes 
 of the campaign which Hicks Pacha was entering 
 upon, and to chronicle its events. But, in addi- 
 tion, they had resolved to explore the country in 
 the fullest manner, and to publish the result of 
 
PREFACE. 7 
 
 their observations in a book. In inviting my 
 brother to join him in this undertaking, Mr. 
 O'Donovan had selected one who was not without 
 qualifications for the task : ready with his pen, 
 my brother had gained also some reputation with 
 his pencil, and, though but twenty-five years of 
 age when he set out for Khartoum, he had already 
 done duty as a war correspondent on the Bulgarian 
 frontier in the late Eusso-Turkish War. 
 
 How within twelve days they crossed the desert 
 route from Suakim to Berber, and, never delaying, 
 pushed on thence to Khartoum — how they found 
 Hicks Pacha^s army there, and after a short 
 interval accompanied its march towards Khordofan 
 — all this is told in the letters which follow. 
 O'Donovan fell in the fatal field of El Obeid, but 
 my brother, saved by an illness which had made 
 his life despaired of, found himself back once 
 more in Khartoum, and, never relinquishing his 
 original design, from thence kept note and 
 account of everything that passed around him. 
 Trusting that some day his book would see 
 the light, he saw no reason to relate all his 
 experiences and observations in his letters, but 
 
8 PREFACE. 
 
 preferred rather to confine them to familiar de- 
 scriptions of matters likely to interest those whom 
 he loved at home. Hence, as I have said, his 
 letters are less full and practical in detail than 
 they might otherwise have been. 
 
 So much explanation of the circumstances in 
 which they were written, so much apology for 
 their^ shortcomings, seemed to me to be neces- 
 sary; the interest which is contained in these 
 letters, and their value, I leave to the reader's 
 judgment to estimate. 
 
 ARNOLD POWER. 
 
 50 Merrion Square, Dublin, 
 March 1885. 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 Orient E.M. Steam Ship " Cuzco," 
 OFF Plymouth, 
 
 May 1 8, 1883. 
 
 My dearest Mother, 
 
 Just a line by the shore-boat to say good- 
 bye again. O'Donovan and myself are on board, 
 en route to Ismailia, and I can only again write to 
 you at Naples. We left Gravesend yesterday. 
 We have the best state-room in the ship, which is 
 an immense one ; it brought out the Duke of 
 Connaught and his staff to Egypt. I am very well, 
 and the sea since we left has been like glass. The 
 doctor on board is brother to E. D. Gray, M.P. I 
 thought we should never leave London, we had so 
 many things to buy : saddlery, photographic appa- 
 ratus, and arms. O'Donovan presented me with 
 the best rifle London could produce. We ran 
 
 B 
 
10 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 down to Liverpool on Saturday night, as O'Dono- 
 van wanted to see some friends. We dined with 
 his brother, and came up again on Sunday night. 
 Major Howett joined us to-day ; he comes part 
 of the way with us. The food on board is very 
 good ; and the saloon is like a conservatory with 
 flowers. 
 
 You will of course remember me to all. 
 Believe that I am indeed sorry to leave you on my 
 present mission, but no doubt it is for the best. 
 Fradelle will send the photograph. I send one of 
 
 the ship. Tell A and M and all at home 
 
 that I wish them every blessing, and I'm sure 
 they do the same for me. It is almost impossible 
 to write aboard ship. In any case my time is up. 
 God bless you. Good-bye, 
 
 Yours 
 
 FRANK POWER. 
 
 Write to H.M.'s Consul, Ismailia. 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. II 
 
 Hotel Eoyal, Cairo, 
 
 June 7, 1883. 
 
 Dearest Mother, 
 
 We had to run up here four days ago to get 
 our firmans from the Khedive, and leave here for 
 Suez in two days, and thence by Eed Sea to 
 Suakim, This is a delightful place, and full of 
 English officers, but the heat is intense. One can 
 only wear the thinnest Indian silk clothing and a 
 white helmet. 
 
 This is an excellent hotel, and I found our old 
 friend J. Eogers staying here — in fact, the hotel is 
 like a barracks, and we are the only people not in 
 uniform at meals. 
 
 Coming out in the Cuzco I met a Mr. D , 
 
 whose people have been very kind to me here ; they 
 gave a little dinner for us on Monday, where we 
 met several distinguished men in command here. 
 Next day we dined with Sir E. Malet, who got us 
 our firmans, and on Wednesday, with the 35 th, the 
 guests of young Trevor (you know his people) and 
 Powell, also a Dublin man. We lunched to-day 
 with the 19th Hussars, and dined to-night with 
 Eogers' fellows. To-morrow we ride to the Pyra- 
 
 B 2 
 
12 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 mids with C , who commands the Egyptian 
 
 new Cavalry ; he is a very jolly fellow. General 
 
 S comes with us. I enjoy the sight in the 
 
 Schonraba Eoad in the evenings, when everybody 
 turns out — the native ladies in carriages, &c. 
 
 I am looking forward to the big game in Kordo- 
 fan, which I hear is the best in the world. We 
 spent a day at Port Said, and a day and a night at 
 Ismailia, which is the prettiest place I ever saw. 
 * * * * * 
 
 Good-bye. 
 
 FRANK POWER. 
 
 Khartoum, Upper Egypt, 
 August 2, 1883. 
 
 My dearest Mother, 
 
 I arrived here last evening, after a 
 fatiguing and unbroken journey of forty-three 
 days. O'Donovan was ill in Cairo, and when he 
 recovered we left Suez on an Egyptian Govern- 
 ment steamer to go down the Red Sea. It was a 
 small steamer, with 2,000 pilgrims on board — 
 men, women, and children — bound for Mecca. 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. I 3 
 
 There was not an inch of any portion of the 
 deck uncovered, and some had to stand by turns 
 to let others lie down to rest. The steamer was a 
 wretched one, the captain and crew Arabs. There 
 was not one boat. I wonder we were not burned, 
 as all the Hadjiis smoked and cooked their food 
 wherever there was any room on deck. We got 
 rid of them — Turcomans, Persians, Hindoos, 
 Syrians, Cherkees, Bedawi, and Arabs — at Jedda, 
 where we stayed three days, the guests of a Mr. 
 
 O , a wonderfully nice fellow. 
 
 Jedda is a walled and moated town ; we used 
 to almost fly to and from the ship (two miles over 
 coral reefs) in dhows with enormous sails. We 
 then went on to Suakim. The heat all the time 
 was fearful ; iron exposed to the sun burned you 
 to the bone if you accidentally touched it. Hot 
 drinking water, hot soles to your boots from the hot 
 decks, hot animals to warm your bed in the bunk, 
 and your very clothes too great a burden to bear, 
 rendered the place intolerable ; nor did the heat 
 abate when we landed. Here the natives were in 
 full dress, with a handkerchief, a bundle of charms 
 on their elbow, a spear, sword, and shield for the 
 
14 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 males, and a dish-cloth and a silver nose-ring for 
 the females. All wear sandals, but, like the Kerry 
 country girls with their shoes, generally take them 
 off when walking I 
 
 Wlien we landed we heard the war drums beat- 
 ing, and in a large space between the tents (heaps 
 of straw thrown on wattles) saw a fantasia with 
 spear, shield, and sword. These people are very 
 handsome, beautifully built, and like reddish- 
 bronze statues. Their hair is very curious. They 
 are the Haddandowahs tribe, descended, it is said, 
 from the Queen of Sheba. I never saw one of 
 them unarmed, but, though they look most fierce, 
 are gentle, civil, good-natured fellows. Their 
 tribe reaches to Berber. They are mountaineers. 
 The next morning we got a guide and four camels 
 — ^two with riding-saddles and two for baggage — 
 filled our water-skins, and set off. First day, 
 desert ; fine sand and camel-thorn (mimosa)* 
 Second day, came to water-pool — water, you 
 know, even in the Nile, is a rich, opaque, coffee- 
 colour, but water in a desert-pool is not even 
 liquid mud, and must be bailed in Uohs (like 
 custard) into the skins. Our little party of three 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUlVI. I 5 
 
 passed hundreds of natives, Arab caravans, and 
 Soudani negroes, ebony giants, a little liberal in 
 the allowance of lips and feet ; and, though all 
 armed, hurting nobody. Then we got up amongst 
 rocky, baking mountains, sandy passes, along river 
 courses, here and there a flock of goats. I am a 
 great hand at bagging, killing, and preparing a 
 sheep or goat. For eight days rock and moun 
 tain, with occasional plateaux of sand and gravel, 
 spotted with mimosa trees and bushes ; here and 
 there a gazelle (hard to hit). At one water-station, 
 we found Ariab rock well, clear water, trees, shade, 
 and sleep ; other places seem too hot for sleep at 
 midday halt. We used to go forward in the 
 morning till 10.30, and then, from 2 in the 
 afternoon till 8 o'clock, camp down ; both halts 
 make fire, and feed — tea, dates, ship-biscuits in 
 hot water, and potted meats. In the day some 
 ants (white, black, and red) and fifty other 
 insects, down your shirt-collar and everywhere, 
 like Macbeth, murdered sleep ; at night we got 
 some sleep. At first made large fires to keep off 
 wild beasts, but then thought it better to sleep in 
 the dark, as the light brought round us such very 
 
1 6 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 neighbourly desiring-to-make-your-acquaintance 
 monsters — as scorpions and tarantulas. The bite 
 of the scorpion is weeks of fever, and of the 
 tarantula generally a funeral. We killed one of 
 the latter four inches long in the body ; his legs 
 and all would just cover a small plate. I send 
 you a drawing of a scorpion I got between my 
 blouse and my vest; he is stuck by a pin on 
 the top of my helmet. They come crawling 
 over you, and will run at the smallest move- 
 ment, and not touch you if left alone ; but 
 the danger is that when half asleep you feel 
 one (generally on your face), you put up 
 your hand and brush it off; then it lets fly at 
 you. 
 
 Last two days, sand and desert, and then Berber 
 and the Nile (over a mile wide). Berber is a hole 
 of a place, but ' welcome after twelve days and 
 nights on a camel-saddle (first day on camel 
 merry h — 11). Got on wretched antiquated dirty 
 tug-boat with two barges (soldiers^ clothes, guns ; 
 eighty passeAgers sitting cross-legged on the cases), 
 and off for Khartoum. (Of course the Arab lied 
 when he said six days to Khartoum.) On this 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. \^ 
 
 tug we were burnt into holes by sparks from 
 its old wood-fire ; overrun with cockroaches and 
 " day-lighting rats," and an old scorpion come in 
 with the firewood, so we might say we got them 
 " fresh from the wood." 
 
 We " stubbed " up to the bank every evening, 
 and slept on the mud or sand till morning. 
 We also stopped for wood or whenever an Arab 
 saw an acquaintance on the bank during the day ; 
 even then the thing would not stop snorting and 
 throwing cascades of wood-sparks. The wily 
 crocodile, in all lengths, from i foot to 30, seems 
 to be the Conservancy Board of the river; and 
 there are at least a thousand different sorts of 
 storks and ibises. The niggers and Arabs are 
 always jumping overboard for something or other 
 — a bit of wood dropped or an old rag — to snatch a 
 kid, a goat, or a fowl from the bank, and then 
 swimming back and climbing in. I saw a fellow 
 jump in after a piece of lemon I threw away just 
 beside a crocodile, though that evening we had 
 lost a man (cut in two) and heard of several being 
 nipped at the villages. I suppose they get used 
 to being killed. Here and there we bought some 
 
1 8 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 fowls, a kid, a lamb, or some eggs and dates. 
 We got here after twenty-five days of the most 
 wretched steamboat torture. The sunsets on the 
 Nile, the river-side scenes, the palms, and the 
 delightful quantity of mud in the water could 
 not be rivalled. 
 
 After Berber the natives (ebony giants) wear a 
 knife strapped to the elbow as their sole clothing ; 
 the women natives, a five-inch fringe of blue and 
 white china beads strung on thread. General 
 Hicks has given us a large room in the Govern- 
 ment House, on the corridor of which the English, 
 Irish, Austrian, and South African officers in the 
 Egyptian service live. We each have a paved 
 room with a divan at one end, and two large holes 
 for windows which look out on the Mle. The 
 gallery at the door runs round a yard with a well 
 and some palm-trees with monkeys, and a convoy 
 of ;^ 4,000 worth of elephants' tusks waiting to be 
 sent down to Egypt ; and, as each tusk has a lump 
 of gum about the size of a leg of mutton stuck to 
 it, the smell is fearful. The enemy, " the False 
 Prophet," is in possession of the country ten miles 
 from this city, and in about two weeks we begin 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 19 
 
 the campaign. We await some rain, 6,000 men, 
 and a battery. A propos of rain, one night on the 
 way up we had a Niagara on our heads, and had, 
 we might say, to dodge the forked lightning for 
 hours. The Nile is now at its highest, and roars 
 along at the rate of a railway train. We are just 
 at the junction of the Blue and White Niles. We 
 ^ascend the Wliite one to Kawa and on to El Obeid. 
 The heat here is fearful. My hands are so moist 
 I can hardly keep this paper together. When 
 writing, direct as above. I have not been frightened 
 at your long silence, as I knew you did not know 
 where to find us. In the desert and on the river 
 I've always been thinking of you all at home, and 
 hoping for a letter when I reached Khartoum. In 
 this curious place, with its stately Arabs in their 
 flowing white robes, and its niggers with their 
 shining brown skins and deep black ones, it is 
 queer to think of Merrion Square, but I often do 
 so. I have just now heard a man with a tom-tom 
 proclaiming that, if they get twenty letters, a post 
 will start in an hour; therefore I hasten to get 
 this off, though I could spin this yarn out for 
 a week. 
 
20 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 .... Excuse this hasty letter ; I have not time 
 to read it over. 
 
 ***** 
 
 FRANK POWER. 
 
 Khartoum, 
 
 September i, 1883. 
 
 Dearest Arnold, 
 
 I am well, notwithstanding the bad water and 
 the confounded heat, and am now busy, as in 
 three days we march on a campaign that even the 
 most sanguine look forward to with the greatest 
 gloom. We have here 9,000 infantry that fifty good 
 men would rout in ten minutes ; and 1,000 cavalry 
 (Bashi-Bazouks) that have never learned even to 
 ride, and these, with a few IsTordenfeldt guns, are 
 to beat the 69,000 men the Mahdi has got together. 
 We go by the White Mle to El Douam (Duem), 
 where a large hollow square will be formed, with 
 5,000 camels in the centre. In this form we will 
 set out for El Obeid, about 250 miles. 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 21 
 
 r 
 
 P ^ That Egyptian officers and men are not worth 
 the ammunition they throw away is well known, 
 and the few black regiments we have will be left 
 to garrison this place, as the Arabs and towns- 
 people fear them. We will have a machine gun 
 at each corner of the square. 
 
 The first stage is fifty miles to a desert well, 
 which at best times cannot supply many, and here 
 12,000 men, close on 6,000 camels, and 3,000 
 horses, mules, and donkeys are to be watered ; 
 if, as the spies report, the well is poisoned or filled 
 up by the Mahdi, we can never struggle back 
 on our tracks, but must die there. Each well 
 will, of course, be occupied by the Mahdi's men, 
 and must be fought for. The Mahdi, within 
 eighteen months, has won all along the line 
 (except at Marabele, where Hicks beat his lieu- 
 tenant), and during that time has taken prisoners 
 or killed 16,000 Egyptian soldiers, taken 7,000 
 Eemington rifles, 487,900 packets (of twelve each) 
 of cartridges, eighteen guns, and one rocket battery. 
 The spies report that the Arab officers he captured 
 at El Obeid have become instructors ; so, really, he 
 has thousands of soldiers as well armed as ours. 
 
