itself diseased, the
epidemic was still further increased.

Notwithstanding this national calamity, the Mahdi now gave himself up to
a life of ease and luxury, in which the unfortunate women captured in
Khartum played a prominent part. He represented that all those who died
of small-pox were suffering God's punishment for being evil-minded or
having appropriated the booty. People believed what he said, and would
still believe him, if he were alive and told them even more incredible
things. The capture of Khartum had, of course, raised his prestige
enormously, and now the belief in his Divine message needed no further
confirmation. Before the assault took place he said that he would divide
the river into two parts, just as Moses had divided the Red Sea, so that
his followers could cross to Khartum on dry land if they failed to take
it by assault. His promise, too, that very few should fall by the sword,
not only encouraged them in the attack, but its verification served only
to further prove his divinity. His uncle, Sayid Abdel Kader, up to the
time of the fall of Khartum, still doubted that he was the true Mahdi;
but, once the town was taken, he doubted no longer.

[Illustration: AN EGYPTIAN HAREM WOMAN.]

All this success increased the adulation and worship of the Mahdi to an
extraordinary extent, and as for himself, although he was continually
warning his followers to despise the good things of this world, and to
abandon all luxurious modes of life, he surrounded himself with every
sort of comfort and luxury, appreciating to the utmost the very
pleasures which he declaimed so violently. He urged moderation in eating
and drinking, yet he secured for himself every dainty which Khartum
could possibly produce. He now wore shirts and trousers of the finest
material, and, before putting them on, his wives were obliged to
perfume them with incense and other costly fragrances. His wives
attended on him in turns, but no regularity was preserved. They anointed
his body with all sorts of precious unguents, but his speciality was the
expensive "Sandalia" (a perfume prepared from sandal-wood and oil), and
so saturated was he with these perfumes that when he went forth the air
was laden with sweet-smelling odours.

The courtyard of his harem was full of women, from little Turkish girls
of eight years old to the pitch-black Dinka negress or copper-coloured
Abyssinian; almost every tribe in the Sudan supplied its representative,