Service & sport in the Sudan; a record of administration in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. With some intervals of sport and travel

Front matter

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SERVICE &> SPORT IN THE SUDAN

BIMBASHI D. C. E. FF. COMYN.

Chapter I

From Cairo to Khartum — The Nile — Khartum, then and now— On to El Obeid — " Chasing shade " at Jebel Tius — My first head — El Obeid — General Mahon — The mess, treasury, and officers' quarters — Rebuilding of El Obeid — Origin of the name — My three native officers — The men

Chapter II

I hunt gazelle — And my camel — Lieutenant Whittingham — Our day's work — Description of the country — The Governor's unofficial escort — On patrol — My Arabs to the rescue — The hills — J. Tagoi — Tilling with spears — The reconciliation of the Meks — The Nubas — Musketry practice at El Obeid — General Mahon leaves for India — A Mahdi rising — The episode of the candlestick — The march of Mahon's cavalry ... ....

Chapter III

Capture and execution of the Mahdi — We set out to capture the Sheikh Sebeik — And return successful — "A man whose name may be Ibrahim " — Birka — A false trail — Back through the night — Another Mahdi — The pet Kudu makes a night attack on El Obeid— Captain Carter "knocks" the Mahdi — We return to El Obeid — The perils of mis-pronunciation — Slatin Pasha — El Eddaiya — We march to Carter's help — Flowers and big game — Lions

Chapter IV

I cure my guide of an imaginary complaint — On to Turda — The Nasr — Back by a different route — Hartebeest — My first lion — An unfortunate accident — More lions — A forest fire — J. Deigo — A doubtful welcome — A pow-wow — I visit the Sultan — A farewell present

XV xvi

Chapter V Page

Marching at night — A lion — The Messeria Arabs — *' The incident of the royal shirt " — I leave El Obeid — " Gyppie " — The Sudanese soldier — English lack of tact — Moslem marriages — Sudanese irregulars — Their endurance — The Arab soldier in the Hagana — Native officers — Turks — Egyptian — Sudanese 55

Chapter VI

I travel south again with Captain M'Murdo to become Inspector of the Dinkas in the Fashoda province — Renk — Mosquitoes — I bring rain — My nocturnal visitors — Big game shooting — A waterbuck — Ordered to Taufikia — Fashoda — Fish-spearing — Missionaries — Up the Sobat on an inspection tour — Itang — Giraffe 70

Chapter VII

The Anuaks — A native officer stalks a tiang — The power of litterae scriptae — My crew — I am sent to explore the Pibor — My force and personnel — The sudd — Elephants and giraffe — Villages on the banks — Cutting through the sudd 83

Chapter VIII

We meet with a hostile reception from the Agibbas at Nyanabec — A very unpleasant conversation — The effect of a gun — The Agibbas — The dress and habits — On again .... 96

Chapter IX

We leave the gunboat and proceed in the Hyslop boat — And then on foot — A lucky precaution — Homeward bound — A crocodile — The sudd again — We meet a "relief party" — My difficulties — Renk — I hunt crocodiles and hippos in an American canoe — A crocodile story — Rudeness of the natives — The need of pomp and ceremony — The administration of the Dinka country — The Dinkas — I leave for the "front" — The friends I left behind me 109 xvii

Chapter X Page

Game en route — Serut flies — Lake Fell and mosquitoes — Godelpus Island — Up the river — Two narrow escapes — Wau — Preparing for the Sirdar — Cannibal Sultans — The Sirdar arrives — The levee — A native dance — I fear blackwater fever — Two elephant hunts — A buffalo — The African dawn — I reach Dem Zubeir— My two subordinates 125

Chapter XI

My house at Dem Zubeir — The Senussi bubble and the building of the fort — I hold a levee — And enforce an order — The carrier question — Our exchequer — A mild mutiny ends peaceably — Tibsherani Eff. — The importance of maps — An impressive welcome — My Christmas dinner — Ivory merchants and government regulations— Kossinga and its inhabitants — Nasr Andal and others . . . 137