22 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 and he has gun practice daily. His 6,000 cavalry 
 are banded together by oath, and if fifty of them 
 get into our square, or one shell fall amongst our 
 5,000 camels, the whole thing is up. The people 
 here believe that Mahomet Achmet is the real 
 Mahdi foretold in the Koran, as he answers to 
 the description, even to the mark on his nose; 
 and even our own officers and men (a cowardly, 
 beggarly mob) believe that he is a prophet, and 
 are less than half-hearted in the business, so that 
 the ruffianly though brave Bashi-Bazouks and the 
 niggers are the only men to be relied on. 
 
 Every day, manifestoes from the Mahdi are 
 stopped here. Three hundred miles away, on the 
 desert route which we crossed from Suakim to 
 Berber, 700 miles from the Mahdi's theatre of 
 operations, his envoys have raised the natives, 
 and 3,000 reinforcements and stores coming up 
 from the Eed Sea were beaten back and seized, so 
 you see that 200 miles in our rear our communica- 
 tions are stopped ; however, a dromedary-post goes 
 by Assuan and Assiout, and by it this letter goes. 
 
 It is very dull here on the banks of the Blue 
 Nile, We have a large room in the Staff House 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 23 
 
 and a kitchen, and, as we have brought three 
 slaves, are pretty comfortable. Our old cook is a 
 Niam-Niam cannibal converted to Islamism, who 
 has been to Mecca — she is a great character. The 
 slave trade is in full swing here again, there being 
 over 27,000 registered slaves here ; they are very 
 well treated, and are always happy, and I would 
 like them only for their infernal tom-toming all 
 night under the palms outside. They seem to sing 
 and dance all night, and are representatives of all 
 the races of Central Africa. We have here on the 
 staff of General Hicks, who is a wonderfully good 
 fellow, Colonel Farquhar, Colonel de Coetlogan, 
 Major Evans, interpreter. Baron de Sheckendorff, 
 Major von Herlt, Major Massey, Major Warner, 
 Captain Matyuga. Martin Walker and Colborne 
 are invalided back to Cairo. We nearly all live 
 together, but my chum. Von Herlt, has gone over 
 the river to take command of the cavalry. We 
 have our tent, food for three months (we can only 
 march seven miles a day), camels, &c., and two 
 dromedaries, or quick camels, for riding, ready. All 
 letters sent to Khartoum will come on. Every 
 night when we halt there will be a zereba, or thick 
 
24 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 rampart of thorns, put round the square, and, out- 
 side this, wires stretched to trip the natives, and 
 the whole ground strewn with crows' feet (caltorps) 
 — eight iron spikes in a cluster — to tickle the bare 
 feet of the Kordofani. I believe their rush is won- 
 derful ; they had only their spears and shields in 
 the other battles, and, in spite of the Nordenfeldts, 
 Eemingtons, &c., they swept over the square. At 
 Mirabele they reached within six yards of the 
 square, in the face of 7,000 breech-loaders and the 
 artillery. 
 
 I am not ashamed to say I feel the greatest 
 sympathy for them, and every race that fights 
 against the rule of Pachas, backsheesh, bribery, 
 robbery, and corruption. I pity Hicks ; he is an 
 able, good, and energetic man, but he has to do 
 with wretched Egyptians, who take a pleasure in 
 being incompetent, thwarting one, delaying, and 
 lying. We heard here to-day that James Carey 
 had been shot, and the Duke of Marlborough is 
 dead ; so you see we are not out of the world. 
 An old newspaper here is worth a pound. I 
 think^ if one had something to read, it would take 
 his mind off this Nile water-rash, with which we 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 2$ 
 
 are all covered, and which occupies one's undi- 
 vided attention to scratch. I don't think I sleep 
 one night in ten from it. I am very tliin, but in 
 excellent health (barring the rash), which here is 
 a sign of rude health, and have a black beard, 
 which I wear a, la Vandyke ; my hair cut as short 
 as possible. I wear a pair of long boots, riding- 
 breeches, a white tunic and necktie, a solar 
 helmet, with a crimson silk puggaree, and a 
 crimson cummerbund under my belt. If you 
 / leave- oft' this latter you would be at once down 
 with dysentery. We are very natty and tidy 
 here, and the fellow^s turn out as neat as if they 
 w^re 'going to an "at-home." There is an 
 Austrian Mission here, and it is so queer to hear 
 the chapel-bell ringing the Angelus each day 
 among the palm-trees, and above the clatter 
 of Arabs, slaves, naked men and women, 
 and the cries of tropical birds. We hope to rescue 
 some of the priests and two nuns who are with 
 the Malidi, but the belief is they are killed. The 
 Mission garden is a I^iradise, and their chapel a 
 little gem. Their schools are attended by slaves, 
 and they do a great deal of good here. The rest 
 
 C 
 
26 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 of the European colony consist of Greek mer- 
 chants, a d — d lot of Jews who would rob their 
 grandmothers. Excuse mistakes in this letter, as 
 outside the window soldiers are loading the barges 
 with food, &c., and, along with the water-carriers, 
 women washing, Arab bo}\s fighting, are inaking 
 an infernal din, and Sheckendorff has his feet upoiL 
 the table singing a German version of La-di-da. 
 I can't tell how anxious I am to hear about all 
 at home 
 
 Yours, 
 
 FEANK POWEE. 
 
 Khartoum, 
 
 Odoher 9, 1883. 
 
 Dearest Mother, 
 
 It would be impossible to describe my feel- 
 ings on getting home-letters yesterday, particu- 
 larly as I had just been on the point of never 
 hearing from any of }'ou in this world again. 
 
 Your and 's letters I'm sure have done me 
 
 more C'ood than all tlie medicine tlie Arab doctor, 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 2^ 
 
 Fadlaheen bey Effendi, can give me, and I now feel 
 
 better 
 
 However, first I must tell you how I come to be 
 back here. After a month's stay in Khartoum, 
 where I made hosts of friends, we, with all the 
 staff", crossed the White Nile to Onderman, to 
 commence our long march to El Obeid, the capital 
 of the Kordofan (you will find both marked on the 
 atlas). The next morning we set out with S,ooo 
 to 6,000 camels (a nice lot to bring through a 
 hostile country), 9,000 men, 1,000 cavalry, 2 
 Krupp batteries, Nordenfeldts, and 20 light guns. 
 I travelled on a splendid dromedary given me by 
 Aladeen Pacha, the Governor- General, but, either 
 from heat or the water-skins, &c.^ on the third day 
 I was down with dysentery. The doctor with the 
 staff knew nothing, and I got weaker and weaker, 
 and next day had to be led on a horse with two 
 soldiers to hold me on. There was no ambulance, 
 and the Mahdi's cavalry were hovering behind, so 
 no person could be left even to rest. It wasn't 
 pleasant for a person who could not walk to have 
 to sit up under 127 degrees of heat, no shade, and 
 a knowledge that every drop of water one drunk 
 
 C 2 
 
28 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 made him worse. On the fifth day I had to be put 
 on one of the Krupp cannons, whicli eight horses 
 drew over rocks, stones, trunks of trees, &c., so it 
 was no easy mode of travelling. At last we got to 
 Uuaime (Duem), a port on the Nile, after a 250- 
 mile march. On the arrival of Georges Bey, 
 Surgeon-General to the Soudan, he at once told 
 the General to send me back to Khartoum, as I 
 was utterly unfit for another day's march, so four 
 soldiers carried me down to the BourdaiUy the 
 Governor-General's steamer, and in two days I 
 was back in Khartoum, where an Arab doctor (an 
 excellent one) nearly cured me, along with the 
 great care and nursing Colonel de Coetlogan gave 
 me. He is in command here, and is the only 
 Englishman here now ; he has lodged me in the 
 Palace. He had to go in the steamer to patrol the 
 White Nile. He did not like to leave me alone, 
 and, as the doctor said the change of air would do 
 me good, he took me with him. We left this day 
 week. I had everything I wanted, but the first 
 day out I got a relapse, and up to yesterday w^as 
 very bad. We have just come back here, but I 
 cannot yet walk, and write this lying down on my 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 29 
 
 angerib or wicker-bed. I was very low-spirited at 
 being invalided back, and so losing all chance of 
 fighting, but De Coetlogan is such a good fellow 
 and has been so kind to me he has quite cheered 
 me up. ISTow that I am stronger I've sent a column 
 and a-half to the Twies,and^ii I am able, to-morrow 
 will send another letter to them, and I've sent 
 
 off a lot of sketches to the Fidoricd I 
 
 get on very well with the Arabs, and must try and 
 perfect myself in Arabic. You would scarcely 
 know me. I now weigh 9 stone ; three months ago 
 I was 14 stone 5. I have taken off my beard, and 
 my face is laughably thin. We (De Coetlogan and 
 self) went in the steamer away to the Shilloke 
 savage country beyond Kordofan and back here. 
 We had 100 soldiers and two guns with us, and cap- 
 tured five of the Mahdi's boats after a smart fire. 
 I am very sorry not to be up with the column, as 
 to-day or to-morrow there will be a great battle^ 
 but we can get no man to venture on a dromedary 
 with the post to the army, as the last was caught 
 and i3ut into an ant-hill alive. Tell Arnold to 
 look up a file of the Times a week or two before 
 you get this, as there is more news in it, for, though 
 
30 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 I am only writing for ten minutes at a time, I am 
 not strong enough to go on much longer. Send 
 me as many papers as you can, as I must lie on 
 my back all day watching the flies, and have 
 nothing to read. I saw about Lord L-^ — in a 
 Vanity Fair the General lent me in camp. 
 
 The climate of Khartoum is lovely, always 
 shade from the palm and lemon trees. I told you 
 before about the Austrian Mission, where there is 
 Mass every morning ; I hear the bells ringing now 
 for the office for Pater Franciscus, who died (I hear) 
 yesterday. The Mahdi put a lot of them to death 
 at El Obeid. The Archbishop of Central Africa 
 lives here, and there is a convent of Sisters of 
 Mercy, who are greatly beloved by the Arabs. I 
 fear you will think this letter very egotistical, but 
 I know you take an interest in all that concerns me. 
 
 I was glad to getM 's budget of home news. Ee- 
 
 member me to Mr. and Mrs. M . I was so sorry 
 
 he was beaten in his election by a Land Leaguer. 
 Excuse this straggling letter ; but, as my soldier 
 servant, who sits up with me at niglit, says : 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 3 I 
 
 " Ham-d-il-illah fi bocqra quies." (With God's 
 mercy, I will be better to-morrow.) 
 
 /R" y^ v^ v^ y^ 
 
 FKAKK POWEB. 
 
 PS. — Friday, October ii, 1883. — As the post 
 does not go until to-day, I have kept back my 
 scrawl until the last. I am much better, and am 
 getting stronger day by day, and hope to be able 
 to leave with Colonel de Coetlogan on Sunday for 
 another trip on the river. To-day is the first day 
 of the great Mussulman feast, the Bairam, and 
 the troops are marching past to a review, and 
 cannons are banging in all directions. As the 
 Pachas and Beys went past with their staffs they 
 all pulled up to say " Salaam," and to hope I w^as 
 'better, and each sent a slave the first thing in the 
 morning with a bouquet of flowers, and to hope, as 
 it was a feast, that Allah would make me well. I 
 have not for six days, until to-day, taken anything 
 but milk and lemon with sugar and water. To- 
 day De Coetlogan sent me down a tin of Crosse and 
 Blackwell's oatmeal, and I had a splendid dish of 
 stirabout and milk. Old Hadji a (the cook) tells \y^ 
 
32 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 me she used to make it for Sir Samuel and Lady 
 Baker every morning when they were travelling 
 through Africa. ^^ Ijia and the soldier are going off 
 to the feast. I gave her a string of yellow glass beads 
 for her bald head ; she says she is only sixty-five, 
 but hopes the beads will get her a husband (she is 
 a widow since 1850). The row outside is fearful ; 
 the niggers all tom-toming and banjoing like mad, 
 with new pieces of linen round them (their only 
 clothing). Though they are all slaves and pagans, 
 they really seem to enter into all the Mussulman 
 festivals as if they were made for them. Hadjia 
 is a Niam-Niam cannibal ; but has been for fifty 
 years, since Petterick freed her, a Mussulman, and 
 at her own expense took the pilgrimage to Mecca, 
 and then went to see Constantinople. She has 
 made a lot of money (she was cook to Gordon and 
 Baker Pachas), and she lets it out at 50 per cent, 
 to other blacks ; and she has six slaves for hire at 
 three dollars a month ; yet she cooks, washes, &c., 
 for me at two dollars, and if she gets an old 
 bottle or meat tin she is off to sell it for a 
 farthing. 
 
 She gets me things very cheaply, as the people 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 33 
 
 in tlie bazaar are afraid of her tongue. She 
 slanged Ibraham Pacha this morning for calling 
 out at the window while I was asleep ; she is 
 quite a character, and smokes a short red clay 
 pipe all day, and says her prayers every ten 
 minutes. There is a post here to-day; I am 
 eagerly looking forward to letters 
 
 7 o'clock P.M. 
 
 The chief of the Austrian Mission has just sent 
 me 100 fresh limes from their garden for 
 lemonade, which is most acceptable. Thousands 
 of natives are crossing the Blue Nile, under my 
 windows, to a great fantasia or fete in the village 
 on the other side. The little boats with their 
 enormous white sails are laden almost to sinking. 
 Hadjia, who has turned up wdth an enormous 
 drum and a sleeping mat, has got the halfpenny 
 for the ferry money from me, and is gone over to 
 howl and dance till 4 o'clock in the morning ; she 
 has about half a pound of tobacco in an old rag 
 and a box of matches, and says 'tis the happiest 
 day in her life. She has seven grandchildren 
 with lier, all as black as jet, and each for its 
 
34 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 entire dress a string of beads on its neck and a 
 ring in the side of its lijj or nose. Until kids 
 are twelve or thirteen here, they go without any 
 clothing whatever. 
 
 * * eij * * 
 
 FRANK POWER. 
 
 Khartoum, 
 
 Octoher27, 1883. 
 Dearest Maiiy, 
 
 As in my last letter to mother I told her 
 of my illness, I know both you and she will be 
 anxious to hear how I am. After forty days' severe 
 illness, I am now getting on like " a house on fire." 
 I'm as strong as ever on the pins, and walk a great 
 deal, as the weather has, owing to the commence- 
 ment of the north winds, become delightfully 
 cool, yet the middle hours of the day, from 5 
 o'clock to 10 o'clock (in European time from 
 1 1 A.M. to 4 P.M.), are too hot for a person to 
 venture out. A cool wind is alwavs blowinc^ 
 from the Nile now, and the l3oats, with their 
 numerous white wing-like sails, are scudding up 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 3 5 
 
 from the north. As I write T have a weight on 
 the paper to keep it from blowing away (a thing 
 you will hardly believe of Africa), and also to 
 keep the enormous black ants that infest this 
 house from dragging it away I (this is an exagger- 
 ation). I am alone here. Colonel de Coetlogan is 
 on the White Nile with his steamer; he goes 
 away every Sunday and returns every Saturday. 
 I was not well enough to go with him the last 
 two trips, and, as there is now no one here who 
 speaks English, it is so much the better for my 
 Arabic, which I already speak as well as I do 
 German. It might enable me to get a Consulship 
 hereafter. I think on Sunday De Coetlogan will 
 go up the Elue Nile to Sennaar as far as the Abys- 
 sinian frontier ; if so, I will go for the change. 
 It is now thirty-two days since Hicks Pacha and 
 his immense army marched from Duem, where I 
 left, and since then not one loord, good or had, has 
 been heard of him or Ids 11,000 men. The 
 " word of mouth " among tlie tribes travels quick 
 as telegraph, yet no news. AYhen it comes it 
 must be good, as no such army has ever been 
 seen before in those parts. If it is bad, we, 
 
36 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 Cliristians, Turks, and Cairo Arabs here, will not 
 have ten minutes to live, as the Arabs here are 
 to a man secretly for the Mahdi. Passing my 
 windows they called out to me, " Have you heard 
 from your General yet ? " — under the very nose of 
 my guard-room, for at my gate I am master of 
 the bodies and souls of a sergeant and twenty-five 
 six-foot nigger regulars, who " turn out " if I go 
 in or out. 
 
