PRISON LIFE
My first spell in prison was one of four years. After nine months the
rings and chains were removed from my neck, but the fetters I wore
continuously—with the exception of thirteen days—during the whole of
my captivity. A day-to-day record of my experiences is out of the
question, besides being unnecessary, even were it possible to give
them. I must content myself with a general description of the life
passed there, and give an idea of the day’s routine.
When I reached Omdurman, the prison proper consisted of the common
cell already mentioned (“Umm Hagar”—the house of stone), surrounded by
a large zareeba of thorn trees and branches, and standing about six
feet high. There were thirty guardians, each armed with a “courbag”
(rhinoceros-hide whip) with which to keep their charges in order.
There were no sanitary arrangements, not even of the most primitive
description. All prisoners had to be fed by their friends or relatives;
if they had neither they starved to death, as the prisoners, charitable
as they were to each other in the matter of food, had barely enough to
eat to keep body and soul together, for the |94| best, and greater
part of the food sent in, was eaten by the guardians.
At sunrise each morning the door of the common cell was opened, and
the prisoners were allowed to shuffle down to the banks of the Nile,
a few yards distant, for their ablutions and for water for drinking.
After this, we assembled for the first prayer of the day, in which all
had to join. When not working, we had to read the Mahdi’s “ratib,” a
description of prayer-book, containing extracts from the Quoran with
interpolations of the Mahdi. All the faithful were ordered to learn
this “ratib” off by heart,[3] and for this purpose each one had either
to purchase a copy or write one out. At noon the second prayer was
held, followed by another mid-time between noon and sunset, and a
fourth at sunset. We should have repeated the night prayer when the
night had set in, but as we were driven into the “Umm Hagar” at sunset,
the time which should have been given to this prayer was fully taken
up with brawls, fights, and those comprehensive curses of the Arabs,
commencing with the second person’s father, going back for generations,
and including all the female ancestors.
[3] The “Ratib” occupied about three-quarters of an hour in
recitation, and, by the Mahdi’s orders had to be repeated daily
by every one after the morning and afternoon prayer; it ranked
in importance with the five obligatory daily prayers ordained
by the Quoran. It was also looked upon as a sort of talisman,
and it was given out, after such fights as Toski, Ginniss,
and the Atbara, that those killed were those who had either
not learned the Ratib or had not a copy with them. The book
was carried in a small leather case suspended from the neck.
A number of copies were printed on the old Government press,
but it was considered more meritorious to write out a copy
rather than to purchase one, and the Mahdi had hoped that this
Ratib would eventually become a sort of Quoran accompanied by
its volumes of “traditions,” hence his anxiety that every one
should learn to write.
[Illustration: LEARNING THE MAHDI’S RATIB.]
It has been found impossible, even in the most guarded and disguised
language, to insert here a real word-picture of a night in the Saier.
The scenes |95| of bestiality and filthiness, the means employed
for bringing the most powerful man to his knees with a single blow,
the nameless crimes committed night after night, and year after year,
may not be recorded in print. At times, and sometimes for weeks in
succession, from 250 to 280 prisoners were driven into that small room;
we were packed in; there was scarcely room to move our arms; “jibbehs”
swarmed with insects and parasites which in themselves made sleep an
impossibility and life a misery. As the heat grew more oppressive,
and the atmosphere—always vile with the ever-present stench of the
place—grew closer with the perspiring bodies, and with other causes,
all semblance of human beings was lost. Filth was thrown from one
side of the room to the other by any one who could move his hand for
the purpose of doing so, and as soon as this disgusting element was
introduced, the mass, in its efforts to avoid being struck with it,
swayed from side to side, fought, bit, and struggled as far as their
packed-in condition would allow of, and kicked with their bars and
chains the shins of those next them, until the scene became one that
only a Dante might describe. Any prisoner who went down on such a
night never got up again alive; his cries would not be heard above the
pandemonium of clanking chains and bars, imprecations and cursings, and
for any one to attempt to bend down to assist, if he did hear, only
meant his going under also. In the morning, when we were allowed to
stream out, five and six bodies would be found on the ground with the
life crushed and trampled out of them. |96|
Occasionally, when the uproar was greater than usual, the guards would
open the door, and, standing in the doorway, lash at the heads of
the prisoners with their hide whips. Always when this occurred death
claimed its five or six victims, crushed and trampled to death. I wish
I might say that I had drawn upon my imagination for what is given
above; I can but assure you that it gives but the very faintest idea of
what really occurred.
