ton advised me to try
soap-boiling; so I went into partnership with him, changed my house,
and now took up my abode just beyond the Greek and Syrian quarter.

I was always thinking of escape, and in consequence kept a great deal to
myself, seldom paid visits, and was seldom called upon. Two of the
Mission sisters were living near me; they earned a precarious living by
needlework; but this hardly brought in enough money to purchase the bare
necessities of life, for several of the women who had survived the
Khartum massacre were employed at similar work, and the competition was
considerable.

Poor Lupton died very suddenly, so our soap-boiling plan had to be
abandoned, and I had to turn my thoughts to something else. It occurred
to me to make hooks out of telegraph wire, which the sisters sewed on to
purses, takias, &c., and this being a novelty was for a time a fairly
lucrative business: but it was long and tedious work. Gradually the
novelty wore off, and the demand grew less; provisions were expensive,
and a famine close at hand. All idea of mutual support had come to an
end, for the Greeks, Syrians, and Jews had been prohibited from leaving
the town, and nothing was to be made out of trade in Omdurman itself.
Thus my condition went from bad to worse, the famine was now raging, and
in desperation I had to do something to gain enough to keep body and
soul together.

It was the fashion for the women in Omdurman to wear long garments
trimmed with various sorts of ribbons, and it occurred to me to learn
how to make these ribbons; for this purpose I acquired a small and
simple loom. The few men in the market, who had the monopoly of this
trade, regarded my acquisition with great jealousy, and would not teach
it to any one under a less payment than forty or fifty dollars, and this
sum I was quite unable to raise; however, necessity knows no law, and
hunger sharpens the inventive faculties. I carefully unravelled a piece
of ribbon and studied the way it was made with the greatest attention. I
had a dim and hazy recollection of European looms, and, after many vain
attempts, I at length succeeded in making one. The work is very trying,
and at first I thought my back would break from the exertion; it was
only with the greatest difficulty that I managed, after working all day,
to turn out four yards, which I sold for four piastres, out of which I
had to purchase the thread. However, after continuous practice, I
succeeded, at t