 I am up at 4 o'clock (franghi time) every 
 morning, have my cup of tea, and go to sit in the 
 big place or square until 10 o'clock under the 
 great palm-tree of Polycratus. At the cafe I 
 meet the Pachas and Beys and see about 1,000 
 Arabs, niggers, slaves, and others doing their 
 marketing along the stalls and booths of the bazaar. 
 It is a picture no description or sketch could give 
 you an idea of, from the Arab of the desert on his 
 dromedary to the serpent-charmer, or from the der- 
 vish or to the passing Pacha on his ass^ every one 
 bargaining over fruit, fish, flesh, and firewood, and 
 above all the voices you can catch Hadjia's ; she 
 is a great connaisseuse of sheep or cow slaughter- 
 ing, and must see four or five killed before ^lie . 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 3/ 
 
 sees a joint to her liking, and she is splendid at 
 knocking a farthing off a quartern loaf, or its equi- 
 valent here. I do my sketches and write to the 
 Times during the hours which the sun keeps me 
 indoors, and pray that I may soon get other 
 papers from home. I got your 3fail last Sun- 
 day, and now know it by heart. I thought I 
 was once again speaking to Dr, Shaw, F.T.C.U., 
 when I read the leader. This is the Arab Sabbath, 
 and the niggers, with their tom-toms, on the ships 
 outside are hard at work, so I'm "well-nigh 
 moidered " while I write, but generally it is very 
 quiet and solitary here. The river, the desert 
 beyond, the palm-trees, and everything, even to 
 the ships and costumes (unchanged since the 
 waves were stilled on Galilee), serve to remind one 
 that there is a good God, but the ignorance, the 
 mind-darkness, and the wretchedness of the people 
 sometimes make one think that God has forgotten 
 or turned His back on this land of misfortune, but, 
 on reflection, when one sees all that is good here, 
 it only makes him think how great and inscrut- 
 able His ways are, and one (if one has a heart) must 
 remember that in justice God will save all these poor 
 
3o LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 people, who never had a chance of knowing Him, 
 and who live as well as Nature teaches them, and, as 
 Mussulmen, never transgress the laws of the only 
 religion God has permitted them to know. If the 
 Irish tenant were here, would he take twenty years 
 more of life and exchange with him ? If they wish 
 to grow corn they must pay for permission to do so, 
 pay for liberty to take water from the broad Nile 
 (without which the land is a sand desert), and 
 pay for liberty to sell the corn. If the crop is 
 good, pay double taxes (one for the private purse 
 of the Pacha and one for the Government at 
 Cairo). If they don't grow the corn they can't 
 pay the taxes at all, and are kourbashed (good 
 hippopotamus hide) and put into prison. No 
 matter how they make a few piastres, the drago- 
 man of some Bey or Pacha will steal it for his 
 master. They frequently pull down huts and 
 tear up yards and fields to find where the coins 
 are hidden. If the peasant buys a few rags for 
 his wife or child, or mends a hole in his hut to 
 keep out the sun, he is told he must have got 
 money somewhere, and he is doubly taxed, and 
 after all his sole possessions are a hut made of 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 39 
 
 nmcl and river reeds, a rush angerib or bed, a rush 
 mat, and an earthen pot. If God gives him this 
 poverty-stricken life, one remembers that He has 
 also taught him to consider raw or boiled corn, 
 now and then a bit of fish or meat and some water, 
 food for a king, and never to desire any more, for 
 envy and ambition are unknown here. I wish 
 some of the Irish agitators had a year of it. If 
 you were in tlie bazaars liere you would see a 
 thousand and one things you would like to set off 
 your house with (not to be got at home, but of no 
 value here), but the distance forbids their trans- 
 mission. 
 
 Talking of buying, I have just sj)ent four 
 dollars and bought out and liberated a very 
 handsome little slave servant who was fearfully 
 beaten by his master, and the little wretch has 
 come and asked me to let him be a slave again, 
 as then he would have no anxiety as to how he 
 could get his food. As, by law, he is mine, I have 
 taken him on, and given him an old flannel shirt 
 and a fez. When he came to mc he was stark 
 naked, with two verses of the Koran rolled in raw 
 ]iid(3 tied to lii.^ ankles to prevent liim in tlie dark 
 
40 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUIVr. 
 
 from falling into a pit or well. He has, like all 
 his tribe, more intelligence than a young Newton. 
 As a Dinka savage, he believed in an unknown 
 God, who would one day come to regenerate the 
 world; as a Mussulman slave, he was told to 
 believe in Allah, but he says the Turkish Allah 
 only gave him a raw back and the kourbash every 
 morning, and an earthen floor to sleep on; he was 
 told to believe that our God was Aba-el-Kanzir, 
 the father of all pigs. 
 
 He is eight years old, and I have spent four 
 hours in my limited Arabic trying to explain to 
 him about our God and what He had done for us, 
 but it would have puzzled a theologian to answer 
 the questions this brat put to me, but I hope to 
 have him baptized before very long, and, as he is 
 able to shave me every morning, help Hadjia, who 
 calls him the " father of all dogs," and even beat 
 her at a bargain in the bazaar, I will keep him. 
 'He thinks, if he becomes a Christian, and goes 
 with me to England, he will become wliite and 
 have a moustache. As, before I had him two 
 hours he had called Michaelovich Bey, the Alba- 
 nian Colonel of Police, a fool because he wore a 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 4 1 
 
 beard, stood on his head in the balcony while I was 
 bowing at the window to the Pacha, and slanged 
 every nigger sailor on the ships outside, I have 
 christened him the '' enfant terrible !' He has just 
 eaten my last pot of Crosse and Blackwell's green- 
 gage jam, but when I get him into shape he will 
 be a treasure, as he is very much attached to me. 
 He has no relative in the world. The brains and 
 intelligence of these poor savages are wonderful ; 
 yet though made to be a leading race, they have 
 no hope beyond being slaves, eating four pounds 
 of elephant or hippopotamus flesh at a sitting, and 
 some day "entering the crocodile^s stomach" — so 
 
 they call dying You must be sick of Soudani 
 
 politics now, so I will drop it. To show you the 
 dulness here, I send you a few days torn from 
 my diary, little to enter and no secrets to let out. 
 The " enfant terrible " proposes new excitements 
 every ten minutes, such as "If the Hadjia will 
 take a felae [small boat], at two groschen, and 
 come to the Sand Island at Undurman, I will 
 show him where an old crocodile is watching her 
 eggs. Her tail will be good roasted with locusts ; " 
 or '' Effendi, outside the city at the stork's tree 
 
 D 
 
4Z LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 there is a great serpent ; I'll carry the axe, and 
 serpents' glurba [soup] is splendid " (gniesse) ; but 
 the E. T. — whose name, by-the-way, is Islamann — ^ 
 is disregarded, and I am lowered in the estimation 
 of this slave, whose only garment when on his feet 
 is a red shirt, but who by standing on his head 
 ten-minutely returns to his original full-dress 
 nakedness. I am often mean enouojh to remind 
 him that he cost me the price of a small loaf of 
 sugar, and it is whiter than he is, but he winks 
 and puts in his " Mafi min sukerich " (but not so 
 sweet). These things pass my day. It is night 
 while I write this, and the dogs, frogs, and donkey 
 are bursting their lungs to make a Handel Festival 
 outside, and the crickets in the room chime in as 
 a triangle at the end of each bar. A Greek gen- 
 tleman (the worse of the bottle) has just come in, 
 but, as they are mostly robbers, I gave him a 
 cigarette and wished Kaleo Noetic, as he says, and 
 told the sergeant to show him out — the worst of 
 having a light on your balcony. 
 
 Saturday. — There is no more news to tell. 
 Excuse my writing ; my letter last night was 
 finished by the light of the moon and the wind 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 43 
 
 blowing the paper about. I hope to have some 
 
 letters to-morrow. 
 
 ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 
 
 FRANK POWER. 
 
 KlTArvTOI^M, 
 
 Novpmhcr 3, 1883. 
 My deat^est Arxold, 
 
 ei:- * * * *- 
 
 I am still very weak ; tins dysentery has 
 stuck to me for fifty days — a spell long enougli to 
 kill most men, but I feel right enough, only that 
 to button my collar or tie my tie fatigues me. 
 Writing is a martyrdom to me, but it is like 
 speaking to some one at home, and I have a 
 " cacoethes scribendi " on me. It has, outside the 
 hot hours, become really cold here, and a bitter 
 wind howls all night. I revel in it, but the 
 Egyptians wear furs. A lywpos of furs, you can get 
 a fresh leopard or lion skin here for about tw^o 
 shillings, and ostrich feathers for a song. The dust- 
 ing brushes in the shops are nearly all made of 
 
 P 2 
 
44 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 ostricli feathers. They are brought in hj the hunters 
 fresh ; the reason they are so dear in Europe is, 
 they will not stand the journey. "We also have 
 lions, rhinoceri, and giraffes here. .... 
 
 I hope to get letters soon. Two posts a week 
 come on here, Sunday and Thursday, but only one 
 goes out, on Saturday. I telegraphed to London 
 Arab reports of the great battles gained by 
 Hicks. Still not one word from the army itself 
 
 or General 
 
 FEANK POWER. 
 
 GiBELAiN, White Nile, 
 Tuesday y November 13,1883, 
 
 My dearest Aenold, 
 
 I got your more than kind letter along with 
 
 one from mother and some papers from M 
 
 M just as we were leaving Khartoum on 
 
 Sunday week for a short patrol on the White Nile. 
 I really cannot tell you how glad I was to get the 
 letters, and yours, dear Arnold, shows your usual 
 great good nature. I had just written and posted 
 my letter to you before I got yours. Colonel de 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 45 
 
 Coetlogan is continually patrolling the White Nile, 
 but he comes back to Khartoum every Saturday. 
 This time I was strong enough to go with him. 
 Since the General left Duem on the 25th of 
 September not one word has been heard — only the 
 reports that Arabs bring in ; he is supposed to 
 have beaten the Mahdi in seven battles and to be 
 at El Obeid, but his provisions must' be almost 
 out, and it is certain death for any one who tries to 
 carry a letter to or from him. There is the 
 greatest anxiety felt in Khartoum, and they tele- 
 graph twice a day from Cairo to know if we have 
 tidings, but no one can say for certain. The news 
 must come first to Duem, between here and Khar- 
 toum, and Colonel de Coetlogan goes there every 
 second day in his fast steamer the Bowdain, so 
 desirous is he to know about the army. We sleep 
 on the quarter-deck every night in our angeribs. 
 It is delightfully cool ; in fact, all day a cool breeze 
 blows now, and it is downright cold at night. We 
 are 350 miles nearer the Equator than Khartoum. 
 It is very wild on both banks, and full of game. 
 There are an old lion and lioness that roar all 
 night at the water's edge, but the jungle is so thick 
 
46 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 that one could not get a shot from the steamer. 
 We are daily cutting off the retreat of fugitive 
 rebels, and have now seized all the boats on the 
 river except the Shillook canoes, as they are 
 friendly. We got the last boat the day before 
 yesterday; she was sunk next the bank to hide 
 her, and thert^ were Arabs on guard. We threw 
 two four-inch shells and gave them a volley, and 
 they lired back and ran : on landing the long boat, 
 we captured about i,ooo dollars' worth of stuff and 
 some shields and S2)ears, and we are now running 
 down to Duem. 
 
 DuEM, White Nile. 
 No news whatever of Hicks here yet, though 
 this is his base of operations, and is full of stores, 
 thousands of tons of biscuits, &c., but nothing can 
 go outside the town^ which is surrounded by a 
 trench and rampart. There are about 1,500 rebel 
 cavalry, which come within half a mile of the town 
 every day ; and, yesterday, a camel man and his 
 three camels were snatched up almost at the gate. 
 On our arriving last night, we heard five Eeming- 
 ton shots, and Colonel de Coetlogan got his men 
 ready, and ran the steamer to the north end of 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 47 
 
 the rampart to enfilade with his gun the rebels ; 
 
 but we could see nothing. It was only some 
 
 sentries who noticed horsemen out on the plain, 
 
 and iired. Tlie rebels fell back. The Governor 
 
 here, Said Bey, a nigger, is a frightful beast, I 
 
 believe in tlie pny of the Mahdi. He does 
 
 nothing he is told, and takes no precautions. We 
 
 will be 1)ack in Khartoum on Thursday. I tele- 
 
 grapli every w^eek to London. The wires run 
 
 riglit to Khartoum, and (until the rebels cut them) 
 
 on to here. El Obeid, and the Equator. I have 
 
 never heard from the Pictorial World, Several of 
 
 my sketches I believe to have been stolen each 
 
 time the Berber rebels sacked the mails. I hope 
 
 you will get this letter on your birthday. I have 
 
 many a little curiosity I would like to send you, 
 
 but no way to send it. However, I wish you from 
 
 the bottom of my heart many, many happy 
 
 returns. I must finish, as the boat is leaving. 
 
 Colonel de Coiitlogan desires me to say that if it 
 
 wasn't for him I shouldn't be alive (this he means 
 
 as a joke, but it is nevertheless quite true). 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 FEANK POWER. 
 
48 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 Khartoum, 
 
 November 24, 1883. 
 
 Dearest Arnold, 
 
 Just a line to wish you all the usual 
 Merry Christmas. 1 would write a long letter 
 (it would arrive on Christmas Day) were I not 
 almost sure that the Government will intercept 
 this letter, as they liave done all telegrams these 
 last few days. Hicks, his staff*, O'Donovan, and 
 12,000 men have been massacred. Colonel de 
 Coiitlogan and I are in Khartoum, where, for the 
 moment, the volcano has not yet " erupted ; " but 
 the Mahdi has 300,000 men, with rifles and 
 artillery, and we have only 2,000 soldiers, no 
 retreat, and the town and the country to the Ked 
 Sea red hot for the rebels. However, I'm in 
 excellent spirits, and as yet see little or no 
 danger. I hope you will have many happy 
 Christmases. If I am here, I will make Hadjia 
 roast me some beef, buy me a turkey, and I'll pick 
 up a tin of potted ham ; this, with a bottle of lager 
 beer and the sun something dreadful in the shade, 
 dressed in white linen and a solar topee, will make 
 it quite Christmas. I write to you because I would 
 
LETTERS FROT^I KHARTOUM. 49 
 
 only write a long Christmas letter to mother, and 
 I've no wish for the interpreter of the Pacha, when 
 he prigs this letter, to have a laugh over it. I 
 know that Christmas is never anything but a 
 mockery, except to those who earn at least one 
 good dinner in the year by writing Christmas 
 stories for the serials, and those w^ho sell Christ- 
 mas cards, or send in their quarterly bills. I am 
 now living in the Palace here, in poor Hicks' suite 
 of rooms. They are as he walked out of them ; 
 his gloves, papers, guns, &c., lying about ; and one 
 almost expects his ghost to come in, like the 
 Commendatore in " Don Juan." You see this 
 dysentery that I cursed and swore at so much 
 saved my life, and '' once out of the fire always out 
 of the fire." If my first wire to the Times about 
 poor Hicks got through in time I am all right. 
 It is a study to see the different degrees of digni- 
 fied funk shown by^ the Egyptian officers here, 
 and each fellow's desire to be away out of the 
 place. Imagine de Coetlogan and I watching 
 their retreating forms, a sort of Consul Mario (he 
 was a tenor 1) sitting on the ruins of a cartridge 
 case, scaring tbe servants of the Mahdi with a 
 
so LETTERS FRO:^I KHART0U:M. 
 
 look ; you see 1 make a historical allusion, but it 
 got mixed some way ! . . . . 
 
