PRISON JUSTICE
What I have written previously concerning the Nebbi Khiddr history
will, in the following notes of prison life, assist the reader in
better understanding how such mutual and transparent deceptions might
be practised by the Khaleefa and the gaolers as are related here.
It will be remembered that the Khaleefa, following the example of
the Mahdi, laid claim to the Nebbi Khiddr as his prophet or constant
messenger—a sort of modern Mercury amongst the Soudanese; hence the
mutual, but unacknowledged deceptions which might be practised by the
Khaleefa and his followers one against the other, but with always this
proviso: as the Khaleefa had the power of life and death, and his
spoken word was absolute, no one dare, even by suggestion, imply that
he had in any way deceived or hoodwinked Abdullahi, else the Nebbi
Khiddr would not have rested content until his detractor had been
shortened by a head.
When the many escapes from the Saier zareeba became of too common
gossip to be any longer concealed, Abdullahi ordered a wall to be
built in place |121| of the thorn zareeba, and later, to obviate the
necessity of the prisoners going to the Nile banks for drinking water
and ablutions, a well was sunk to provide infiltration water for the
purposes mentioned.[6] Until these works were ordered to be made, the
prisoners were mainly employed in building mud-brick houses for the
gaolers; and when these were finished we had to attend to certain of
the household duties—the tending of children, sheep, goats, and the
carrying of water from the Nile. Of all the tasks set the prisoners,
the household duties were the most pleasant, or, at all events, the
least distasteful. Most of the gaolers were able to keep up a large
establishment on the proceeds of their baksheesh and ill-gotten gains,
but with a multiplicity of wives or concubines a very natural result
followed—household bickerings and squabbles, in which one wife or
concubine was bound to come off worst; and this gave the wide-awake
prisoner engaged upon household duties his chance. He would soon detect
which concubine was being “put upon,” or whom the women-folk were most
jealous of, and in a few days’ time, as a result of his attentions in
carrying her pots and pans, and bringing her water as many times in the
day as she wished, he would be bemoaning in her sympathetic ears the
hard |122| fate of both of them, and trying to persuade her that what
she was enduring was far worse than his imprisonment and chains. The
old truism that “pity is akin to love” obtains equally as well under
the dusky hide of a Soudanese damsel as under the white skin of her
European sister, and very soon the pair would be maturing plans for
an escape and elopement. The main difficulty was the removal of the
man’s chains and a rapid flight to some distant village; but the Soudan
ladies are not a whit behind in woman’s resourcefulness face to face
with apparent impossibilities. Failing to arrange for a regular flight,
the woman would secure some place of hiding in Omdurman itself. She
would undertake all the arrangements, and I never knew of a failure in
their plans.
[6] This well was named “Beer-el-Ummarra” (the well of the
Emirs). When ordering its construction the Khaleefa instructed
Idris es Saier to put all the important prisoners on the
work, as the exercise would do them good. My gang consisted
of Ibrahim Wad Adlan, Ajjab Abou Jinn, Mohammad Wad Bessir,
Mohammad Abou Sinn, Abdalla Abou Sinn, Ali Wad-el-Hadd, Ahmed
Abd-el-Maajid, Mahmoud Wad Said, Hassan Um Barak, and the
Shereef Khaleel—the aristocracy, I might say, of the Soudan. We
did little or no work ourselves, we paid the imprisoned slaves
for doing it; but whenever Idris es Saier made his appearance
he would find us all busy. When telling us of the Khaleefa’s
orders, Idris hinted that it might be advisable for us to
subscribe amongst ourselves for paid labour, and he would take
charge of the money. At Wad Adlan’s advice, we said we rather
liked the idea of having some work to do to keep us occupied,
Adlan knowing that Idris would keep the money and make us work
just the same, or else pay over again for another batch of
slaves.