Until we had been set to make bricks and build a wall round our
prison, our life, in comparison with what it was later, was I might
say endurable. By baksheeshing the guards, we were allowed to go
down to the river during the day almost as often as we pleased;
and these excursions, taken presumably for the purpose of ablution
and drinking, gave us many opportunities of conversing with the
townspeople. This life I enjoyed but for a few months. A large number
of prisoners succeeded in escaping. Consequently the digging of a well
for infiltration water to supply the prisoners, and the building of a
wall round the prison were ordered by the Khaleefa to be completed as
rapidly as possible.
The prisoners who escaped were mainly slaves, and as most slaves were
chained to prevent their running away from their owners—hundreds going
about the town fettered—they had little difficulty in effecting their
escape from prison, and also from Omdurman. On being allowed to go
to the river to wash, they would wade down the bank until they came
opposite some large crowd of people, and |97| coming on the bank,
their chains would excite no suspicion, for, as I have already said,
hundreds similarly fettered were going about the town. Making their
way to the nearest blacksmith, he would remove their chains in a few
moments for the sake of obtaining the iron, which was valuable to him.
We were not at that time altogether without news; papers published in
Egypt were constantly arriving, brought by the Khaleefa’s spies, who
passed regularly backwards and forwards between Omdurman and Cairo,
keeping up communications between the Khaleefa and some of the more
fanatical Mohammedans resident at the capital. Since my return I have
inquired as to an incident which happened on the frontier in connection
with the army some years ago. I shall only relate what we heard, and
as given out by the Khaleefa and his Emirs. All the English officers,
according to the report received, had been dismissed, and had left with
the Sirdar. The English soldiers had also been removed from Egypt; so
the Khaleefa was jubilant, and looked forward to the near future when
the Egyptian troops would attempt to attack him, and when not a man of
them was to be left alive. I was to have been a witness of the great
battles when the angels of Allah were to fight with the believers, and
assist the Ansar to utterly exterminate the Turks. While this was still
the topic of conversation, another messenger arrived to say that the
trouble had been arranged; the English officers and troops were not
leaving, and as the Khaleefa’s hopes fell, ours rose. |98|
Of all the people whom the Mahdi himself appointed to posts, two,
and, I believe, two only, retained their positions up to the time
of the taking of Omdurman. One was Khaleel Hassanein, the director
of the arsenal, and the other Idris es Saier, the gaoler. Idris—for
he is still living—is a man of the Gawaamah tribe, a tribe that the
first missionary will have some little trouble with, unless he is
prepared to revise one of the Ten Commandments out of the Pentateuch
altogether, as the following story connected with my gaoler’s first
appearance in the world may indicate. Idris’s mother had a sister who,
tired of single blessedness, proposed to, and was accepted by, a swain
of the tribe who was a constant visitor to their hut. Idris’s mother
had also the intention of proposing to the same man, and having told
her sister this, the sister popped the question first, was accepted,
and then Idris’s mother upbraided her after the manner of her tribe,
which evidently consisted more of actions than of words. When the
happy swain put in his next appearance, Idris’s mother, with Idris in
her arms, asked him how he dare go against the custom of her section
of the tribe, and accept in marriage a girl who had had no children,
while she had already had two! “Saier” in the Gawaamah language means
“custom” and “customary,” and Idris was named Idris es Saier when, in
after years, a satisfactory explanation could not be found for his not
boasting a father. Idris’s mother afterwards married and ruled, with
her legitimate son, Saier’s family. When appointed as gaoler by the
Mahdi, his prison was |99| called “El-Beit-es-Saier” (the house of
Saier), which later was contracted to “Saier,” and the name eventually
replaced the proper word for prison, all prisons being called the
“Saier,” and the head-gaoler, “Saier.”