 Xext Christmas I hope to spend with you all, 
 but I'll have to borrow a sealskin cloak from one 
 
 of the girls, T shall feel the cold so much 
 
 I've no news to tell ; my telegram to the Times 
 told all the sad new^s of the pass at Kashgate. I 
 feel dee2')ly sorry for all, especially poor Artlmr 
 Herlt, who commanded Hicks' cavalry ; he and 
 'Donovan are those I regret most. As each 
 Egyptian soldier has at least two wives and a 
 mud-hovel full of children, about 25,000 fellaheen 
 widows and 300,000 poor brow^n children are 
 penniless in Low^er Egypt ! 
 
 ^ •H? ^ •5!^ ^ 
 
 FEANK POWEE. 
 
 Khartoum, 
 
 Decemher i, 1883. 
 
 My dearest Mother, 
 
 I write you just a line to w^isli you many 
 happy New Years, and to say that I am quite 
 w^ell and most cheerful. You see my Times 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 51 
 
 jlegrams, and I wrote to Arnold last week. I am 
 course very sorry for all the poor fellows 
 lughtered in Kordofan, and think what a 
 irrow squeak I had. Was it not Providence 
 mt me that severe illness ? Only for it my 
 mes would be fit for a museum, they w^juld 
 he so well picked. Mons. Marquet, the mil- 
 lionaire merchant here and French Consul, leaves 
 to-day ; he gave a great farewell dinner last night. 
 Imagine in the Soudan a salon superior to many 
 in Paris — w^ax-lights, mirrors, ten servants in 
 livery, cut-glass, silver, and flowers ; a dhnier 
 thoroughly Parisian turned out by his French 
 chef; champagne, hock, claret, &c. We were ten 
 —Colonel de Coetlogan, the Governor-General, 
 Commander-in-Chief, &c. Marquet's garden costs 
 him a fortune ; so we had green-peas, mushrooms, 
 asparagus, &c., and every fruit, from strawberries 
 to pineapples. Colonel de Coetlogan and I mess 
 together now ; old Hadjia cooks for both^ and the 
 Colonel is delighted wdtli her. I have taken over 
 the mess presidency, as I speak Arabic. I sat 
 next Ibraham Pacha last night, and was able to 
 keep up tlie conversation all night without an 
 
52 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 interpreter, and got many compliments on my 
 quickness in learning the language. I can now 
 understand all tliey say, and ask for everything I 
 want in Arabic. 
 
 I sincerely hope you have got over the winter 
 without bronchitis; if you wintered here you 
 would not fear it, but, though it is very hot, we 
 don't feel it so much in here, as we have large 
 airy rooms, with long colonnades and verandas, and 
 are the only two living in the Palace. Gordon, 
 Sir Samuel Baker, Hicks, &zc., occupied my room 
 at different times. I generally sleep on Colonel 
 de Coetlogan's divan, and we chat all night. We 
 mess in the corridor, and have an Indian punkah 
 over the table. We have sentries everywhere, and 
 as many men-servants (soldiers) as we want. I 
 have disturbed nothing of poor Hicks', and his 
 photos, guns, and papers, &c., are lying about as 
 if he only went out for a few moments. As long 
 as I think you are all right at home I have no 
 questions to ask, so my letters must appear 
 egotistical. I am getting stronger every day, 
 
 always walking or riding We will be able 
 
 to hold out here for months, and will be com- 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 53 
 
 fortable enough if the townspeople don't rise and 
 if the reinforcements hurry up, but these latter will 
 have to fight througli 250 miles of mountains and 
 defiles from Suakim to Berber ; and even Baker 
 Pacha (Valentine, not Sir Samuel, worse luck) 
 may get '' Hicksed " on the road. The exodus 
 here is going on. Greeks, Copts, Turks, Maltese, 
 Bengalese, Madrasees, Algerians, Italians — con- 
 suls and merchants — and ol ttoXXo^ ; all trooping 
 down before the river to Berber is closed. Anyway, 
 until Baker's army clears the Suakim route, they 
 must stop at Berber, or cross the Nubian desert to 
 Assuan eight days and eight nights without stop- 
 ping, through a waste of sand, and every drop of 
 water to be carried from the start ; this is how the 
 post is carried — a sort of camel-pony post. 
 
 FEANK POWER. 
 
54 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 Khartoum:, 
 
 Decemher 6, 1883. 
 
 My dearest Angela, 
 
 * ->;:- * * * 
 
 I got papers from Mary to-day. Colonel de 
 Coetlogaii and I are tlie last of the " Mulligans." 
 All the Consuls and Europeans have left. I've 
 got a telegram to-night that Sennaar '' is riz " and 
 gone for the Mahdi. The country is all up, and 
 food is at famine prices, but old Hadjia still 
 
 drives lier bargains at the bazaar The 
 
 Palace is fearfully l)ig and lonely. "We liope 
 l)aker l^icha and his army will be here in six- 
 weeks to our relief. We have only 2,000 men 
 to man four miles of earthworks and keep a rebel 
 population of 60,000 Arabs quiet. I am kept busy. 
 I constantly get telegrams from Times (relatives 
 asking about staff officers). I answer them, and 
 send my correspondence, so I've plenty to do. 
 ***** 
 
 This letter is very short, but I quite forgot it 
 w\as so near post-hour. 
 
 Your loving brother, 
 
 FKANK POWER. 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 55 
 
 KlIAllTOUM, 
 
 Decemher 14, 1883. 
 
 My dearest Mothek, 
 
 I was rather put out to-day on seeing a 
 Cairo paper which said I was wounded, a prisoner 
 of the Mahdi, and tlie only European sur^dvor of 
 the massacre of Ivashgate. My first thought wa>^ 
 that this would be in the English papers, and that 
 you might see it, and I was going to wire to you, 
 but then T remembered my telegram to the Timef^, 
 saying I was w^ell and in Khartoum, must have 
 reached your eye as soon as the false report. I 
 
 w^as sorry to hear of poor E 's accident, and 
 
 glad to hear that J had got a good ship. To- 
 day I got an unexpected telegram from Sir 
 Evelyn Baring asking me to act as British Consul 
 here; of course I accepted at once, as this does 
 not prevent me from acting as Times correspond- 
 ent. There were a few Hindoos, Cyprians, and 
 Maltese, but they have all fled, having made a 
 great outcry about their being British subjects, 
 and having no Consul, and being forced to put 
 themselves under the protection of the Persian 
 Consul, I heard to-day that Captain Moncrieff, 
 
56 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 that I met in Djeddali, and who was Consul at 
 Suakim, was killed near that place by the rebels. 
 I was surprised at getting the consulship, but I 
 suppose Sir E. Baring saw that in a crisis like the 
 present he should have a Consul here, and, no 
 possibility of one arriving from outside, and know- 
 ing I was here, has asked me to act. The Hindoo 
 merchants have a lot of merchandise stored here. 
 There is an English prisoner with the Mahdi, and 
 the friends of the dead officers may require their 
 traps to be sealed up and sent home. Arabs 
 coming in every day confirm the news of the 
 massacre. 
 
 The last that was seen of poor old Hicks was 
 his taking his revolver in one hand and his sword 
 in the other ; calling on his soldiers to fix bayonets, 
 and his staff to follow him, he spurred at the head 
 of his troops into the dense mass of naked Arabs, 
 and perished with all his men. They had fought 
 for three days and nights without a dro^^ of water, 
 the whole day under a scorching sun on a sandy 
 plain. The Arabs say the Mahdi lost 50,000 men 
 in the three days, but they have no idea of figures. 
 However, Hicks had 12,000 men, each with 200 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 5/ 
 
 cartridges, 36 cannon, and plenty of shells, and it 
 was not till the last cartouche and shell were fired 
 
 that the massacre took place T read the 
 
 Irish papers with great interest ; they make life less 
 monotonous here; but Baker Pacha and his army, 
 •with plenty of European officers, will be here in a 
 few weeks, and we will have some stir ; we are 
 looking out anxiously for it. I am glad to see the 
 Orangemen are meeting the Land League on its 
 own ground ; but they are foolish to resuscitate 
 their obsolete old war-cries too much, as they will 
 repel the respectable Catholics, who, being honest, 
 do not believe that " Parnell is Allah, and Healy 
 is his prophet/* Of course the Mansion House 
 
 balls are tabooed this year as well as last 
 
 I commenced this letter last night, and finish 
 it now, 6 o'clock in the morning. Would you 
 believe it is bitterly cold ? IVe warm clothes and 
 a muffler on me ; but before an hour I will find 
 the heat excessive at breakfast, and we must have 
 the punkah going to give us a breeze. It is a 
 queer climate. There was one shower of rain 
 here, I'm told, during the last two years (last 
 August). Now that the sun is beginning to get 
 
58 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 hot, the Mle looks lovely. There is a crowd of 
 snow-white-sailed ships starting for Sennaar ; not 
 a ripple on the water ; the village opposite, the 
 fringe of palm-trees, a field of durra, and the red 
 desert away into the distance beyond : all a lovely 
 picture, I am writing in the veranda, and over- 
 head are enormous clusters of rich purple grapes 
 and fresh green leaves hanging from the trellis. 
 Here fruit comes in twice a year ; there are grapes 
 also ripe in June, and they are quite like hot-house 
 fruits, and very cheap. I often think of you all 
 at home, and imagine what you are doing at such 
 and such an hour. There is an hour and twenty- 
 five minutes difference in the time 
 
 . , FRANK PO WEB. 
 
 Khartoum, 
 
 JDecemher 22, 1883. 
 
 Dearest Fannie, 
 
 As this is the last post before Christmas, I 
 write to renew my good wishes. I yesterday got a 
 telegram permitting me to keep on the Times and 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 59 
 
 the Consulship at the same time. Thank mother 
 very much for the letters enclosed. They may be of 
 the greatest use to me as credentials if I return to 
 Lower Egypt, but the Shakespeare has not arrived 
 yet. Some haughty Bedawi is studying the works 
 of the " Swan of Avon." That and the " Professor " 
 and "Autocrat at the Breakfast Table" are the most 
 welcome books I could have sent me. We have 
 hit upon a few old copies of Dumas' works, and 
 they gave us some reading for a time. I've bought 
 a whopping turkey for dinner on Christmas Day. 
 He is an enormous fellow, and gobbles all over 
 
 the place We (this is our most important 
 
 topic here) are anxiously awaiting the relieving 
 troops. We hope to see them here in about fifteen 
 days, and then " Monsieur le Mahdi " may come on 
 when he likes. The Mission has left, so I cannot go 
 to church on Christmas Day. This letter must be 
 full of mistakes, and very unconnected, as there are 
 two Pachas and five others in the room holding a 
 council of war very much at the top of their voices. 
 
 I 
 
 FRANK POWER. 
 
 E 2 
 
6o LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM, 
 
 Khartoum, 
 
 Becemher 26, 1883. 
 
 Dearest Mothee, 
 
 We are all right, and I'm very happy* 
 Yesterday was not such a bad Christmas Day after 
 
 all The two Pachas, hearing it was our 
 
 " Bairam," or feast, called, first one and then the 
 other, with their staff ; we gave them coffee, curagoa, 
 and cigarettes. At dinner came my masterpiece 
 (I'm housekeeper) the mammoth turkey, so we 
 kept up the eating part of the festival, at least, you 
 will perceive. We had our new cook yesterday ; 
 she is a great success. I think she is a Dinka 
 native, but she wears clothes (a dress of the mode 
 in fashion about the time Millais illustrated 
 TroUope's books — long in the waist, flounces, and 
 crinoline). She also revels in silver bangles on 
 her arms, and one in the side of her lower lip, and 
 a magnificent red silk handkerchief. I manage 
 the house, as it gives me something to do ; I hope 
 I'll have no more trouble with servants. I had to 
 sack old Hadjia ; she never had dinner within two 
 hours of the right time, and sometimes, without 
 any notice, would be absent for the whole day. 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 6 1 
 
 Islamann, the boy, is getting on very well. Life 
 is so quiet you will excuse me if I make use of 
 domestic matters to fill my sheets. We heard 
 yesterday from one of our spies that the Mahdi 
 has commenced his march towards Sennaar and 
 Khartoum ; if he comes before our reinforcements 
 dawdle up from Cairo, he can easily walk through 
 the place. The works protecting the town are 
 nearly four miles long, and we have not 2,000 
 soldiers to man them, and this would not permit 
 us to have a patrol or a policeman in a city in 
 which there are 15,000 avowed rebels, all with 
 arms in their houses. The reinforcements should 
 have been here long ago, but those wretched 
 officials, fee, at Cairo move slowly when there is 
 not a prospect of backsheesh about. However, the 
 first relieving column should be here in twelve 
 days. I wire nearly every day to Sir E. Baring 
 and to the Times. As I write, a steamer and thirty 
 barges, carrying the garrisons of Fashoda, down 
 near Lake Albert Nyanza, 600 miles away, arrived. 
 There are 2,000 old soldiers on them. This is 
 most opportune, as to-morrow the festival Moorab- 
 el-JSTabi (the birthday of the Prophet) comes on. 
 
62 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 The Arabs have set up a pole sixty feet high in 
 the market-place, and will assemble round it in 
 thousands to-morrow and for five days. This is 
 bad, as the feast calls forth great religious excite- 
 ment, and there are 15,000 here against the 
 Government. There are thirty men in high 
 positions here known to be their leaders, and we 
 are not strong enough to seize them and openly 
 hang them. The other night the Governor made 
 the cool proposition to poison them. Colonel de 
 Coetlogan would not listen to this. He then said 
 their servants were in his pay, and they could be 
 secretly strangled in bed. This did not go down 
 either, so we are content to wait, and hope they 
 will keep quiet until the relief from Cairo arrive. 
 To-night has doubled our garrison here, and in a 
 few days the garrisons of Koneh and Duem will 
 arrive (4,000 men). 
 
