ed sixteen dollars the ardeb, now the price was almost four times
as great. The supplies of corn received from Fashoda alone saved
Omdurman from absolute starvation. The supplies from the Blue Nile were
quite exhausted. Up to 1889, Fashoda continued the supply mart; the
native cultivators receiving in exchange glass beads, pieces of copper,
iron, cowries, and old Medjidie dollars; and in return for all this, the
Khalifa despatched Zeki Tummal and an army from Galabat, who
treacherously murdered their king, and fought these people who had
actually saved him and his capital from the jaws of death!

The dhurra thus imported to Omdurman by the merchants was unloaded there
under the strictest watch, and was sold to the Baggaras only at six
dollars the ardeb, under absolute compulsion, whilst the other tribes
had to purchase it at ten times that amount. This called forth the
bitterest complaints against the Khalifa's injustice.

The awful scenes enacted by the starving inhabitants in the market-place
at Omdurman are beyond description. People flocked from Berber, Kassala,
Galabat, and Karkoj, thinking that the distress would be less there than
it was in the provinces; but here they were quite mistaken. As one
walked along, one could count fifty dead bodies lying in the streets,
and this quite irrespective of those who died in their own homes.

In the provision market the sellers stood over their goods with big
sticks in their hands, to turn away the poor wretched skeletons who,
with eyes deeply sunk in the back of their heads, would cast wistful
glances at the food which was denied them. Sometimes twenty or thirty of
these miserable starving people would join together, and, regardless of
the blows showered upon them, which covered their bodies with wounds and
bruises, they would wildly attack the sellers, madly seize whatever they
could lay their hands upon, and swallow it on the spot, begrimed with
dust, and probably besmeared with their own blood.

Others would sneak about like wild beasts, their loins covered with the
merest rag, and if they saw anyone alone carrying eatables, they would
pounce down on him like tigers, content even to seize a handful. These
were called "Khatafin" (_i.e._ snatchers, or birds of prey), and at
first they were fairly successful in their sudden attacks; but gradually
people understood what to be prepared for, and the wretched creatures
would be beaten off with sticks: hunger seemed to make th