Idris had been a famous robber and thief, and he was never tired
of relating his exploits, and then winding up by pointing out what
Mahdieh had done for him, for by his conversion he was now the honoured
guardian of all thieves, robbers, and murderers, and there is little
doubt but that he had a sneaking regard for all such, as a link between
himself and his earlier days.
He was superstitious to a degree, and although the Mahdi and Khaleefa
had strictly forbidden fortune-telling and the writing of talismans,
Idris followed the example of the Khaleefa himself, and regularly
consulted the fortune-tellers, most of his ill-gotten gains going to
them in fees. He had had made twenty-five to thirty boards of hard
wood, about eighteen to twenty inches square, and on these he had
written daily, a Sourah from the Quoran. The ink with which the Sourahs
were written was a mixture of wood-soot—or lamp-black, when that could
be obtained—gum arabic, some perfume, and water. As soon as the writing
was finished, Idris would, after carefully washing his hands, take a
small vessel holding about two teacups of water, and carefully wash off
the writing, allowing the water to drip back into the vessel; not a
drop was to be spilled on the ground, otherwise the writing would have
to be done over again, for the name Allah, and many of His attributes,
|100| were then in the solution. Having washed the board clean, caught
every drop of water, and then drunk it, he would come to us, and
deliver himself of the following harangue, and as we heard it two or
three times a week for years, I have an almost verbatim recollection of
it.
“I am a born thief and robber; my people killed many on the roads,
and robbed them of their property; I drank as no one else could, and
I did everything possible against rule and religion. The Mahdi then
came and taught me to pray and leave other people’s property alone.”
(This last always raised a bitter smile from his hearers, as he used
to torture us to deliver up for “the Khaleefa” any small coin or
article of value we might come into possession of.) “How I have to
thank the Mahdi for having made me a good, holy, and new man, and he
will at the Day of Judgment be my witness, and take me with his ansars
to heaven. Think what I have been, and see what I am now! I have been
worse than any of you. If you stole anything, you stole when you were
with the Government, and you only did what the Government and every
one else did, you had authority to do so. I was worse than you, I had
no authority. God has pardoned me, and will also pardon you if you
repent and give to the Beit-el-Mal what you have taken from the poor,
for there are many poor now in the town crying for food, and there is
no money in the Beit-el-Mal to purchase any. I have given all my money
in charity, and my wives and children are crying for food. I have no
boats to bring me |101| merchandise, and I have no land to cultivate
to grow dourra” (Sorghum, a grain in the Soudan, which takes the place
of our wheat). “I am a prisoner as you are, and the pay I get is not
sufficient to feed my family. Yesterday there was no dourra in my house
to feed my children, they had to lie down hungry, and I thank God for
His grace in supporting me through these trials for which I shall be
rewarded in the next world. I am going to see my starving children now,
and then I shall pray to God, and ask him to release you if you repent,
and turn the Khaleefa’s heart to you. The Khaleefa knows everything you
do, and sees you all the day, for ‘El Nebbi Khiddr’ is his eyes and
ears, and El Nebbi Khiddr not only sees and hears what you are doing
and saying, but sees what your thoughts are.”
After this, all but myself used to rise and kiss his hands; I never did
so. At the end of the first harangue he gave in my presence, and at the
end of his harangues for weeks later, he would continue:—“And now you
man from the bad world, you understand Arabic well. The Khaleefa has
told me to instruct you in the true religion; your fellow-prisoners
will tell you how Hicks Pasha was, with all his army, killed by the
angels; not a single shot was fired, or a spear thrown, by the Ansar;
the spears flew from their hands, and, guided by the angels, pierced
the breasts of the unbelievers, and burned up their bodies. God is
great. You will soon learn that you are mistaken, and that all your
world is wrong; there is no religion but that of the Mahdi. How happy
you |102| should be to have lived in his time and entered into the
company of the Ansar. God now loves you; it is He who has brought you
to us, and with the Khaleefa’s blessing you will yet be numbered with
the Ansar, and you will fight against the unbelievers and Turks as
other converts have done. You have a strong mind, and the Khaleefa
therefore has not a bad opinion of you. Thank him for his mercy that
he did not kill you. Be converted, and I shall be pleased and proud of
you, and be as your father. You others, you have seen the Mahdi and the
Khaleefa and their dealings; tell him of them. You Hamad el Nil, you
are a learned man, and know more of religion than I do; make Abdalla
know who God is, and who is His prophet.”