 I have spent the whole day arranging a magni- 
 ficent trophy of spears, swords, arrows, war-horns, 
 daggers, leopard and lion skins, native pipes, &c., 
 on my wall. You know that I always went in for 
 that kind of thing. I hope I shall be able to get 
 my collection to England. I have a pistol that 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 63 
 
 belonged to the Mahdi. I had a telegram from 
 the Khedive asking me how it was he had to look 
 for the news of his own province in an English 
 paper (the Times), and why I could get news 
 three days before his own Governor-General could 
 telegraph it to him. I answered — I did not know, 
 but that I went very much amongst the bazaars. 
 The real answer is — the Governor-General is a 
 Turk, who can't be made to see that three days, 
 or for the matter of that three weeks, makes any 
 difference in doing anything, and whose motto is, 
 " Never do to-day what you can put off till to- 
 morrow, or eternity, if you can manage it." Sir 
 E. Baring's telegrams are very civil ; he tells me 
 that the Council only know what is going on in 
 the Soudan by my two wires a day to him (and 
 thus to the Khedive), and three times already 
 the Governor-General was severely censured, and 
 asked why he did not send important items I 
 dwelt upon. He is under notice to quit, and 
 Hussa Khalifa is named his successor. Hussa 
 Khalifa is Sheik of the Bishereens, and is the 
 first native ever named Haikender, or Governor- 
 General ; he deserves it, as the man has spent his 
 
64 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 life fighting for the Khedive, and he is Sheik of 
 thousands of men, who would all feel any honour 
 done him as done to themselves; also the post 
 dromedary and telegraph wire pass solely through 
 their territory till it strikes the railway at Assiout. 
 I'm glad the present Governor-General is leaving, 
 as he hates me, and I'm sure would do me any 
 ill turn he could. You would be surprised how 
 much influence being British Consul and Times 
 correspondent gives me here. The people here 
 have a very high opinion of the power of the Times, 
 They say " that it was not Europe but the Times 
 deposed Ismail Pacha " (and in this they are au 
 fond right), and say " if this paper can change one 
 Khedive, why not another ?" However, I've spoken 
 enough about myself. 
 
 * * * * ^ 
 
 By-the-way, the Shakespeare M sent me 
 
 has not yet arrived ; some Arab student of English 
 is now dog-earing it in his endeavour to distin- 
 guish a " hawk " from a " heron-shaw " in it. 
 
 to 
 
 Thursday, 27th. 
 The post has just come in, but no letters for 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 65 
 
 me. Colonel de Coetlogan has just got the Times, 
 ■ with a misprint in it : " Colonel de Coetlogan is 
 assisting Pacha Power." This is such an extra- 
 ordinary mistake that I'm afraid you will have 
 doubts that I am the Power here in Khartoum. 
 I hope it gave you no alarm. 
 
 Saturday, 29tli. 
 No further news to add. No word of the relief 
 from Cairo; however, if we go, Cairo and its 
 worthless pack of Pachas will go too. A black 
 lay sister of the convent at El Obeid escaped and 
 came in yesterday; she came on foot by herself, and 
 did the journey in twenty-two days. The only living 
 European there, except the nuns and priests, was 
 Baron Stheckendorff' s German servant. The two 
 we thought were prisoners were dead. She said the 
 Mahdi was mustering his army to attack us ; he has 
 happily no ammunition for the Krupp battery — it 
 was fired out by the Egyptians before they were 
 killed. To-day is very bright and cold, a gentle 
 breeze, but not a ripple on the river. I am busy 
 now on a pen-and-ink drawing, " Benvenuto Cellini 
 
66 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 in his Atelier." I'll have it in time for the E.H.A. 
 
 exhibition 
 
 FEANK POWER. 
 
 Khartoum, 
 
 New Year's Day, 1884. 
 
 My deakest Mary, > 
 
 I got your very kind letter yesterday and 
 newspaper, and was indeed sorry that my position 
 here should have caused such grave anxiety at 
 home. I knew you were aware I was not with 
 Hicks, but, to reassure you, I purposely put into 
 my telegram to the Times a list of those Europeans 
 who were, and stated that de Coetlogan and my- 
 self were the only Englishmen alive in the Soudan. 
 I wired to Merrion Square yesterday to reassure 
 you all. I will ask Sir E. Baring to forward the 
 letter that was sent to Cairo for me. He appears 
 to be a very kind man. I never saw him, and 
 only knew him by telegraphing the situation to 
 him ; yet, on Christmas Eve, I got a telegram : 
 " Baring — Cairo (private). Am sending by this 
 post a few good English pipes and a case of English 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. ^J 
 
 tobacco as a. Christmas box to you." This was 
 very civil to think of such a thing — he must now 
 have so much to do, and such great responsibility. 
 We have heard that the Mahdi is about to swoop 
 down upon us ; but we are now nearly able for 
 him. In a few days, when the ditch is finished, 
 and the Koneh and Duem garrisons in, we need 
 have very little fear of the result ; as for expecting 
 any help from Cairo^ that's all in my eye. On 
 Nov. 27 a message was sent to Colonel de Coetlogan 
 that Baker Pacha and army had left Suez for 
 Suakim, and that Zuberh Pacha, with his 6,000 
 Bedawis, was already off from Cairo by train. 
 On the 2nd it was telegraphed that the armies 
 were on the road, and would be here in a few 
 weeks. It is twenty-two days from here to Cairo 
 by the Assiout route (train), and no reliefs have 
 arrived ; but I see by a Cairo newspaper of the 
 8th that not a man has yet left Cairo, and this 
 morning Colonel de Coetlogan gets a telegram from 
 the Khedive to say that " he believes he cannot 
 get together a column to relieve us, so we must 
 depend on the neighbouring Sheiks for assistance." 
 This is really rich, as the Khedive knows very 
 
68 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 well that there is not a Sheik in the Soudan who 
 would, or dare, help us; and the fact of our 
 sending to a tribe for help would confess our weak- 
 ness and bring it down on us like a hundred of 
 bricks. To show how much the Khedive knows of 
 the place, he telegraphs to Colonel de Coetlogan to 
 ask — are the gates closed ? as if the place had walls. 
 It is an open town, with garden, fields, &c., and not 
 a bit of defence round it till Colonel de Coetlogan 
 commenced the ditch, and yet they try to hamper 
 our movements by trying to command us from Cairo. 
 The latest fad was to order us to send half our 
 garrison to Berber — a place that is perfectly safe, 
 and has as large a garrison as ours. In your last 
 letter you gave me very little news, the whole 
 letter being taken up with my own stupid affairs, 
 so I've very little to answer. 
 
 I would like to see the Pictorial World that has 
 published my sketches. I got a letter yesterday 
 from the new editor, saying that the paper had 
 changed hands, and that all my sketches, ranging 
 from July to September, only arrived the day of 
 the news of Hicks' defeat. That is the beauty of 
 reo^istering a letter : it miikes it go much slower. 
 
I 
 
 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 69 
 
 The new editor prays me to send everything I can, 
 and to name my own figure, so I will send some by 
 this post to them. 
 
 Januarif 2, 1884, 
 I see that my plain-spoken wire to Baring 
 (of course prompted by Colonel de Coetlogan) has 
 brought the Khedive to reason. Colonel de Coetlogan 
 has just had a private telegram from the Khedive 
 telling him to do all the things suggested in the wire. 
 To-morrow morning's Times will have a little more 
 plain speaking from me. I have sent an eye-opener 
 (about 5 poo words), letting the British public know 
 the true state of affairs and what Cairo Pachas are 
 like. If our lives are to be sacrificed, it will not 
 be said that the people in Cairo were kept in 
 ignorance of the state of affairs here. At i ^ o'clock 
 to-night Colonel de Coetlogan and myself are about 
 to pay an unexpected visit on foot round the fortifi- 
 cations, to catch any guard, that may be negligent, 
 on the hop. We have paved the bottom of the 
 ditch and side of the fortification with spear-heads, 
 and have for 100 yards the ground in front strewn 
 with iron " crows' feet," things that have three 
 short spikes up however -they are thrown^ and then 
 
70 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 beyond, for 500 yards^ broken bottles (you know 
 the Mahdi's men are all in their bare feet) ; at 
 intervals we have put tin biscuit-boxes full of 
 powder, nails, and bullets, at two feet under 
 ground, with electric wires to them, so Messieurs 
 the rebels will have a mauvais quart d'heure 
 before they get to the ditch. 
 
 4 o'clock Thursday morning. 
 The Colonel and myself, having got the counter- 
 sign for the night, set off at I o'clock this morning 
 for a six-mile walk — that is, round the fortifications 
 and back ; he with sword and revolver, I sword 
 and Empress rifle, and accompanied by Hasabala 
 Effendi, his interpreter, an enormously fat young 
 man. We had four soldiers behind, and one ahead 
 with his rifle slung, to permit of his carrying the 
 lantern. I had many a good laugh en route. We 
 found all the sentries on the parapet perfectly on 
 the alert, but one of them was deaf and dumb and 
 had sore eyes. The gate-guard and officers turned 
 out all right and advanced to ask the word and 
 reply, but that was the only time we were asked 
 it in the whole four miles of fortifications. When 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 7 1 
 
 a sentry would challenge I would say, " Eounds," 
 and then the Colonel would tell Hasabala to ask if 
 all was well ; he'd say, " In the name of the great 
 God, is all good ? " The sentry would reply, *' 'Tis 
 perfect," and then Hasabala would reply piously, 
 *' Thank the merciful God." The private carrying 
 the lantern was apparently called Abdallah, and 
 on one sentry calling out when the challenge was 
 finished, " Who will I report as having passed ? " 
 the lantern soldier in rags gravely replied, '^ Say 
 Abdallah Ali." I translated the request and the 
 answer to Colonel de Coiitlogan, who was highly 
 amused at the conceit of the fellow, and told him 
 for the future. to say, " De Coetlogan Bey." In 
 one of the batteries we could not find the officer 
 in command, and all were asleep except one sentry ; 
 it will be reported to-morrow to Ibraham Pacha ; 
 no doubt the officer will be reduced to the ranks. 
 These sudden descents on the fortifications will 
 sharpen up the guards, no doubt. 
 
 Friday night. 
 The two first niglats of the festival of the 
 Prophet's birthday have passed off quietly. We'll 
 
^^ LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 have three or four nights more of it. The post is 
 just going out. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 FRANK POWER. 
 
 Khartoum, 
 
 Jamiary 12, 1884. 
 
 My dearest Mother, 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 They have done nothing for us yet from 
 Cairo. They are leaving it all to fate, and the 
 rebels around us are growing stronger. I can only 
 send a line, as IVe been writing all day and must 
 send by this post. I send you a photo of Hicks 
 and the staff; it is the only one extant. I would 
 like it to be kept. 
 
 ***** 
 
 FRANK POWER, 
 
 Khartoum, 
 
 January 18, 1884. 
 
 My dear Mother, 
 
 I just send you a line to reassure you. 
 The climate here at present is delightful, but very 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 73 
 
 cold at night ; in the morning and evening I have 
 to wear a great-coat, and during the day a white 
 linen suit, such is the transition from cold to heat. 
 I am sorry you are nervous about me ; you'll find 
 I will turn up all right. The order is already 
 given for a retreat on Berber, but it will take us 
 months to evacuate this town. The rebels are 
 very near us, but, please Heaven, we will be 
 all safe. 
 
 Bohndorff, a Central African explorer, passed 
 through this week ; he has been five years with 
 the Niam-Niam cannibals. He brought me news 
 of poor Schuver's death. I made him stay four 
 days, and, after his life in the interior, our 
 fresh food was a luxury to him. He was a very 
 nice fellow. This was his fifth expedition to the 
 interior. I have to-day written a long letter to 
 the Times about his travels and the dwarfs and 
 cannibals of the Velle Eiver ; it will be in a day or 
 two after you get this. Look out for it. I was 
 
 sorry to hear of poor Mrs. D 's death at 
 
 Alexandria. I last saw her at your dance two 
 
 years ago. So P has " stowed the swag ; " it 
 
 is well to give up everything you have for your 
 
74 LETTERS FKOM KHARTOUM. 
 
 country, and become a patriot-martyr for a little 
 time in Kilmainliam. 
 
 * * * * ^ 
 
 We will be here for months yet, and, as we 
 retreat along the postal line, I can always have 
 the post C7i route, 
 
 * * * *- ^ 
 
 FKANK POWEE. 
 
 Khartoum, 
 
 January 24, 1884. 
 
 My dearest Mother, 
 
 I got your welcome letter on Monday, and 
 several English and Irish papers ; but not a word 
 of the Shakespeare. I've inquired about the 
 latter frequently. A few days ago they cut the 
 wire, and closed the postal route towards Cairo ; 
 but this morning we opened it up again, and 
 mended the wire. I am so sorry you are anxious 
 about me. It would be cowardly and shameful 
 for me to leave Khartoum now in the face of the 
 enemy, and because there is danger here ; even 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 75 
 
 for your sake I would not do it. I am only doing 
 my duty, and what every poor unpaid soldier must 
 do. Both the Times and the Government have 
 given me leave to go if I wish. However, the 
 order for a general retreat is given, and we shall 
 march together to Berber. I hear that Chinese 
 Gordon is coming 'up. They could not have a 
 better man. He, though severe, was greatly loved 
 during the five years he spent here. To-day we 
 have had two excitements. A Greek merchant 
 who has been a year prisoner in El Obeid escaped, 
 and arrived to-day. He says the only survivor of 
 the loliole of Hicks' army is Baron Sheckendorf!''s 
 servant, who went over to the Mahdi before the 
 battle, and fought on his side. I found him a 
 decent, brave fellow. Sheckendorff, who had a 
 quick temper, must have given him some terrible 
 provocation. He was a troop-sergeant of Uhlans, 
 and had the Iron Cross for bravery. The Greek 
 tells us that after the battle, as each Sheik was 
 shown the dead body of Hicks, he was permitted, 
 in his turn, to plunge his spear into it ; it is a 
 custom they have, so that they may say they 
 assisted at his death. My informant further states 
 
 F 2 
 
"J^ LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM, 
 
 that tlie rebels only lost 300 men, as tliey kep 
 behind rocks and trees till the army was almos 
 annihilated by their shot and shell. Then the] 
 charged and killed the staff. The Mahdi has ii 
 El Obeid 35,000 regular soldiers whom he pays 
 tliose are independent of the tribesmen ; and th( 
 Greek, who left Obeid thirteen days ago, says th( 
 army can march at an hour's notice. They hav( 
 plenty of ammunition for the Krupp breech-loaderj 
 and for the JSTordenfeldts, and fifty field-pieces 
 The priests and nuns and Greek merchants ic 
 Obeid are not interfered with, but are not per- 
 mitted to leave the town. Just got a telegran 
 from Mr. Bell, the Times agent for Egypt, to say 
 " Gordon leaves Cairo to-night, and will be in Khar- 
 toum in eighteen days." The shortest time on recorc 
 is twenty-four days ; but Gordon (sword and Bibld 
 travels like a whirlwind. Xo Arab of the deserl 
 could, when lie was u]) liere, vie with him in 
 endurance on camel-back. Excitement ]S[o. 2.— 
 The steamers Ahhas and Bourdain came back to- 
 day from a point on the Blue Nile between here 
 and Sennaar. Tliey were sent the day before 
 yesterday to destroy a bridge of boats the rebeh 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. "]"] 
 
 have made over the river near here, but they did 
 not succeed. They were attacked with great fury 
 by thousands of rebels, who killed some soldiers, 
 but were beaten off themselves with great loss, but 
 not until the two guns and rockets had fired eighty 
 rounds of shell, and the men had blazed away till 
 all was blue. They saw the bridge of boats, but 
 could not get to it ; so now all communication with 
 unhappy Sennaar, by land or water, is cut off. The 
 captains of tlie two steamers report that fifteen 
 minutes from here the banks of the river are held 
 by tliousands of rebels witli Remington rifles. The 
 troops in Sennaar Iiave not Ixm^h paid for thirteen 
 months, and the troops here for eight months. 
 They are openly mutinous, and in rags. The 
 Government has broken all its ])romises to them, 
 and does not pay them, ofticers or men. 
 