Each month a list of the prisoners in the Saier, and an account of
their progress in “education” would be submitted to Abdullahi, with
recommendations for the release of certain prisoners, and each month,
coincident with the preparation of this list, some prisoner would be
missing from his usual place that night and next morning—and for ever
afterwards; and this is how Soudan romances were managed. Sheep and
goats would stray unaccountably. As these accidents always happened
about sunset, the concubine would set off with the chained prisoner
to bring in the strayed animals at the precise moment when her lord
and master was engaged upon his official duties and locking up the
prisoners in the Umm Hagar. On his calling at his house, the temporary
absence would excite little or no suspicion, but as the hours sped
on |123| suspicions were aroused, and if on the following morning or
the same night the sheep and goats found their way back unaided, the
gaoler’s only way out of the difficulty was to present a favourable
report of the conduct of the escaped prisoner, in the hope that his
release would be ordered by the Khaleefa. To acknowledge that he had
escaped while employed in tending his sheep and goats would be to place
the gaoler’s head or liberty in danger, and the eloping couple well
knew this. No sooner was the release ordered, than the happy couple
would present themselves before the Kadi, to be married right off—the
Soudanese damsel in the possession of a husband, with no other wives
or concubines to worry her in the house, and her husband free of his
chains. True, he might divorce his wife the same day if he so chose,
but then his and her object had been gained—they were both clear of the
gaoler, whom they knew dare not trump up any case against them in the
hope of one or the other being again committed to prison, for, once
released by the Khaleefa’s orders, a prisoner might only be recommitted
on them. Moreover, if one of the two should relate what had actually
occurred, the gaoler himself, having deceived the Khaleefa with his
report of good conduct and “education,” would certainly be sent to
prison or to the gallows.
I was too important a prisoner to make my escape at all possible by
such happy means as those above described. My only hope lay in trusty
natives and swift camels which would outstrip my pursuers. I often
envied my fellow-prisoners who exchanged the |124| bonds of slavery
for those of matrimony, for numbers of them came to see me after their
“release,” but I shudder to think what might have happened had I been
released by the Khaleefa’s orders, for, following the old adage that
a drowning man clutches at a straw, I must have promised marriage to
dozens of Soudan beauties (?) in the event of their doing anything
towards wheedling their masters or the Khaleefa into releasing me,
and it is quite certain that, on my release, I should have met at the
prison-gates a clamouring crowd all claiming the honour.
But I should explain how it was that I came into direct contact with
the hareems of the gaolers. Having studied physiology and medicine at
Königsberg and Leipzig, I was often called upon by the natives in Upper
Egypt, before the place was so well known to the travelling public
as it is now, and in the absence of doctors, to attend them in cases
of sickness or accident. My practice, being gratuitous, was a large
one, and I soon became the “Hakeem Pasha” (principal medical officer).
My reputation, if it did not precede me, at least accompanied me to
Omdurman when I was captured, so that I was in constant requisition at
the gaolers’ hareems, paying “professional” visits ranging from cases
in which the Khaleefa was soon to be presented with another subject,
to the most trivial and sometimes imaginary complaints. So long as
the women kept ailing, my life was rendered endurable, for I was able
to sit down and chat with them for hours, waiting to see the result
of concoctions made from, to me, unknown |125| herbs and roots, of
the properties of which I was ignorant; but the results were always
satisfactory. The only medicine or chemical I came across of any value
in the stores of the Beit-el-Mal was permanganate of potash, and I soon
discovered that a Soudan constitution necessitated the application
of this in crystals and not in liquid form. The effects, as may be
imagined, were rapid, and, though my medical readers might be inclined
to doubt the statement, the results were eminently satisfactory both to
the patients and myself.
Occasionally I would be sent for to attend some one in the women’s
prison, which was situated a short distance from the Saier of Idris.
The women’s prison consisted of the common cell and a light zareeba,
through which the curious might gaze on the women as they lay stretched
on the ground during the day in the sun, undergoing their first period
of imprisonment. The majority of the women prisoners were slaves locked
up on some pretence or other to prevent their escaping. It might be
that their master was arranging for some trading trip which would
occupy him for weeks and, maybe, months. The simplest way of preventing
his property from running away during his absence was to trump up
some charge against her, and have her locked up, knowing that her
release might not be obtained until he returned and requested it. As
in the mean time she would have to be fed at his expense, and gave her
services free to the household of one of the gaolers, he was equally
sure that the gaoler would not be too anxious to secure her release.
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Married women were sent to prison on all sorts of charges, ranging from
suspected conjugal infidelity to the delivery of a curtain lecture. The
women prisoners wore light chains connecting their anklets, but their
lot was little better than that of the men. A charge of infidelity “not
proven,” as the Scotch have it, was followed by imprisonment and the
application of three hundred stripes with the courbag, and when the
woman had recovered from these, she would be sent into the house of
one of the gaolers to be the maid-of-all-work for every one there; she
would have to grind corn, attend to the children, carry water, and be
driven as a slave night and day for weeks. A Mrs. Caudle or a termagant
received from fifty to eighty lashes, and she too on recovery would be
sent into one of the gaolers’ hareems to work as hard as her possibly
innocent and more severely punished companion in misery. A few weeks of
such treatment sent the women back home completely cured of the faults
for which they were sent to prison to be corrected, besides which
the relation of their experiences acted as an effective deterrent on
budding Mrs. Caudles and others.