Chapter XII

An arduous march— Chakchak — The Sultan Atiok Chiok — The Dinkas — I return by a different route — Big game — The elephant and the cock — Nasr Andal — Sultan Musa Hamed's capital — Two of the walking-round-the-world-for-nothing fraternity " — Virgin country 149

Chapter XIII

I sit in judgment — Mahomed Meriki — Wasa — A herd of buffalo — "The grandfather of buffaloes" — Gila — Ibrahim Dardug — Our reception— Kafiakingi — Ibrahim Murad — The Bahr el Arab — A list of the game we saw on the march — The mines at Hofrat el Nahas — An unpleasant duty — I take charge of a prisoner — My party — Important rivers — One of our prisoners " dies " . 161

Chapter XIV

Another prisoner escapes — Tibsherani Eff.'s letters — I doctor a merchant— The Boru River — A lion — Ragaa — I search for illicit ivory

b

XVI 11

PAGE

— Back to Dem Zubeir — Arrival of the President of the recruiting Commission — Mabruk Eff. Fiki — I set out to explore the West Nile — Netting game — An elephant — On the march . 175

Chapter XV

We reach the Pongo — I follow a wounded antelope and lose myself — And find my party by the smoke of a fire — Elephant — I run for my life — A useful lesson — Rubber vines — Our route — My object attained — I return — Tibsherani has an adventure — A lion and a forest fire — An "abode of love" — Dinka morality — Strange country 189

Chapter XVI

Marching and camping arrangements — My daily duties — The young wife and the bundle of straws — A Dervish movement — The telepathy between natives — The Dem Zubeir elephant hunter — Banda morals — White ants — The need of zeribas — Fertitaui fishermen — Scenes on our way — The Kuru — A chance at a rhinoceros 203

Chapter XVII

I shoot a hartebeest — And resolve to " mak siccar " in future — A farewell letter from Tibsherani Eff. — Sultan Nasr Andal's slaves are not slaves — His courtly manners — Dinner with Wahbi Eff. — Another sportsman's paradise — Sport and slaughter among the hippos — Daala — Our first Mandalla village — We are the first white men to enter it — Umbegago and a change in scenery — Wet weather villages — An amusing incident — "Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not ? " — Rivers great and small . .216

Chapter XVIII

I shoot roan — My enthusiastic welcome — Gotelo — A beautiful river — A mad Sultan takes to the woods — We march with all military precautions — Punitive expeditions — The wonder-tree of Khandak Much ceremonial — My first buffalo — The modeikei, a new fruit — Good-bye to shooting — Rocky territory 231 xix

Chapter XIX Fags

I become village magistrate — Makowa, the god of practical jokes — Sheikh Chabindji is a fond father — The Mongaiyat hills — The tsetse fly operative again — Slaughter of game — The value of beads — Adherence to tribal customs — Sultans mere landless lords — The sheikhs are lazy — Many compliments . . . 246

Chapter XX

Wau — Its future — When Greek meets Greek — Local colour — Giant eland — Administration of justice at Wau — A judgment of Solomon and a cure for suicide — The day's work at Wau — An old cock ostrich — Building operations at Wau — Yambio's war-drum — Impressing the "politicals" — A native elephant-slaying machine — A modern John Baptist — Patrol work — The value of missionary enterprise — Success of my gramophone — My orders 261

Chapter XXI

My " magic " receives a set back — Telegraph poles in the forest — Count Teleki — Captain Percival — A pretty picture — Bok — His pride humbled — The country to the north-west — Insolence of the Dinkas — Teleki's audience — Mayar accompanies me to Wau — I get my leave — I return to Cairo and hear of my appointment— Acting- Governor of Haifa Province — My work at Haifa — Various cases for trial — Minor interests 276

Chapter XXII

I relinquish my post to the "real turtle" — And go patrolling — Nile country— The bitter cold— The desert— " Terabil "— Bir el Nakhla — The oasis of Taklis — Good going — Bir el Sheb — A grim joke — Tudway Bey — Terfaui — The ruins at Selima — Sports — An Arab fable 289

Chapter XXIII

Sandy plains — The entomologists' opportunity and a picture for an artist — Traces of an oryx — God-laid and man-laid stones — Beautiful pebbles — A salt-well and niggardly Nature — A long-