 Sir E. Baring kindly sent me up two beautiful 
 briar-and-amber pipes and a large tin case of 
 tobacco, and Mr. Bell also sent me a briar-pipe 
 by post as Christmas present; it was very 
 thoughtful of both of them. Sir Evelyn Baring 
 also wires me he will send me up a water-colour 
 outfit. I send you his letter; he is a famous 
 
78 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 man, and you miglit like his autograph. 11 
 bring the girls home some beautiful native bangles 
 The native jewellers are wonderful workers. Yoi 
 buy the gold in dust, and pay for the workman' 
 ship. It is the purest virgin gold (24 carat). 
 ***** 
 
 FRANK POWER. 
 
 KlIAllTOUM, 
 
 February 9, 1884. 
 
 My DEAREST Mother, 
 
 Colonel de Coetlogan says you greatljP 
 exaggerate what he has done for me (there he 
 tells a whopper), but thanks you all the same for 
 your kind wishes ; he hopes to meet you, along 
 with me, in " dear, dirty Dublin " before long. 
 Get a triumphal arch stuck up somewhere near 
 the square. One cab won't hold the two of us. 
 We'll then leave for Barnum's Museum, New 
 York ! 'Tis from the nonsensical row some of 
 the papers have made about us I build up my hopes 
 of future Barnum fame, for really we have done 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 79 
 
 nothing, only stuck here when every Egyptian 
 who could run away bolted. I have a fine turkey, 
 as big as Tom, my tame ostrich, fattening for the 
 day Gordon comes next week. He and Colonel 
 Stewart, nth Hussars, will be tired when they 
 arrive. "We are going to give them roast turkey, 
 a leg of mutton. Bass's pale ale, and lager beer. 
 I will have Islamann on the top of the Palace to 
 give the word to the cook when to put down the 
 turkey; my telescope will spot the steamer ten 
 miles down the Nile. I don^t believe the fellows 
 in Lucknow looked more anxiously for Colin 
 Campbell than we look for Gordon. As regards 
 relief of this place, when he comes he can only 
 carry out the retreat. Sir E. Baring and Lord 
 Granville seem to have the utmost confidence in 
 me ; it was solely on my confidential, and I hope 
 conscientious, reports England has recognized the 
 fact that the holding of Khartoum is hosh. I beheve 
 when Gordon comes he will sit upon me for 
 this; but I have facts on my side, as also the 
 turkey, &c., not to speak of the Bass and tobacco. 
 We are all here in good humour to-day. A mad- 
 man, a brother of Alideen Pacha, has arrived from 
 
•^O LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 Cairo, and wishes to go up to Kashgate to pick 
 his brother's bones out from those of Hicks and 
 the rest of the staff. I have asked him if he has 
 another brother to go prospecting after his bones 
 in a few weeks ; he is evidently an utter idiot. I 
 am in very good healthy barring live months of what 
 has now become chronic dysentery. My eyes are 
 rather troublesome, though I wear green glasses 
 protected with close wire. The sun sets them on 
 fire ; they pain me very much even in the dark. 
 I have to tie a cloth round them when I want to 
 sleep at night. This is indeed " a land of desok- 
 tion," as Baker called it. We must give it up. it 
 has been plundered and robbed and " kourbashed " 
 by the Egyptians, but, when we leave it, it will 
 be scourged by slave-hunters. In the whole 
 future of the Soudan I do not see a gleam of light 
 through the blackness from which it takes its 
 name. Here every one has small-pox. Near the 
 market, where the " birit " Alamanine buys our 
 food, there are four horses and a lot of camels 
 dead for over five wrecks, and their accompani- 
 ments of jackals and vultures. Smells are supreme. 
 Colonel Coetlogan and myself carry camphor to 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 8 1 
 
 our nose all day. Until the rebels cut the wire 
 this week, all my news was in type in London an 
 hour after I had sent it from here; now there is 
 no telegraph. If you get no further letters for a 
 time, don't mind, as there are bands of rebels 
 trying to cut off the posts ; only for that I would 
 send the girls a lot of beautiful jewellery I have 
 for them by registered parcel. Last week it 
 would be safe, but to-day the "Postmaster-General 
 for the Soudan," old Signer. Ambrosio, tells me it 
 would not 1)6 safe to send £^y worth of bangles. 
 The work these native jewellers do is wonderful. 
 The filigree is microscopic. I have several 
 curios for you all ; God grant you may ever see 
 them or me. I have also got some of the beau- 
 tiful native silk scarfs, worked with gold thread, 
 fifty shades of different colours. One across one 
 of the girls' white silk ball-gowns would look 
 
 lovely 
 
 I have no news to tell — only these little 
 nothing^s. 
 
 FRANK POWER. 
 
82 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 Khaktoum^ 
 
 Fehritaru 14, 1884, 
 
 Deakest Mother, 
 
 I'm afraid you have been anxious about 
 me owing to the fact that up to yesterday the 
 wire was cut, and we had no communication with 
 the outer world. N"ow all is right, and you will 
 see a despatch from me in to-morrow's Times, 
 By looking at it each day you can be always 
 assured of my safety. At midnight last night, 
 the moment communication was established, I got 
 the following telegram : — " From General Gordon, 
 Berber, to Frank Power, British Consul. Best 
 respects to you. I leave Berber to-day ; will be 
 in Khartoum on Sunday." We had been for days 
 in great doubt about his movements, and I was 
 besieged all day by people wishing to see the 
 telegram and learn about the " Abu el Aswad ani," 
 the father of the Soudanese. I was the only 
 person he telegraphed to. He brings with him 
 Colonel Stewart. There is no news here, except 
 we've had a " Palace revolt," by which I was the 
 principal sufferer. For the last month or so Colonel 
 de CoetloQ;an and I have been missincj thincfs — 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 8 
 
 O 
 
 shirts, stockings, and small things — but the other 
 
 day I missed forty-four sovereigns, a bracelet, and 
 
 twenty-four beautiful filigree silver coffee-cups. 
 
 I had always kept my box locked. I said nothing, 
 
 but that very evening I found a new key sticking 
 
 in the padlock. The thief evidently forgot to take 
 
 it out. I set to work quietly, and soon noticed 
 
 that Alamanine (the cook), Ali,my boy,Islammann, 
 
 the Colonel's boy (who was twice before forgiven 
 
 theft), and the Colonel's tyce, or groom, were all 
 
 in the swim, going up every day to the bazaar 
 
 together spending m^oney, &c. My kitchen is on 
 
 the other side of the large court-yard, and on going 
 
 down after midnight I found the four servants 
 
 and eight soldiers of the guard making merry. I 
 
 came upon them like a torpedo or bomb-shell, 
 
 particularly as I had my lantern in one hand and a 
 
 kourbash in the other. The servants are supposed 
 
 to be in bed at 9 o'clock, but here they were gaily 
 
 burning four of my candles (fearfully expensive 
 
 here, and nearly all run out), a huge fire, about a 
 
 stone of English potatoes, and a large pot of hot 
 
 coffee with any amount of sugar in it. These 
 
 latter were also mine, and, like all European 
 
84 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 produce, are very dear here owing to the route 
 being half a year closed ; only the wealthiest people 
 can afford candles, coffee, or sugar. You should 
 have seen their faces ; the soldiers were away from 
 their posts, and had no right to be there at all. The 
 next day we sacked the four servants and brought 
 them before the Pacha ; they all denied the thefts, 
 contradicted themselves, &c., and the Pacha had 
 at once recourse to Egyptian justice, and wished 
 to flog tliem till they confessed ; such a Hogging (as 
 he admitted) means almost certain death. Of 
 course 1 would not let tliem be touched ; then he 
 sentenced them to imprisonment for life, and 
 said " once he had them in • prison they could 
 be flogged," so I insisted that they should be 
 set at liberty, as we had no conclusive proof 
 against them. This rather puzzled these scoun- 
 drelly Beys and Pachas, and I had to threaten to 
 report them to Cairo before I could be sure the poor 
 wretches would be left unharmed. I asked how 
 could they know any better than to steal when 
 they saw Pacha after Pacha openly rob day after 
 day, so I've had very little satisfaction for my loss, 
 about £60, and I don't yet know how much more, 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 85 
 
 and I've had the fearful bother to commence again 
 teaching a pack of ignorant niggers that tumblers 
 are not to be dropped on the ground, that I do not 
 wish my spoons and knives cleaned by their being 
 licked with the tongue, that I have no taste for 
 mincemeat or fowls stuffed with mincemeat. (Forced 
 meat is made by the young lady who for £2 a 
 month deigns to officiate as our cook, chewing the 
 meat till it is of the necessary fineness ; I wondered 
 at first how they chopped it so fine). You also 
 have to teach them that Europeans do not like 
 their servants to be rubbed all over with crocodile 
 musk — a fearfully powerful ^jerfiime, and in great 
 demand in the Soudan ; one sniff acts as powerfully 
 as a choppy day in the Channel or a dose of 
 mustard and water. On all sides of us here are 
 large armies of rebels waiting the word of the 
 Mahdi, and the fools are letting the time pass ; 
 they could have had the town for the asking a 
 month ago. I hope Gordon will be a nice fellow. 
 We will be living together, &c., and I hope I will 
 get on with him. It was civil to telegraph to me 
 from Berber. I enclose tlie telegram ; you may 
 think it a curiosity. There was an autograph 
 
86 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 letter of the Mahdi seized here yesterday; if I 
 can get it I will send it you. I hope I will be 
 able to bring home my collection of weapons and 
 skins. If so, you can make your hall a perfect 
 museum. I've many beautiful native swords and 
 suits of chain-mail, helmets, &c., all copied exactly 
 from those of the time of Ca^ur de Lion. TJie 
 fashion has been handed down from generation to 
 generation. I have, amongst fifty other things, a 
 Bari Sheik's war horn and drum ; the horn is an 
 entire elephant's tusk of beautifully fine ivory, 
 hollowed out to an egg-shell thinness. This must 
 have been the work of years. The drum is a large 
 flat block of ironwood hollowed out by dint of 
 labour ; it is hung on a tree near the chief's hut, 
 and the slightest touch is sufficient to make it 
 actually roar or boom, so that it can be heard a 
 great way off. I have a great collection of Shillook, 
 [N'iam-Niam, Dinka, and Kordofan pipes, knives, 
 shields, spears, poisoned arrows, and utensils. 
 These cost me almost nothing. I am great friends 
 with the native merchants in the bazaars, who do 
 not care for these things, and, when they come 
 across a curiosity, " Oli da wahad antika, sheel " 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 8/ 
 
 uh ; gie lie Hodafa Konsul el Ingleeze " — " Oh 
 that's a curiosity; take it down to Sir Consul 
 English." Some of these merchants, who sit all 
 day in their little stalls in the bazaar, are really 
 millionaires, and would buy up many of the London 
 merchant princes. They live like kings in what, 
 outside, looks like a mud hut. (If one shows any 
 outward signs of wealth, the Pacha lets him know 
 quietly that he will at once be charged as a rebel 
 or something, and put in prison if he does not 
 make him a little present, generally from ;^ 300 to 
 ;^i,ooo.) G Pacha left here last year, ad- 
 mitting, report says, that in three years he had 
 made ;^ 60,000 ; he came here three years ago 
 as a clerk at ;^2 a month, Abdul-Kereem Pacha, 
 the Governor, took a fancy to him, and made him 
 chief of the tax-gatherers ; in three years he gained 
 the rank of Pacha and ;^ 60,000 — meaning 5,000 
 ruined homes, several million strokes of the bas- 
 tinado, rapine, robbery, and men driven to exas- 
 peration and shot down at their doors, the Khedowi 
 declaring that for three years the Soudan had not 
 been a source of wealth, but of poverty, to Egypt, 
 but they forgot that in those three years it was 
 
88 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 the making of the fortune of several ex-slaves 
 Pachas, &c, 
 
 Last evening we dined with a young merchant 
 
 Effendi, a man who casually regrets the war 
 
 because he has ;^ 15,000 worth of ivory at one of 
 his stations on the White Nile, and he said, " I'll 
 lose some money if the war spreads towards 
 Abyssinia." Why? "At this time each year I 
 get 5, 000 camel-loads of gum, coffee, tobacco, and 
 cotton from the district between Tredereff and 
 Gondar in Abyssinia.'* He is a very handsome 
 man, about twenty-live years old, and carefully 
 dresses in Arab costume, and detests French boots, 
 &c., affected by others. He always goes in for 
 half-tones, I notice. Last night he had a long 
 flowing robe of salmon-coloured silk edged with 
 silver over an inner robe of black satin with 
 a bronze silk sash, and wound round his head 
 and shoulders a Shawal* or Kaifica of pale 
 pearl or French gray edged with silver, crimson 
 shoes, and a silver-mounted sword with precious 
 stones in the hilt. He, of course, came and called 
 
 * Our word shawl and coiffeur come from Shawal and 
 KaiBca. 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 89 
 
 for US, to escort us (about a mile) to his house, 
 with twelve servants and some lanterns. On pass- 
 ing in, through a rickety gate in a high mud wall, 
 we came on a court beautifully paved with coloured 
 tiles, and the usual hosts of tame deer and gazelles 
 about. N"o stranger can go into a ]\Ioslem's house 
 proper — his hareem ; so we were shown into the 
 salamlik, or stranger's house, on the opposite side 
 of the court. This is a large room, beautifully 
 furnished with Persian carpets and divans, and 
 two bed rooms off it, in case his visitors should 
 like to stop the night. is a strict Mahome- 
 tan, and does not drink wine ; but he had for us 
 Hennessy's .... Bass's pale ale, and Giessler's 
 extra superior. These were all served with dates 
 and raisins before dinner. Then six slaves (one 
 of them a great curiosity here — he is quite 
 a giant, and has a white patch on his face) 
 carried in a silver tray, about six feet across, and 
 put it down on trestles — the Arabs don't use tables. 
 
 told us that when he asked us to dine he 
 
 remembered we did not eat with our fingers, so that 
 he had silver knives, spoons, and forks provided 
 for us, and asked us to keep them as souvenirs. 
 
90 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 Then followed the interminable thirty Arab dishes ; 
 the lamb roasted whole, the turkeys stuffed with 
 pistachio nuts or truffles, the jellies and cremes 
 flavoured witli lavender. Hasabala, the Colonel's 
 interpreter, as usual, ate too much, and fell asleep ; 
 so I had to do the interpreter's work. We got 
 home at twelve o'clock, to find Gordon's telegram 
 awaiting me. By the way, the Government a 
 year ago borrowed ^12,000 from this Arab to pay 
 the troops, and he has heard nothing of it since. 
 