[Illustration: IDRIS-ES-SAIER.]
At the end of my first lecture, Abou Jinn asked me how much money I
had. I inquired why. He replied, “Do you not understand? The Saier
wants some money from you.” I told him of the money Hasseena had, and
which the Saier was taking care of, on which he smiled and told me
that the Saier would not take the money himself, but he would compel
me to _give_ it to him for his “starving children.” A few days later I
was sent for to hear the Saier hold forth again, and on this occasion
he finished up by saying that some of us must have done something
wrong. The Nebbi Khiddr had reported it to the Khaleefa, who had in
consequence ordered him to add more chains to our feet, but that we
were to submit to this without bad feelings against the Khaleefa and
him. If we repented, the |103| Nebbi Khiddr would report it, and
the Khaleefa, as he was full of grace, would soon order the chains to
be removed again. All the principal prisoners, with the exception of
myself, were then marched to the anvil, and had their chains hammered
on. I was spared, as, after the first lecture, I had, on Abou Jinn’s
advice, sent word to the Saier to take fifteen of my dollars for his
“starving children.” We prisoners held a conference, and it was decided
to present more moneys. It took us two days to scrape together the
requisite sum—about fifty dollars—to which I added seventeen of mine.
This had the happy result of not only removing the extra chains of the
prisoners, but Hasseena’s also. The Saier called us together, gave us a
homily on repentance and good behaviour, and told us to continue in the
same path, as it was evidently looked upon with approval by the Nebbi
Khiddr.[4]
[4] The Nebbi Khiddr is a mythical character in Islam. Sects
are divided as to whether he is a prophet or not. His name does
not appear in the Quoran. By some of the old writers he is made
the companion of Noah, Abraham, and Moses. Having drunk of the
waters of the Fountain of Life, he is believed by some to be
ever present at one of the holy places. His exact whereabouts
and his attributes have never been defined. The Mahdi killed
two birds with one stone by appropriating this unclaimed
prophet to himself; first, his supposed presence made Omdurman
a holy place, as the Nebbi only appeared at holy places, and
then, by investing him with the powers as related by Idris
es Saier, he was able to impress the more ignorant of his
followers of his—the Khaleefa’s—omniscience and omnipresence
through the Nebbi Khiddr’s agency. The Mahdi laying claim to
this prophet and attributing to him the powers he did, raised
in the minds of Hamad-el-Nil and others their first suspicions
as to the Mahdi and his mission.
But this Nebbi Khiddr was never satisfied for long with our conduct.
Every month he had something to report to the “Khaleefa,” and just
as regularly we were given extra chains, until a few dollars,
entrusted to Idris for the poor, had sent him to the Khaleefa with a
favourable report. All these ill-gotten moneys, as I have said, went to
soothsayers, fortune-tellers, and talisman writers, in whose absolute
power the |104| Saier was, though part went in baksheesh to the
servants and counsellors of the Khaleefa, whom the Saier had to keep in
funds in order to retain his place.
The Saier knew very well that not a single one of us believed in
this Nebbi Khiddr business, but as on the outside of the circle of
the principal prisoners—and they were the only ones from whom money
could be squeezed—were always gathered a number of the ignorant
and, therefore, more fanatical of the Khaleefa’s adherents, he had
invented this tale, which he gave year after year without the slightest
variation in words, in order to hoodwink them and prevent any tales
reaching the Khaleefa as to the sums “presented” by the prisoners.
|105|