The unloading of boats was the hardest work we were set to, and we were
kept up to the mark by the ever-present lash; we might only be tired
and ill when we could afford the luxury of paying for the complaint,
for this labour was the most lucrative task our gaolers could set us
to; we had either to work, or pay many times the equivalent of our
labour. It was in connection with the unloading of boats, and this,
|127| too, when I was slowly recovering from my attack of typhus fever
after the death of Ahmed Nur ed Din, that I received my first flogging.
A young gaoler had pestered me for money, and as I had none to give
him, he ordered me to slave at the unloading of the boats. The only way
of exhibiting a real refusal was to sit down upon the ground, which I
did, upon which the gaoler commenced to drag me towards the gateway of
the Saier. On this I got upon my feet and knocked the gaoler off his.
He ran to Idris es Saier, told his own tale, and Idris, approaching
me, ordered me to get up—for I had again sat down—and assist in the
unloading of the boats. I refused, and accused the gaoler of trying to
extort monies from me. Upon this Idris struck me with his “safarog” (an
instrument almost the exact counterpart of the Australian boomerang,
and used by the Soudan tribes for precisely similar purposes); the
blow he gave smashed the safarog and stunned me, and while only partly
conscious I was turned over and condemned to receive there and then
five hundred lashes.
Only sixty or seventy, I was told, were inflicted; the remainder were
not given, as Idris, seeing that I was unconscious, believed that I
was dead, and in consequence received a terrible fright. I was carried
to my place in the cell, while Idris set about clearing himself with
the other prisoners, and explaining that it was all the work of the
young gaoler. Idris knew what it meant to him had I been flogged to
death, and, believing that I would not recover, he, when I did recover,
evidently made up his mind to pay out the gaoler who was |128|
responsible for his fright in the first place, and for his servility
to the other prisoners at the moment when he thought there were good
grounds for it.
[Illustration: A FLOGGING BY ORDER OF THE KHALEEFA.]
His opportunity came some little time later on, when the same gaoler
invented another excuse for flogging me. I had bought from one of the
gaolers a small mud hut, a few feet square, in the prison enclosure,
and received permission from Idris es Saier to sleep in this at night
instead of in the Umm Hagar. This young gaoler—and other gaolers as
well—accepted baksheesh from prisoners to allow them to sleep in the
open; and Idris, finding the contributions to his “starving children”
falling off, suspected the reason, and lay in wait. Upon a night when
a larger number than usual had been allowed to sleep outside the Umm
Hagar, he suddenly made his appearance in the prison enclosure. There
was nothing for our guardians to do but to pretend that the prisoners
had been insubordinate, had refused to enter the Umm Hagar, and to
lay about them with their whips. The young gaoler, not aware that
I had paid the regulation baksheesh to Idris, made straight for my
hut, dragged me out, and flogged me to the door of the common cell, a
distance, maybe, of forty or fifty yards, but my thick jibbeh prevented
the blows from telling with much effect as far as regards abrasion of
the skin; nevertheless, their weight told on my diminished strength,
and I again fell ill. The circumstance came to the ears of the Khaleefa
through Idris, or the Nebbi Khiddr, and I had the huge satisfaction
of seeing my tormentor dismissed from his lucrative post, |129|
subjected to the two hundred lashes he was sentenced to receive, and
then sent as a prisoner in chains to work at the very same boats, which
he had had me flogged for refusing to assist in unloading. This, at the
present moment, is the only bit of real justice I can remember during
my twelve years’ captivity.
I have in a former chapter given a slight description of flogging as I
saw it practised when first captured by the dervishes; but the flogging
in the Saier was a very different matter. The maximum number of stripes
ever ordered was a thousand, and this number was often actually given,
but in every case the stripes were given over the clothing. The rules
of flogging were generally as follows: the first two hundred on the
back below the region of the lumbar vertebræ, the third and fourth
hundred on the shoulders, and the fifth hundred on the breast. When the
maximum number of one thousand lashes was ordered, they were always
given on the same parts as those of the first two hundred, and this
punishment was resorted to for the purpose of extorting confessions.
After eighty or one hundred blows, the jibbeh was cut into shreds,
and soon became saturated with the blood of the victim; and while the
effect of the individual blows may not have been as great as those
from the cat-o’-nine-tails, the number given made up in quantity for
what might have been lacking in quality, as is evidenced by the large
numbers who died under the castigation or as a result of it later.