 The Soudani and the Arabs are splendid fellows; 
 ground down and robbed by every ruffian who 
 has money enough (ill-gotten) to buy himself a 
 position of Pacha, or free licence to rob, they are 
 quite right to rebel and hurl the nest of robbers 
 to the other side of Siout. For years it has been 
 kourbash, kourbash, et toujours kourbash. This gets 
 monotonous, and the poor devils rebel. I will, 
 indeed, forgive the fellow who puts his lance into 
 me, if that is to be my fate, because I will feel 
 that he is right as long as I am of the same 
 colour as the scoundrels who have robbed him 
 and his for so many years. How is the govern- 
 ment of the country carried on ? It is only the 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. Q I 
 
 plains along the banks of the Nile which are culti- 
 vated. Every Arab must pay a tax — for himself, 
 children, and wife or wives. This he has to pay three 
 times over — once for the Kedowi, once for the tax- 
 collector or local Beys, and once for the Governor- 
 General. The last two are illegal, but still scrupulously 
 collected to the piastre. To pay this he must grow 
 some corn, and for the privilege of growing corn he 
 must pay £i per annum. To grow corn the desert 
 earth must have water : the means of irrigation is 
 a " sakeh," a wheel like a mill-wheel with buckets 
 on it, which raise the water into a trough, and then 
 it flows in little streams over the land. A sakeh 
 is turned by two oxen. Every man who uses a sakeh 
 must pay ^7 : if he doesn^t use it, he must go into 
 prison for life, and have his hut burned. Every 
 one must pay for the right of working to earn 
 money; every one must pay if they are idle; in any 
 case every one must pay to make the officials rich. 
 If you have a merkeb, or trading-boat, you are fined 
 £\ if you don't continually fly the Egyptian flag 
 and you must pay £\ for the privilege of flying it. 
 It is this system, and not the Mahdi, that has 
 brought about this rebellion. The rebels are, in the 
 
 (; 2 
 
92 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 right, and God and chance seem to be fighting for 
 them, and, as long as I live to see you once more, I 
 hope they will hunt every Egyptian neck and crop 
 out of the Soudan. Better a thousand times the bar- 
 barities of slavery than the detestable barbarities 
 and crimes of the Egyptian rulers. 
 
 As I was waiting ten minutes ago, at about 1 1*30 
 at night, most fearful cries of " Murder — Help^I 
 did not do it ! " brought me trembling out, sword in 
 one hand, revolver in the other, and my new boy 
 with my rifle. It was that accursed sentinel : this is 
 the third night he has alarmed Colonel de 
 Coiitlogan and myself. Like all Egyptian sentinels, 
 he sleeps on " his sentry go " (leaving his rifle and 
 bayonet against the wall), and, when he sleeps, it 
 appears, so the sergeant says, he always dreams — 
 the one dream — and yells out his hideous night- 
 breaking war-cry. He is a nuisance ; he will be 
 sent out to the works to-morrow. We don't object 
 to the sentinel (like all in the town) sleeping 
 soundly ; but he ought not to yell, howl, raise all 
 one side of the town with the only one dream he 
 has got in stock. This I find, at the end of the 
 third night, gets monotonous. He calmly says, ^'Tis 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 93 
 
 Allah sends that bad dream to him." I quietly 
 reply, " 'Tis the Colonel will order to-morrow fifty 
 stripes to all sentinels found asleep at their posts, 
 and if he was not asleep Allah would not send the 
 dream." He mildly answers, " God is great ; God 
 makes me sleep when I am on duty ; I cannot help 
 it. It is God that is great." What are you to do 
 with fellows like this ? From morning till night 
 it's " El Han da illah Inshallah," or '' Bishmillah," 
 dragging God's name into everything they do ; not 
 meaning to take it in vain; for they are really 
 religious, and leave everything in God's hands. 
 Imagine seeing every man, morning and niglit, 
 spend twenty minutes each time at his prayer, out 
 in the open; their faces lit up with religious 
 fervour, fearing no man's ridicule, and only ashamed 
 w^hen they do wrong, not when they speak to their 
 God. They say, '' If we do not speak to God before 
 all men, he won't speak to us when all men 
 are gathered together to be judged." Do you 
 remember this night two years ago ? I've just been 
 thinking of it. At this hour your ball was in full 
 swing, and you had put me on fatigue duty, and I 
 liad brought poor Mrs. D down to supper. 1 4id 
 
94 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 not think then that we would both be in Egypt to- 
 gether, and she taken in safe Alexandria, and I 
 left scatheless in this hell upon earth, the Soudan- 
 There are a great many of us dead since that night : 
 
 poor Bailey, of the Queen's Bays ; Mrs. D , 
 
 Mrs. C , and Colonel C , with whom T 
 
 lunched that day. I suppose we all have our ap- 
 pointed time when we are to go, and the only 
 
 thing is to be prepared for it. I write to E ► 
 
 often. I have made three attempts to send him a 
 sovereign by registered letter, for some paper, 
 pencils, ink, &c., he sent up, but each time the 
 money went to enrich some postal clerk who has 
 a fancy to registered letters. 
 
 Friday Morning, Feh. 15. 
 This morning a mine was sprung upon us at our 
 breakfast-table. A despatch arrived from the 
 Kliedive appointing Colonel de Coetlogan a Pacha, 
 a General, doubling his screw, and making him 
 Acting Governor-General of the entire Soudan, 
 about 2,000 miles long. We have had a great 
 time;^all the sycophants in Khartoum hurrying 
 to kiss his hand, &c. I am very glad ; he is such 
 a good fellow, and deserves all he can get. I have 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 95 
 
 got a new boy — a regular yahoo, a wild man of 
 the woods — for a butler, who at once broke one of 
 my lamp globes, and said it was a djin, or wander- 
 ing sheitan (devil), did it. Though of a cannibal 
 tribe, he says he has never eaten man meat. He 
 is very handsome, and coal-black. I will bring 
 him home as a present to you, to hand round five- 
 o'clock tea in an Arab costume. Those boys are 
 really very quick to learn, and beautifully neat ; 
 a week makes one of them a tolerable servant. 
 
 Saturday, Feh. i6, 1884. 
 The town is posted up with placards saying that, 
 by Gordon Paclia's orders, the taxes are reduced to 
 half. Slavery is freely permitted, and the Mahdi 
 
 is proclaimed Kixa of Kordofan. De C 
 
 Pacha is hard at work night and day : he to-day 
 
 signed over three hundred orders, "fee I 
 
 have a slight touch of fever on me to-day, and 
 am going to take some quinine. Two or three 
 
 times a week we get touches of fever I've 
 
 little more to say to you, having meandered on 
 
 through so many pages aimlessly. 
 
 ***** 
 
 FEANK POWER. 
 
96 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 Khaetoum, 
 
 Fehntary 22, 1884. 
 
 My dearest Mother, 
 
 I got your most affectionate letter yester- 
 day. I need not tell you liow glad I was to hear 
 from home. I get all your letters ; so continue to 
 write. Colonel de Coetlogan is gone to-day, and 
 riordon is here, as you doubtless have seen in the 
 papers. Gordon, Colonel Stewart, and I now mess 
 and live together. General Gordon, by permission 
 of Lord Granville and Sir E. Baring, has promised 
 to confer the Order of the Osmanli on me, and tlie 
 Second Order of the Medjidji ; he has also promised 
 to take me with him to the Congo when this 
 business is finished. To-day Sir E. Baring tele- 
 graphed: "H.M. Government highly approve of 
 your action in the Soudan, and the aid you have 
 given to General Gordon on his arrival. Lord 
 Granville has intimated his wish that I send 
 you this telegram." Gordon is a most lovable 
 character — quiet, mild, gentle, and strong ; he is so 
 humble too. The way he pats you on the shoulder 
 when he says, " Look here, dear fellow, now what 
 do you advise?" would make you love him. 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 97 
 
 When he goes out of doors there are always crowds 
 of Arab men and women at the gate to kiss his 
 feet, and twice to-day the furious women, wishing 
 to lift his feet to kiss them, threw him over. He 
 appears to like me, and already calls me Frank. 
 He likes my going so much amongst the natives, 
 for not to do so is a mortal sin in his eyes. I 
 often speak of you to General Gordon ; he says he 
 must make your acquaintance before we go to tlie 
 Congo; he would like a day in Dublin. He is 
 Dictator here ; the Mahdi has gone down before 
 him, and to-day sent him a " salam," or message 
 of welcome. It is wonderful that one man could 
 have such an inHuence on 200,000 people. 
 Numbers of women flock here every day to ask 
 him to touch their children to cure them ; they 
 call him the " Father and the Saviour of the 
 Soudan." He has found me badly up in " Thomas 
 a Kempis," which he reads every day, and has 
 given me an '' Imitation of Christ." He is indeed, 
 I believe, the greatest and best man of this century. 
 He asks me who I am writing to, and when I say 
 "to you," he says he hopes you will some day 
 give him a cup of tea, and like him. No one could 
 
98 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 help it. I stay on here to the end. I'll stop 
 while he stays. 
 
 ***** 
 
 FRANK POWER. 
 
 Ktiartoum, 
 
 March i, 1884. 
 
 My deakest Mother, 
 
 You will, I know, excuse a short letter 
 this week, when I tell you I have been nearly tlie 
 whole week up the White Nile on a reconnaissance, 
 and only returned this morning, and leave again 
 
 at midday. I got a long letter from M on 
 
 Monday (to-day is Saturday), and felt very thank- 
 ful for all her prayers. Gordon says he hopes 
 sincerely you will all pray for his success and join 
 his name with mine. I enclose cheque to buy 
 yourself some Easter present, as. I cannot send you 
 one. I like Gordon more and more every day; 
 he has a most lovable manner and disposition, 
 and is so kind to me. He is glad if you show the 
 smallest desire to help him in his great trouble. 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 99 
 
 How one man could have dared to attempt his 
 task, I wonder. One day of his work and bother 
 would kill another man, yet he is so cheerful at 
 breakfast, lunch, and dinner; but I know he 
 suffers fearfully from low spirits. I hear him 
 walking up and down his room all night (it is next 
 to mine). It is only his great piety carries him 
 through. He and I agree in a great many religious 
 
 views If at any time anything should 
 
 happen to me in a reconnaissance, &c.. General 
 Gordon has a small box of mine to send home. 
 You will find some jewellery in it, &c., for the 
 girls, and some money which I will tell you 
 about. 
 
 There is not the least fear now. All will go 
 
 well, with God's help I have lost several 
 
 friends in Baker's defeat ; but losing friends seem 
 to be the rule in the Soudan. Excuse this hurried 
 letter. 
 
 FRANK POWER. 
 
lOO LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 Khartoum, 
 
 Friday i March 6, 1884, 
 
 My deaeest Angela, 
 
 I need not tell you how glad I was to 
 get yours, Everard's, and Mary's letters on last 
 Monday, particularly as your letter had, besides 
 lots of news, your photo. I was also pleased to 
 hear that Jack's sliip had arrived safely. I am 
 nearly sure I get all your letters, though some- 
 times late ; for instance, I got a Christmas card 
 from Mary on the 12th of January, and the 
 Shakespeare never turned up. I get any amount 
 
 of papers from mother and M . Here the 
 
 monotony is only broken by expeditions up and 
 down the river, to let the rebels know there is a 
 kick in us yet. Gordon is working wonders with 
 his conciliatory policy. Of course, those French 
 brutes must interfere. To-day a new French 
 Consul, or a man entrusted with a secret mission 
 from France, arrived here. There is not a French 
 subject in Khartoum, or a penny's French interest 
 in the Soudan since M. Marquet went from here, 
 yet this fellow comes. He is the editor of the 
 Bosphorc Egyptien, a halfpenny evening paper in 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 10 1 
 
 Cairo, which was suppressed last week for violent 
 attacks (personal and filthy) on Baring, ClifFord- 
 Lloyd, and the English officers, and horrible stories 
 about our Queen. The people here, Greeks, Arabs, 
 &c., all condemn the bad taste of the Prencli in 
 sending him here as Consul ; he has not yet called 
 on any of us in the Palace^ but we three (Gordon, 
 Stewart, and myself) are agreed as to how we will 
 receive him. I had no firing on our expedition to 
 the Blue Kile, although 3,000 men with rifles and 
 cannon drew up to prevent our landing. They 
 preserved a dignified silence. I send a book which 
 
 Gordon gave me to M . I know how much 
 
 she admires him. He desires to be remembered to 
 you all, and hopes you will continue to pray for 
 his success. He has the greatest faith, he says, 
 in women's prayers. I send you a present ; you 
 ought to get it two days after your birthday. I 
 will send one to Fannie next mail. We will be out 
 of this in about four months, when the General 
 will go for three weeks to Brussels, to finish 
 arrangements for the Congo ; so I can be two weeks 
 at home before I start with him across Africa (if 
 I am spared as far, D.V.). 
 
102 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 Last evening one of our steamers ran aground 
 twelve miles from here, and as she was in danger 
 Gordon sent me off with two steamers and strong 
 hawsers to get her off. We worked all night (as 
 the river is falling), and only got her off when we 
 had taken everything out of her — fuel, chains, 
 guns, &c. General Gordon was very pleased she 
 was saved. Poor man, he is nearly worn out with 
 hard work, but very cheerful. 
 
 FRANK POWER. 
 
 The letter of March 6, 1884, of which an extract 
 has been given, was the last written communica- 
 tion we had from my brother. Thenceforth the 
 only messages which came from him were his 
 telegrams addressed to the Times as correspondent 
 for that journal, and to Sir Evelyn Baring. Postal 
 communication had been stopped. 
 
 His telegrams to the Tivies during the month 
 of March and the beginning of April gave graphic 
 descriptions of that portion of the siege. Their 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. IO3 
 
 story is known to the world, and is too recent in 
 men's minds to need repetition here. They told 
 of the indomitable courage, the wondrous re- 
 source and generalship, the noble self-sacrifice, the 
 reluctance to believe that he was abandoned, and 
 the success in winning and keeping the loyalty of 
 tlie people of Khartoum, which have marked 
 Irordon as a great general, a true Christian, and a 
 wondrous leader of men. But through all there ran 
 the same note of warning of the near-approaching 
 end ; to all except the Ministry the same story 
 was to be read, not only between the lines, but 
 in express words — that provisions were running 
 short, and that the time w^as nearing when the 
 valour and determination of the defenders would 
 avail no longer. 
 
 In those days, when telegrams were coming at 
 uncertain intervals, " not containing,'^ as a leading 
 newspaper pointed out, " a single expression of 
 despair," but yet clearly showing the danger that 
 the devoted garrison stood in from day to day, 
 more particularly in those sorties in which Colonel 
 Stewart and my brother almost invariably took 
 part, the anxiety felt at home was intense. 
 
104 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 On April 9 my mother received a telegram from 
 Sir Evelyn Baring, saying, " Gordon telegraphs to 
 me Power is all right ; he is a first-rate fellow." 
 Then followed a message, published in the Times 
 of April 17, descriptive of events in the siege up 
 to a few days previous ; and then — for nearly six 
 months — silence ! 
 
 On September 29 a telegram arrived, which I 
 think should be given in full here. It ran as 
 follows : — 
 
 " (By Eastern Company's Cable.) 
 
 " Khartoum, April 28. 
 " {Via Kassala, Massowah, and Suakim.) 
 
 " Since my last telegram to you on April 2 1 we 
 
 have been almost daily engaged with the rebels, 
 
 who now thoroughly surround Khartoum. General 
 
 Gordon is busily engaged laying out mines in front 
 
 of the works in all directions. Yesterday and 
 
 to-day the rebels came down to a village opposite 
 
 and fired heavily on the Palace. We returned 
 
 the fire with artillery and musketry, and on both 
 
 occasions the Arabs soon retreated. There was no 
 
 loss on our side. The town is quiet. Over half 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. I05 
 
 the population before tlie siege began went over 
 to the rebels, thus weeding out all bad characters. 
 
 '' General Gordon is issuhig rations to the poor. 
 Food is very dear. ^Ye have corn and biscuits for 
 about four montlis. General Gordon has issued 
 paper money, as our treasure is still at Berber. 
 Tlie merchants accept it as money, and all the 
 arrears to the soldiers can be thus paid of!*. General 
 Gordon has sent emissaries to offer to all the slaves 
 of the rebels their freedom if they abandon their 
 masters and come in. If they do this, it will be a 
 fearful blow to the rebels. The General has hired 
 the large Mission premises on the river, and has 
 moved all the ammunition there ; in case of attack 
 with artillery on the fortifications, it will be per- 
 fectly safe. 
 
