flogged with eighty lashes, until the
poor victim's bowels fell out. During his absence I was sent back to my
old master, Sheikh Idris, where I continued to lead a wretched
existence, eating out of the horses' nose-bag and quenching my thirst
from the share of water which was allotted to the animals. The ground
was my bed, the sky my roof.

Every morning when I got up I had to shake off the scorpions from my
clothes, into which they had crept during the night. It is curious that
the sting of these animals, which at other times was always most
painful, caused me little trouble or irritation. The filth in the camp,
owing to the entire absence of all sanitary rules, caused the flies to
increase prodigiously; eating during the daytime was impossible, for
one would have eaten as many flies as food.

I still suffered threats and insults here as in other places, and many a
time did I intentionally put my head in danger in the hope that death
would release me from these savages. Sheikh Idris was annoyed at my
ill-treatment, but what could one man do with these hordes of fanatics?
One day after a review I was asked by Idris to have breakfast with him
in his hut; after breakfast he began to talk confidentially with me, and
said that the Prophet Mohammed had expressly forbidden the ill-treatment
of priests and hermits. He then said that Egypt had lost the Sudan, and
that Gordon would not be able to withstand the Mahdi; most of the fikis
and sheikhs had already submitted to the Mahdi, and the Sudan was in
their hands. When I pointed out the great difficulties he would have in
traversing the deserts to Wadi Halfa, he remarked that the Mahdi's
undertaking was not likely to be hindered by the death of a few thousand
men? I then argued that it was most unlikely that the white Moslems
would ever accept a black Mahdi; and that, moreover, according to the
traditions, the Mahdi would appear in Mecca. He replied, "God is the
Lord of all," by which he meant to say that God can make a black Mahdi.

We had a long conversation about the Mahdi, and it seemed to me that
Sheikh Idris did not believe in him, but had merely joined him in the
hope of gain and rewards. Idris also added, "By what right should we be
ruled by the Turks? can we not govern ourselves?" If there had been many
more sensible and enlightened men like Sheikh Idris, it is probable that
Mahdiism would have taken a very different form; but Idris was an
exception--most of the prin