dervishes, whom I could see from my horse inside their compounds, to
come out into the lanes or roadway and lay down their rifles. By such
means the headquarters' advance through the town was made possible and
relatively easy. The sun had set and darkness was upon us before the
Sirdar and staff, going at times in single file, reached the common
prison where the Assouan merchant, Charles Neufeld, was confined.
Whilst accompanying a convoy of rifles presented by the Egyptian
Government in 1886 to Sheikh Saleh of the friendly Kabbabish tribe,
Neufeld had been captured by a party of dervishes. Like the other
European prisoners who fell into their hands, he had undergone great
hardships and experienced all the trials of misfortune. Neufeld and
several hundred natives who had incurred the Khalifa's ire or distrust
were found in a pestilential enclosure less than an acre in extent,
surrounded by mud-walls. All of them wore heavy leg chains, and a
few were handcuffed besides. The principal jail deliveries were by
disease and the gallows; the latter were almost daily in use. Three
rough sets of them stood together near the great wall. Limbs of trees
stuck into the ground, with a cross-piece overhead, that was how the
gallows were fashioned. A last victim of the Khalifa was cut down
shortly after the troops entered Omdurman.

[Illustration: NEUFELD ON GUNBOAT "SHEIK"--CUTTING OFF HIS
ANKLE-IRONS.]

Neufeld was found under a mat-covered lean-to built against the
mud-wall. There was no other protection for the prisoners from
sunshine or rain than coarse worn matting spread upon sticks and laid
against the walls. The enclosure was without any sanitary arrangements
whatever. A well had been dug near the middle of the yard and from
there the prisoners drew all the water they used. The Sirdar conversed
with the prisoner, and a fruitless effort was made to find the jailer
and have Neufeld's irons removed. Ultimately, when night had quite
fallen and it was pitch dark, Neufeld was set upon an officer's horse,
and the Sirdar and headquarters bringing him with them rode outside to
where the main body of the army was bivouacking upon the desert, north
of Omdurman. Later on I found means to have Neufeld's irons removed.
He had three sets of leg irons fastened round his ankles; a heavy bar
weighing fourteen pounds, and two thick chains above that. The heavy
rings upon the legs we could not get off without other appliances than
a hammer and