 " A messenger from Seyid Mahomet Osman, of 
 Kassala, who is an Emir of Mecca and chief among 
 the Mussulmans in the Soudan, has come in bring- 
 ing a letter. The Seyid says he has beaten the rebels 
 around Kassala, and he tells General Gordon to be 
 of good heart and he and all his men will come to 
 his relief. In such respect is this man held that 
 the rebels did not dare to stop the bearer of the 
 
I06 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 letter. One of General Hicks's bandsmen came in 
 last night from El Obeid. The Mahdi has sent 
 two guns, forty boxes of shells, and sixty Eeming- 
 tons to be used against Saleh Bey, who is sti!l 
 holding out against the rebels at Mesalimieh. This 
 soldier states that Slatten Bey, at Darfour, has 
 not surrendered to the Mahdi. The Blue Nile is 
 slowly rising, and we hope that in ten or fifteen 
 days the steamers will be able to smite the rebels 
 hip and thigh. The health of the town is excel- 
 lent, and we three Englishmen here are well and 
 hopeful. There are now around the lines, in ad- 
 dition to all other obstacles, such as crowsfeet, 
 broken glass, wire entanglements, and chevaux de 
 /rise, three lines of land torpedoes or j^ercussion 
 mines. They are enormously powerful, and are 
 much feared by the Arabs. We have no news 
 whatever of the intentions of Her Majesty's 
 Government. We learned to-day that a man 
 with a post from Berber was taken by the rebels 
 and killed. 
 
 " July 30. 
 ''We have been now five months closely 
 besieged, and can at best hold out but two months 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. I07 
 
 longer. The soldiers and people live in hopes of 
 English relief, as since last May there are daily 
 reports of English advancing from Dongola and 
 Kassala. The Arabs have strong forts with can- 
 non along the river, and they push the siege as 
 vigorously as ever. General Gordon has protected 
 all the steamers with bullet-proof plates of soft 
 wood and iron, and on the six armoured barges 
 has put up castles twenty feet high, giving a 
 double line of fire. We have no fears of a rising 
 in the town, as before the siege 8,000 to 10,000 
 men left and joined the rebels. The troops, to be 
 loyal, must be paid, and General Gordon is badly 
 off for money, none of that which left Cairo for 
 his use ever having reached Khartoum. He has 
 issued ;^5o,ooo worth of paper money. Food is 
 daily distributed to the poor. 
 
 " Since March 23rd the following are tlie chief 
 events of the siege : — 
 
 "March 23. — Hassan and Seyid Pachas were 
 put to death for treachery in the battle of the 
 16th, in which we lost 350 killed and 
 wounded. 
 
 ''April 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20. — Attacks by the 
 
 H 2 
 
I08 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 rebels on the Palace from the villages opposite. 
 Fearful loss of life to the Arabs from mines put 
 down by General Gordon. 
 
 " April 27. — We heard of the surrender of 
 Saleh Bey at Mesalimieh to the rebels with fifty 
 shiploads of food, seventy boxes of cartridges, 
 2,020 rifles, and a steamer. 
 
 "May I. — The officer commanding engineers, 
 having put down a mine of 78 lb. of powder, 
 trod on it, and with six soldiers was blown to 
 pieces. 
 
 " May 3. — A man reported an English army at 
 Berber. 
 
 " May 6. — Heavy attack from the Arabs at the 
 Blue Nile end of the works ; great loss of life from 
 mines we had placed at Buri. 
 
 " May 7.— Great attack from a village oppo- 
 site; nine mines were exploded there, and we 
 afterwards heard that they killed 115 rebels. 
 The Arabs kept up a fire all day. Colonel 
 Stewart, with two splendidly directed shots from 
 a Krupp 20-pounder at the Palace^ drove them 
 out of their principal position. During the 
 night the Arabs loopholed the walls, but on the 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 109 
 
 9tli we drove them out. They had held the place 
 for three days. 
 
 "May 25.— Colonel Stewart, while workmg a 
 mitrailleuse at the Palace, was wounded by the 
 rebel fire, but he is now quite w^ell. 
 
 " May 26. — During an expedition up the White 
 Nile, Saati Bey put a shell into an Arab maga- 
 zine. Tliere was a great explosion, sixty shells 
 going off. 
 
 '' During May and June steamer expeditions 
 were made daily under Saati Bey. Our loss was 
 slight, and much cattle were captured. 
 
 " June 25. — Mr. Cuzzi, English Consul at Berber, 
 who is w4th the rebels, came to our lines, and told 
 us of the fall of Berber. Mr. Cuzzi lias been sent 
 to Kordofan. 
 
 "June 30. — Saati Bey captured forty ardebs 
 of corn from the rebels, and killed 200 of 
 them. 
 
 "July 10. — Saati Bey, having burnt Kalakla 
 and three villages, attacked Gatarneb, but, with 
 three of his officers, w\as killed. Colonel 
 Stewart had a narrow escape. Saati's loss is 
 serious. 
 
no LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 " July 29. — We beat the rebels out of Buri, 
 on the Blue Nile, killing numbers of them and 
 capturing munitions and eighty rifles. The 
 steamers advanced to El Efan, clearing thirteen 
 rebel forts and breaking two cannon. Since 
 the siege began our loss has been under 700 
 killed. 
 
 " This is the end of the fifth month of the siege. 
 Yesterday I sent you via Kassala a despatch giving 
 the situation here and the chief incidents of the 
 siege since March 23. I wrote you several times 
 each w^eek up to April 23, when all hopes of men 
 getting through to Berber had ceased. For the 
 last five months the siege has been very close, the 
 Arab bullets from all sides being able to fall into 
 the Palace. 
 
 " Since March 17 no day has passed without 
 firing, yet our losses in all at the very outside are 
 not 700 killed. We have had a good many 
 wounded, but as a rule the wounds are slight. 
 Since the siege General Gordon has caused biscuit 
 and corn to be distributed to the poor, and up 
 to this time there has been no case of anv one 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM, I I I 
 
 seriously wanting food. Everything has gone np 
 about 3,000 per cent, in price, and meat is, when 
 you can get it, 8s. or 9.^. an ober. The classes who 
 cannot accept relief suffer most. 
 
 '•' Since the despatch which arrived the day 
 before yesterday all hope of relief by our Govern- 
 ment is at an end, so when our provisions, which 
 we have at a stretch for two months, are eaten 
 we must fall, nor is there any chance, with the 
 soldiers we have, and the great crowd of women, 
 children, &c., of our being able to cut our way 
 through the Arabs. We have not steamers for all, 
 and it is only from the steamers we can meet the 
 rebels. 
 
 " One Arab horseman is enough to put 200 of 
 the bulk of our men to flight. The day Saati 
 Bey was killed eight men with spears charged 
 200 of our men armed with Eemingtons. The 
 soldiers fled at once, leavinej Saati and his Vakeel 
 to be killed. A black officer cut down three of 
 the Arabs, and the other five chased our men. A 
 horseman coming up rode through the flying 
 mass, cutting down seven. Colonel Stewart, who 
 was unarmed, got off by a fluke, the Arabs not 
 
I 
 
 112 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 having seen him. With such men as these we can 
 do nothing. The Negroes are the only men we can 
 depend upon. 
 
 " The attack made by the Soudani troops under 
 Mehemet Ali Pacha, on the 28th of this month, 
 was most successful ; the Arab loss must have 
 been very heavy. As General Gordon lias for- 
 bidden the soldiers to bring in the heads of rebels 
 they kill, it is now hard to know the exact number. 
 We captured that day sixteen shells and car- 
 touches for mountain gun, a quantity of rifle 
 ammunition, seventy-eight Eemingtons, a number 
 of elephant and other rifles, nearly 200 lances, 
 sixty swords, and some horses. Our loss was four 
 killed and some slightly wounded. This action 
 has cleared away the rebels, who day and night 
 have been firing into our lines at Buri, on the 
 Blue Nile. 
 
 " Tlie following day (29tli inst.) a flotilla of five 
 armoured steamers and four armoured barges with 
 castles on them went up to Gareff, on the Blue 
 Nile. I went with them. On the way up we 
 cleared thirteen small forts, but at Gareff found 
 two lari>"e strong forts — earthworks rivetted with 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. I I 3 
 
 trunks of palm-trees. There were two cannons 
 in one. For eidit hours we enQ;a2:ecl these forts, 
 and with the Krupp 20-pounder disabled their 
 two cannons. The Arab hre was terrific, but, 
 owing to the bullet-proof armour on all the vessels, 
 our loss was only three killed and twelve or 
 thirteen wounded. Towards the evening we drove 
 the rebels, who were in great numbers, out of 
 the forts. 
 
 "In three days General Gordon will send two 
 steamers towards Sennaar. It is hoped they will 
 retake the steamer Mchcmet All, which the rebels 
 took from Saleh Bey. General Gordon is quite 
 well, and Colonel Stewart has quite recovered 
 from his wound. I am quite w^ell and happy." 
 
 The above message is the last complete account 
 given, or which will probably ever be given, of the 
 siege of Khartoum, unless the diaries of General 
 Gordon, which are said to have been recovered, 
 are brought down to a later date, or the papers of 
 Colonel Stewart and my brother are found at 
 Berber, wliere tliey are now reported to be. 
 
114 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 The telegram was read everywhere with interest, 
 and discussed and commented on in every news- 
 paper in the kingdom. The Times of the same 
 date commenced its leading article as follows : — 
 
 " We publish to-day a series of letters from our 
 correspondent at Khartoum, which no English- 
 man will read without a thrill of pride and a flush 
 of shame. They tell a story of unflinching 
 courage, of unwavering fortitude, of inexhaustible 
 energy and resource, of hope in circumstances of 
 despair, and of splendid devotion to duty when 
 hope had fled. In the long roll of Englishmen 
 who have spent themselves in the service of Eng- 
 land there is no brighter name than that won for 
 himself by General Gordon, nor in the glorious 
 catalogue of their exploits is there any that can 
 
 outshine his defence of Khartoum Others 
 
 have faced frightful odds with the inspiring con- 
 sciousness of generous sympathy at home seeking 
 every means of affording them succour, but these 
 three Englishmen at Khartoum, though happily 
 spared the knowledge of much mean and bitter 
 detraction, have fought under the chilling influence 
 of f^rowiniT indifference and final desertion on the 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. I IS 
 
 part of those whose first duty was their relief. . . . 
 When the curtain falls on the last day of July, 
 we see the three Englishmen, knowing that their 
 days are numbered, unless the unforeseen and the 
 improbable comes to pass, setting their backs to 
 the wall and facing their hard fate without a 
 thought of flinching, and even without abatement 
 of their cheerfulness." 
 
 There had come previously in the early part of 
 September a report, unhappily unfounded, that a 
 successful and decisive battle had been fought 
 and the siege raised. A hope had grown up in 
 England that this w^as so ; but, alas ! the true facts 
 were far otherwise ; and, on the day that my 
 brother's last message was published to the world, 
 its writer and Stew^art had been betrayed and mur- 
 dered by the Monassir Arabs, and Gordon, with 
 Omdurman invested, was more closely besieged 
 than ever, and more surely marked for destruction, 
 in Khartoum — alone ! 
 
 " Who can imagine,^' says a writer in the Pall 
 Mall Gazette, "the gloomy thoughts that must 
 have filled the minds of the three Englishmen as 
 they stood alone beneath the sultry sun and con- 
 
Il6 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 fronted inontli after inontli the pitiless hail of shot 
 which never failed for a single day ? " Bnt who 
 can imagine, I ask, their thoughts and feelings on 
 September lo last, when theinoment came when the 
 three — nearer grown to one another than brothers 
 — clasped liands in a last farewell ? Telegrams 
 had been sent with no avail ; letters with no 
 avail ; solemn despatches, proclaiming their need, 
 and still with no a\ail ! 
 
 They had said everything of their danger that 
 brave men could say and still be brave; but 
 politicians " saw no reason to apprehend that 
 Khartoum stood in need of relief." And so the 
 time came at last when the three sliould part : 
 when General (lordon decided to send on Colonel 
 Stewart and my brother to cut through to the 
 English lines if possible, and to tell in person the 
 true state of the case— to sue for relief, not for 
 himself, but for those whose safety he had pledged 
 himself to take care of. 
 
 On September lO, entrusted with this mission, 
 Colonel Stewart and my brother embarked on the 
 ill-fated Ahhas, and steamed dowTi the Nile to 
 Berber — -and to death. 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. I I 7 
 
 The stoker of the steamer tells tlie melaucholy 
 sequel in the following words : — 
 
 ''The steamer Ahhas left Khartoum about six 
 months ago, with Colonel Stewart, two European ^ 
 Consuls, twelve Greeks, and several natives on 
 board. Two .other steamers accompanied her 
 beyond Berber, and four nuggars sailed with us, 
 which were towed as far as Berber by these tw^o 
 steamers. We shelled the forts at Berber, and 
 our steamer having safely passed them, the 
 others returned, we proceeding with the nuggars, 
 which we also left behind before reaching Abu 
 Hamad. 
 
 " On September 1 8 the steamer struck on a 
 rock near a small island in the Wad Gamr country. 
 We had previously seen many of the people 
 running away to the hills on both banks of the 
 river. Everything was landed on the island by 
 means of a small boat. Colonel Stewart drove a 
 nail into the steamer's gun, filed off the projecting 
 end, and then threw the gun and its ammunition 
 overboard. 
 
 " Meanwhile, several people came down to the 
 bank shouting, HUve us peace and grain.' We 
 
Il8 LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. 
 
 told them we had brought peace. Suleiman Wad 
 Gamr, living in a house on the bank of the river, 
 being asked for camels to take the party to 
 Merawi, said that he would provide them, and 
 invited Colonel Stewart and the two Consuls to 
 the house of a blind man, named Fakrietman, 
 telling them to come unarmed^ lest the people 
 should be frightened. The camels were not given 
 us. We all went unarmed, except Colonel Stewart, 
 who had a small revolver in his belt. 
 
 " Presently I saw Suleiman come out and make 
 a sign to the people standing about the village, 
 armed with swords and spears. These immediately 
 divided into two parties, one running to the house 
 of the blind man, the other to where the rest of 
 Colonel Stewart's party were assembled. I was 
 with the latter. When the natives charged we 
 threw ourselves into the river. The natives fired 
 and killed many of us, and others were drowned. 
 
 " I landed on a small island, and remained there 
 until it was dark, when I swam over to the left 
 bank. After some time I made my way to 
 Hanidab, where I was seized, and taken to Sheikh 
 Omar, Suleiman's uncle, at Birteh. I have been 
 
LETTERS FROM KHARTOUM. I I9 
 
 at Birteli ever since, and remained there when the 
 dervishes ran away the day before yesterday. 
 
 " I heard that when the natives entered Fakriet- 
 man's house they fell upon Colonel Stewart and 
 the Consuls, and killed all three. Hassan Bey 
 held the blind man in front of him, thus escaping 
 with a knife-wound only, and he afterwards went 
 to Berber. Two artillery soldiers, two boat 
 captains, and three of the native crew of the 
 steamer are alive in Berber. A few slaves are 
 also alive near Birteh. The money found was 
 divided among the natives who murdered the 
 party, everything else being sent to Berber. The 
 bodies were thrown into the river." 
 
 A. P. 
 
 J-RINTED nv DAr.I.AN'TYXE, HANSON AND CO. 
 LONDON AND EDINBURGH 
 
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