On one occasion an old black soldier of the Egyptian |130| Army, named
Mohammad Ajjami, who was employed as a runner (a foot-galloper—if I may
invent the expression—of the Khaleefa on field days), was sent to me
while in the prison to be cured of the effects of a flogging. He had by
some means incurred the displeasure of Sheikh ed Din, the son of the
Khaleefa, and by him had been sentenced to receive a public flogging,
after which he was to be sent to the Saier to be “educated.” He was
carried into the prison to me after his flogging. The fleshy part of
his back was cut into ribbons, and the hip-bones were exposed. For six
or eight weeks I was constantly employed bathing this man’s wounds with
a dilute solution of carbolic acid, the carbolic crystals being sent
to me by Sheikh ed Din himself for the purpose, for his father, the
Khaleefa, jealous of his authority, had censured his son, telling him,
as he constantly told others, that “In Usbaiee shareeknee fee mulkee,
anna ikktahoo.”[7] Ajjami recovered, and often came to see me in prison
to express his gratitude. Sheikh ed Din himself was so pleased at the
man’s recovery that he begged his father to release me, so that I might
practise the healing art amongst his Ansar, and teach it to others;
but the Khaleefa was obdurate, and refused, his reasons for refusing
to release me being better left to be related later by some of my
fellow-captives.
[7] This expression was always used by the Khaleefa in any
discussion. Holding up his forefinger, he said (translation of
phrase): “Rather than this finger should be a partner in the
governing of my realm, I should cut it off.”
My third flogging was received under the following circumstances.
Having from Idris es Saier received permission to remain in my mud
hovel, instead of |131| spending the nights in the Umm Hagar, and
feeling secure in my comparative freedom and safe from the exactions of
the other gaolers, as I had baksheeshed Idris well, I firmly refused to
be bled any further. My particular guardian, not daring, after what had
occurred to my former guardian, to order me into the Umm Hagar, went a
step further, and refused to allow me to leave my mud hut at all for
any purpose whatever. I insisted upon being allowed to go to the place
of ablution—about one hundred yards distant—and being refused, set off,
receiving at every step a blow from the courbag. Being heavily chained,
I was helpless, and could not reach my tormentor, as he could skip away
from my reach, which was limited to the length of the bars connecting
my feet, which bars were fifteen inches in length. It was on this
occasion, night-time too, that Idris es Saier paid another surprise
visit to the prison enclosure to see what number of “unauthorized”
prisoners were sleeping outside the Umm Hagar, and, furious at the
number he discovered, he ordered all outside, without exception, to be
flogged.
I and fifteen to twenty others received a hundred and fifty lashes
each—at least, I received this number; others repented by crying out
after twenty or thirty blows. I alternately clenched my teeth and bit
my lips to prevent a sound of pain escaping, often as I was asked,
“Will you not cry out? Is your head and heart still like black iron?”
and the more they reminded me of the courage I was exhibiting, the more
reason I had for not giving way or breaking down. But the mental ordeal
was far, far more terrible than |132| the corporal punishment. There
was I, a European, a Prussian, a man who had fought with the British
troops in what transpired to be the “too late” expedition for the
rescue of Gordon, now in the clutches of the tyrant and his myrmidons,
whom we had hoped to rescue Gordon from; a white and a Christian—and
the only professing Christian—chained and helpless, being flogged by a
black, as much a captive and a slave as I was, and yet my superior and
master. It is impossible for any one not having undergone a similar
experience to appreciate the mental agonies I endured.
I may have been self-willed and strong-headed; I may, if you wish,
have acted like a fool in my constant defiance of the Khaleefa and the
tenets of the Mahdi; but now, looking back on those terrible times, I
feel convinced that had poor Gordon lived, my actions would at least
have met with his approbation, for the outward ceremony or observance
of adherence to the Mohammedan faith was carried out on me under force,
after the escape of Rossignoli. Death, in whatever form it came,
would have come as a welcome visitor to me; but while doing all in my
power to exasperate my captors to kill me, something—hope, courage, a
clinging to life, pride in my race, or personal vanity in defying them
to the end—restrained me from taking my own life, though Heaven knows
that, if ever man had a good excuse for doing so, I had. But my conduct
so impressed the Khaleefa that he told Wad Nejoumi, who asked for my
release so that I might accompany him to Dongola to “open up trade,”
and told many others later, “Neufeld I will |133| not release, but I
will not kill him.” Invariably, in speaking of me to others, as I was
still unconverted, the Khaleefa omitted the name “Abdalla” which I had
been given, and spoke of me as “Nofal”—the Arabic pronunciation of
Neufeld.
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