XX deferred bath — Legia and its beautiful colour — A prehistoric ruin — We are past the nightmare country — My guide is an ancient smuggler — A good dinner at last — Rats on the menu — My bed a hole in the sand — The end of my journeyings .... 302

Chapter XXIV

The camel, its faults and virtues — Its capabilities — Care must be lavished on it — A pet in some tribes — How it should be ridden — Do not crowd your camels 317

ILLUSTRATIONS

Bimbashi D. C. E. ff. Comyn . . . Frontispiece The Haunted Tower of El Obeid . . To face p. 8 Gyassa on Nile at Halfa ... „ 8

Sudan Railway. Station between Abu

Hamed and Halfaia .... ,,30 Mail Boat south of Khartum . . . 30 Fashoda (now called Kodoc) . . . 50 Dug-out Canoe on Lake Fell (Ambadie) „ 50

Steamer in Sudd (in Bahr el Ghazal).

Nearly Through! . . . . 72 British Officer (Bimb. Hutchinson, D.S.O.) in "Marching Order" in Bahr el

Ghazal Province ,,72

Gun Carrier. (To show Height of Grass during Rains in Bahr el Ghazal Province) „ 92

Jur Sheikh Shilow with Sword of

Honour ,,92

The Officers' Mess. On the small platform in foreground we had our dinner. Scorpions, &c, would not climb up it „ 132

xxi xxii ILLUSTRATIONS

Two Important comforts in travel. My Donkey and Gramophone. Dura growing IN BACKGROUND .... To face p. 1 32

The "White Man's Burden." Fashions in carrying (on the Head). Wau- Meshra Road ..... „ 154

Carrying on the Shoulder. (Least fatiguing — for a european at least.) Wau-Demzubeir Road .... 154

Brick Making. The first Kiln in Wau „ 174

Bridge Building. Mahogany Baulks : Telegraph Wire : Dogs of local Iron : and Slips of Split Palm . . . ,,174

Golo Women who have brought in Grain

for Sale to Government . . . ,,196

Rubber (Landolphia) Seedlings in the

Experimental Farm at Wau . . ,,196

El Kaimakan Sweny Bey and Bimbashi Hutchinson, D.S.O. (River Jur, with my House and Servant in background) „ 214

Officers and Officials at the 11 Eed " Reception at Wau. (Mabruk Effendi Fiki seated on right) . . . . ,,214

Mission Pupils. They are taught Trades (Carpenter's Shop in background) and learn Religion by example ... „ 236

ILLUSTRATIONS xxiii

Mamur of Wau Marshalling the Town

Sheikhs To face p. 236

The " Patent " Store. The first red-brick building in Wau. Grain thrown in at Door above and taken out by Spout below „ 253

Sultan Kiango of the Golos. The Friend of Miss Tinne, of Lupton, Gessi, Schweinfurth, &c. ... „ 254

Travelling Dinkas . . . . . „ 280

Water-Lilies on the Wau-Meshra Road ,, 280

Group of Terabil in Desert between

Sheb and Terfaui Oases ... „ 292

Barchans (Sand Waves) in Desert west

of the selima oasis .... „ 306

MAPS

Pibor River (From a Prismatic Compass

Sketch) To face p. 118

Desert Routes west of Wadi Halfa

(From a Prismatic Compass Sketch) . „ 316

Anglo-Egyptian Sudan .... „ end

SERVICE Sf SPORT IN THE SUDAN

Chapter I

From Cairo to Khartum — The Nile — Khartum, then and now — On to El Obeid — "Chasing shade" at Jebel Tius — My first head — El Obeid — General Mahon — The mess, treasury, and officers' quarters — Rebuilding of El Obeid — Origin of the name — My three native officers — The men.

A HOST of writers have described both higher and lower Egypt. Even the depths of the Sudan had been sounded in pre-Mahdist days. How then dare I venture to add to what has been told so well, so badly, and so often ? It is of the arms and the man of the Egyptian army that I will sing — subjects which, I think, have been but lightly touched on till now. In a Bimbashi's (Major's) uniform, built for me in a night by Messrs. Collacot of Cairo, I reported myself at the War Office, was introduced to Sir R. Wingate, the Sirdar, and received from him my orders to join the Hagana (Camel Corps) in Kordofan.

