e air with the most agreeable odours. The surrounding wall, which
marks the limits of the Mahdi's original enclosure, is so high as to
conceal the superstructure on which the dome rests.

This tomb means to the Sudan Moslems what the Kaba at Mecca means to the
thousands of pilgrims who visit it; but pilgrimage is not enjoined to
the Mahdi's tomb. To come to Omdurman is quite sufficient without being
obliged to go through various ceremonies. Omdurman is detested in the
Sudan; and no one who is not obliged to live there would stay for a day
longer than he could help; and the farther people can distance
themselves from it, the better they like it.

Since the Mahdi appeared, pilgrimage to Mecca ceased, because, while he
was alive, a visit to him was supposed to supply all its advantages. And
when he died, a visit to his tomb was supposed to confer even greater
benefits than the pilgrimage to Mecca. Several of the Fallata, who came
from distant parts of Bornu, Wadai, &c., were stopped at Omdurman when
on their way to Mecca.

Thus have the Sudanese become schismatic to the orthodox Moslem
religion, asserting that those who do not believe in the Mahdi, even
though they be Moslems, are unbelievers. Now, of course, all these ideas
have quite disappeared, and all true friends of Islam in the Sudan
bitterly deplore the present state of affairs. Several people used to
say to us, "Our position is a most miserable one! You Christians have
nothing to reproach yourselves with on the score of religion, but with
us Moslems such a state of affairs as the present is too dreadful to
contemplate, and we know no rest." A great number of people now repeat,
in the privacy of their own homes, the daily prayers, although they
have gone all through them in the mosque; but as they do not believe in
the Mahdi, they consider the prayers said in his mosque to be valueless.

Quantities of women visit the Mahdi's tomb; for, though most of them no
longer believe in him as the Mahdi, they still look upon him, on account
of his great victories, as a saint to whom God has given a great
position in the other world because of his holiness. But, after all,
these ideas are held for the most part by his enormous circle of
relations, whose motives are always somewhat interested.

Khalifa Abdullah did not, however, confine himself only to beautifying
the Mahdi's tomb. Being now the sole monarch, he desired also to
beautify his own residence. It will be remembe