Читать книгу Ten Years' Captivity in the Mahdi's Camp 1882-1892 - Josef Ohrwalder - Страница 12

This enormous camp presented a wonderful spectacle, more especially at night, when almost every one had his own cooking fire, and the whole plain resembled a sea of fires which were lost in the distant horizon. The din and noise created by hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children, can be better imagined than described. Every emir's[D] dwelling was known by two flags which were always planted near the entrance, and beside them lay the war-drums, which were beaten day and night, almost without intermission. Besides all this, the neighing of thousands of horses rendered the din still more unbearable. The whole air was infected with the most sickening stench; but to these wretched people, pure or impure air makes no difference; they do not mind. All the filth was piled behind the huts, dead donkeys lay about unburied; no attempt was made to keep the place clean, and all this huge mass of people lived in the midst of an ever-increasing heap of rotting impurities. A daily market was held, and the people laid their goods on the ground, sheltering themselves under a strip of cloth, known as "Farda," stretched on the points of lances, the bases of which were stuck in the ground. El Obeid was close by, the great arched gate of the Mudirieh towered above the other houses of the town, and over it floated the red Egyptian flag, which was hoisted every Friday. Some of the Dervishes used to conceal themselves in the deserted houses of the town and fire at the fort, while others pulled down the roofs and walls and dragged away the beams to the camp, and there cut them up for firewood. Our church, which was covered with galvanised iron plates, was completely destroyed; even the mosque was not spared. There was a busy scene day and night at the Oshra well; here thousands of male and female slaves drew water, and frequent quarrels and fights took place.

All this change of scene made a deep impression on me; the strain of the last few days, the tiring journey from Delen to El Obeid, the continual uncertainty as to our fate, anguish, fear, din, tumult, bad food, had already considerably affected our health, and now that we were at rest, and that the Arabs had ceased to molest us, the re-action came, and we fell a prey to disease. The infected atmosphere of El Buka—as the Mahdi's camp is always called—brought on a burning fever and constant diarrh[oe]a. Besides all this, when confined with the robbers in Abdullah's house, we had become covered with horrible vermin; it was impossible to get rid of them—they seemed to increase daily. We had no clothes to change, and as we had scarcely enough water to drink, washing was out of the question. With a feeling of utter despair we lay helpless and comfortless on the floor of that miserable black hut. Our maladies became worse, and ere a month had passed, three of our number were dead. Sister Eulalia Pesavento, of Verona, died of fever on the 28th of October; carpenter Gabriel Mariani died of dysentery on the 31st of the same month, and sister Amelia Andreis died on the 7th of November, while we four who still remained, hovering between life and death, lay helplessly side by side with our dead brothers and sisters. It was a terrible exertion to us to sew the corpses in mats and drag them to the door of the hut. At length some slaves—much against their will, and on the promise of good pay—removed the already decaying bodies, and buried them in shallow pits, which they covered up with sand. No one lent a hand to bury these "Christian dogs," as we were called. It was a terrible grief to us not to accompany our poor companions in adversity to the grave, but we were all too ill to move, and so they were carried away to their last resting-place without prayer or chant; and even to this day I cannot tell if the slaves really buried them, or merely dragged the bodies beyond the huts, and left them lying there on the ground.

The condition of us miserable wretches who were still alive is beyond description; we envied our companions, who were now beyond the reach of human suffering; but our hour had not yet come. Towards the end of November we were somewhat recovered, but our lives seemed to have been spared only to behold more terrible sights and sufferings than we had previously undergone.

Meanwhile, more of our companions in adversity had arrived from Dar Nuba. Shortly after we had been made over to Stambuli, Roversi came, and was interviewed by the Mahdi, who received him well, and presented him with a horse. Roversi recounted to us the story of his misfortunes; during his journey from Delen to El Obeid he was frequently in danger of losing his life; the Baggaras, mindful of their defeat at his hands, thirsted for vengeance. Roversi owed his life to his magazine rifle. He used to visit us daily and tell us of the various plots of which we were the intended victims. He told us how the Arabs had determined to take the sisters, and that they intended to distribute us amongst the various emirs. This news terrified the sisters, and there is little doubt that the bare thought of it hastened the deaths of the two who were so ill. Roversi further informed us that a quarrel had occurred between Mek Omar and the Nubas regarding the distribution of the loot taken from our Delen Mission; a conflict had taken place, in which Mek Omar had lost a number of his men, and had been obliged to retreat from Delen to Singiokai.

After Roversi's arrival the Mahdi wrote to Said Pasha again, summoning him to surrender; Roversi also, by the Mahdi's order, was forced to write to the Mudir, telling him that resistance was useless, as it was out of the question to hope for reinforcements from Khartum. Towards the end of October Roversi fell ill with dysentery, caused by the infected and foul atmosphere of the camp; the last time he came to see us he was very weak; then we heard that the Mahdi had suddenly ordered him to Kashgil for change of air, and a few days later we heard that he was dead. Some said he had been killed, others said that he had been poisoned by Ismail Wad el Andok, in revenge for his defeat at Golfan-Naïma. Roversi's maid-servant, Aisha—a black girl brought up in Constantinople—and his man-servant, Hajji Selim, reported that they had found his shoes in the forest, and his dead body in a hut. The unfortunate young Roversi was barely thirty years of age, a Protestant by religion, and a man for whom we all cherished a great affection. The date of his death was probably the 3rd of November, 1882. A few days after this date Mek Omar and his men arrived in the camp, bringing our Delen blacks with them. The latter at once came to see us, and soon afterwards all of them—both boys and girls—were sold as slaves, whilst the more grown-up youths were drafted into the Mahdi's army. Two of the girls, one an Abyssinian and the other a black, became concubines of the Mahdi. A cruel fate soon overtook Mek Omar: it was reported that he had concealed some of the captured booty, and he was at once put in chains by the Mahdi's order. Shortly afterwards he sent for us, and Bonomi and I paid him a visit. We found him shackled with two chains on his feet, and a chain about fifteen feet long round his neck; the poor man was completely bowed down with the weight of these chains, and begged us most humbly to intercede for him, as he told us it was the Mahdi's intention to have him beheaded. The condition of this unfortunate individual so touched us, that Bonomi went to the Mahdi and represented that it was really the Nubas who had stolen the booty, and so Mek Omar was released.

As we slowly began to recover from our illness, the thought of release was constantly in our minds. We applied to the powerful Elias Pasha, whom we had known very well in El Obeid. This blind old pasha received us kindly, but said that Abdel Kader Pasha in Khartum, was furious with him for having joined the rebels; he therefore said that our best course was to apply daily to the Mahdi, who in time might perhaps be moved to grant our release. We followed his advice, but it was no easy matter to make our way through the crowd of fanatics who surrounded his hut day and night, all struggling to get a sight of his face which, it was said, shed rays of light. Pushed about, shoved in every direction, and insulted, we might perhaps succeed in reaching the doorway; but here we were stopped by the guards, and it was almost impossible to pass them. However, after superhuman efforts, we succeeded twice in interviewing the Mahdi. He listened kindly to our entreaty, and then said, "At present the roads are dangerous, and I wish no harm to come upon you; when El Obeid has surrendered, we will permit you to go to your own country." He advised us to wear kuftans (the Arab outer garment), for hitherto we wore merely a shirt and drawers, as he said that, dressed in this way, we should escape the inquisitive glances of the multitude and we took his good advice.