There was nothing to delay me in Cairo, so in the company of Captain Leveson (18th Hussars) I started a very dusty and rather hot journey to Khartum by rail and boat. Both my companion and I would have been quite lost at the railway station had it not been for the kindly offices of Captain Brakenridge, R.A.M.C., who, like a good Samaritan, accompanied us from Abdin barracks to the station, and, finding that the native staff officer on duty there spoke no European language, acted as interpreter for us.

At Shellal we transferred ourselves and our belongings from the train to the steamer, which was moored within sight of Philae. Pen and brush have, as far as mortals can guide them, done justice to the Nile. It is grand and terrible. As a tourist does, I have devoured its history and taken in its every reach ; as an old stager I have been bored by the sameness of its low sandstone containing hills, narrow strips of cultivation, and limited view. But before I left the spirit of the great river god entered me, and I loved it. Its half-mile-broad torrent, now calm, now rough ; the clumps of scraggy date palms ; its temples, its villages, its very hills and monotonous yellow sand ; the groaning of the Sakias, the creaking of the Shadufs ; the people on the banks, some engaged in work, some in languid play, some travelling clad in sky-blue gallabias on diminutive donkeys, some lazily squatting on the banks — to leave it was to leave a friend. If drinking of the Trevi fountain brought me back to Rome, surely, O Father Nile, I have drunk enough of your lifegiving waters from source to mouth to bring me back to your broad bosom !

Just north of Haifa we entered the Sudan. At the town itself we made another change into a train

KHARTUM which carried us to Halfaia, whence a launch ferried us to Khartum. It is of interest to give one's impression of the mushroom city at that date. Of the public buildings the palace, war office, and postoffice alone stood. The little villas along the river front, with a few shops in rear, formed the four-yearold town. One ploughed one's way about, ankle-deep in sand. When I left it, four years later, an imposing embankment formed a fitting pedestal for the city above it. Palace and villas had been added to out of all recognition. Elegant walls replaced those of green brick ; new buildings were erected everywhere, including a magnificent mosque. There were two fine hotels ; the streets were lighted with electricity ; the river front was, owing to the embankment, no longer a mean path, but a fine esplanade. No wonder that Khartum should astonish the tourist ; more so now with its bridge spanning the Blue Nile, its Christian churches raising their steeples heavenwards — a European city in the heart of Africa !

El Obeid, my destination, meant then to most the end of all things. Even my host, who had left it not long before, did not realise the giant strides it had made towards civilisation. He himself had shot several kudu, a most timid antelope, in afternoon strolls when stationed there. As, however, the remoteness of a station may be gauged by this — Do the officers wear beards ? — El Obeid was fairly so, as some did, though they were in the minority. After some delay my camels were got together, and I started for Kordofan in company of another Bimbashi who had been in the

Egyptian Army but a short time, and so knew very little Arabic. Our camel men wished to take advantage of this in order to take a month for the journey. Very fortunately, Colonel Friend, R.E., had given me an itinerary showing that the 210 miles should be done in ten days. Ye gods ! how ludicrous I would consider a proposal to travel at even so slow a rate with my present experience, unless weak camels or some other potent reason were the cause. Then, too, at the various resting-places there were disputes about watering the camels. At one village, where the wells were 200 feet deep, our animals lay beside them the whole day. At last I seized my phrase book, and, learning the Arabic for "the camels must be watered," proceeded to see it done. In a minute all around were cheerfully helping me, and in half-an-hour we were able to go on.

We had, too, a capital map compiled from sketches by Captain Lloyd (Cameronians), which was very useful, though we travelled almost entirely by night, marvelling much at the wonderful sense of direction the Arab possesses. It is a gift that soon comes to one when one has a lot of night travelling to do. Near Jebel Tius, the only hill of importance that we passed, and it only a couple of hundred feet high, we chased the shadow of a creeper-covered thorn-bush for the best part of the day, as our baggage had lagged behind. I remember being much amused, as on this spot on the map was written the legend " No shade," and it turned Qut to be almost the only place with any pretence of it between Omdurman and Bara. One

BARA needed something to take one's thoughts off one's condition, for chasing shade is a most comfortless occupation. One lies on its near edge, but in a very short time the sun has carried it right across and one must take up one's belongings, place them on the new shade and wait for it to swing across again, and so on.

Near this mountain I shot my first head of big game. It was not very big, just a Dorcas gazelle, but I was as pleased as a dog with two tails. The grass about was coarse, about two feet high, with thorn-bushes scattered here and there. On the road we overtook a Darfur sheikh, whom I afterwards met several times in El Obeid as he passed backwards and forwards on embassies. I hope yet to pay him a visit, as he has invited me to do, at El Fasher.

At Bara, to the north of El Obeid, we found two Companies of the Camel Corps. Unfortunately the British officer was away. We halted in a lemon grove, a relic of the pre-Mahdist days when Bara was a very important town, the ruins of which lie scattered in the surrounding bush.

We reached El Obeid in the evening of our eleventh day, and found there El Lewa (General) Mahon Pasha, C.B., D.S.O., with several other officers and officials. We just escaped being laughed at for the time we had taken over the journey — but only just.

As we approached the place we were much puzzled by what appeared to be wheel-tracks, as wheel traffic was almost unknown, save for guns, in the Sudan. For building purposes in this part of the country any fairly straight tree, some inches in diameter, is invaluable, and is cut down to make beams for the roof. Two of these, trimmed, are fastened either side of a donkey, who half carries, half drags them into town, where they fetch a good price : hence the tracks.

The mess, near which we "baraked" (made to kneel) our camels, was a small unfloored yard, part of which was covered in in a primitive fashion. It struck one as incongruous that the combined incomes, from Government sources, of the few officers who used it amounted to more than ^8000 a year. The tables were of barrack pattern. They had just replaced ones made of packing-cases. The chairs, which we thought very swagger, were cane-bottomed. The floor was several inches deep in loose sand.

The houses of the British officers were in a compound about a hundred yards square, the wall of which was the line of defence in case any need arose. The entrance to it was the archway under a tower. The latter was a relic of the reckless expenditure of Ismail Pasha. About five yards broad by six in depth and thirty feet high, and surmounted by the British and Egyptian flags, this edifice was at once the great landmark and the pride of the province. It was built of bricks made in England ! carried by camels along the Forty-days' Road (Darb el Arba'in) from Assiut ! The tower was covered with plaster, pitted all over by the gun and rifle fire aimed at it by the Mahdist hordes in 1884 when it was held by a native Bimbashi and a few men. Their ghosts, headed by that of their intrepid officer, who, cup of coffee in hand, encourages to the

EL OBEID 9

last his small force, are supposed to haunt it. Though I occupied the room till the cracks in the tower were supposed to render it unsafe, I never saw the spooks, nor did I see the other two El Obeid can boast. Under the archway was the guard over the treasury. At one time the want of safes was so great that ammunition boxes were requisitioned to store the money. The mild Egyptian fellah of a regiment on duty discovered that wood and even tin lining can be cut into, and, like the destructive " sus," which eats away the heart of timber while leaving the outside apparently intact, they used to tickle for 20 piastre (4s.) pieces through a small hole in the bottom of the box, collecting a fine sum till the usual quarrel among thieves led to their detection. Inside, as I said before, were the offices and officers' houses. The former were of red brick, which, unfortunately, was made, of necessity, of a bad clay which absorbed moisture and cracked. The latter, with the exception of a few for the senior officials, were very ramshackle. Some were mere native huts nine feet in diameter. The officers commanding the Camel Corps and Sudanese regiment had built themselves green brick huts, with doorways through which one could walk erect ! One small substantial building was the old treasury, now haunted by the clerk who was cut to pieces in it by the Mahdists. It was, by the way, the best house I ever occupied during my service in the Sudan. There was a stairway to the roof, on which I spent many a pleasant night. I remember remarking that from my bed one morning I could see lions, panthers, cheetahs, kudu, oryx, and numerous species of gazelle — pets of the mess.

I must not forget to mention the well, which was the best in the town, and at which I used to spend hours on camel-watering days. Opposite to the tower to the east, and a few hundred yards from it, were the barracks, hospital, and stores, built of red brick. They were occupied by the 12th Sudanese (under Captain Massey, Royal Irish Regiment), at the time perhaps the finest, because the best disciplined, battalion of blacks.

Just south of the compound was the great fula (reservoir), 150 by 90 yards. It is said to have been made by generations of brick-makers, who took their clay then, as now, from it. In the rains it was our watering-place. Near it was a solitary palm, the only one spared by the dervishes. The saying was that it represented the Government, and that when it died, so would the British raj. When the Mahdi of 1904 was gathering his adherents one of them cut off the top — but without effect.

Just beside it was enacted a little farce well worth telling. A policeman, armed with a Remington and native-made ammunition, had reason to wish to fire at a runaway prisoner, one of a gang of manacled felons. Cartridge after cartridge misfired. When the remainder of the gang saw this, their indignation at the runaway changed to emulation, and the ten of them set upon the policeman — I obviously cannot say they disarmed him — and trussing him up, to wrench himself free some hours later, escaped.

About a mile or more from the Government build-

EL OBEID ii ings the native town lay in a hollow. At the time I speak of it was a real native village of importance, built of straw with practically only two streets, that of the market with the low mud-built, flat-roofed houses, occupied principally by Greek, Italian, and Syrian merchants, and the other cutting the town in two. Each side of the latter was a labyrinth of tortuous paths.

Not long after my departure a British officer, enjoying a brief authority, ordered the then town to be erased and a new one raised on the same site, cut by good roads in all directions. Moving a house in the Sudan, where ten men lift off a roof and carry it where they will without a moment's thought, does not, like a similar if more difficult event in Winnipeg, produce a photograph in all illustrated papers. Nevertheless, considering that there were supposed to be 10,000 inhabitants to be disturbed, the feat speaks marvels for this officer's hold over them, as also for his pluck in backing his luck as he did. Apart from the fact that it might have caused a local rising, one or two complaints, anonymous in all probability, might have caused his removal as a firebrand. Let us imitate him in ignoring the "might-havebeens," and see in El Obeid a town worthy of being the capital of so fine a province as Kordofan. The legend attached to the locality is this. Some merchants were travelling from the river to the west, and near this spot lost a white she-donkey. They tracked it to this depression, and one of them, spying her, cried, u There she is, the white one (el beida)."

The bottom is taken out of the story by grammarians, who point out that the name of the place and the adjective have no real resemblance.

My commanding officer, Colonel Wilkinson (Lincolnshire Regiment), was on patrol when I arrived, but a few days after his return sent me to take command of my Company at Bara. Dear old No. i Company — first of the Camel Corps, and first indeed in the affections of your first Bimbashi. Captain Sorel- Cameron (Cameron Highlanders) had superintended the pay, &c, of the nucleus of the Company, which was attached to his, No. 3 (Sudanese) Company, when first raised.

My three native officers were capital fellows. Yusbashi (Captain) Mahomed Eff. Shukri was short and stout, with the concomitant failings thereof, and, unfortunately, like most Egyptians, given to nagging the men. Mulazim Awal (Lieutenant) Mahomed Eff. Fuad was a very fine fellow, who had distinguished himself in the '98 campaign. His Islamism was his weak point, for he loved his peg — as a European might — no more. He had been known to fast the first couple of days of Ramadan ! Hamza Eff. Nasr, the Mulazim Tani (2nd Lieutenant), was a Shagia Arab. In appearance slight, of medium height, very brown, with a large moustache, and three large horizontal scars on either cheek (his tribe mark), he was the best type of native officer I have ever met. To him the "mush mumkin " (it is not possible) of the Egyptian (and my two senior officers were of that race) was an unknown phrase. He was the son of

HAMZA EFF.

the late head of his tribe. When his father, who commanded an irregular corps under Gordon during the siege of Khartum, was killed, Gordon promoted him, then fourteen years old, to be a Major, and gave him his decoration. He employed him as an A.D.C. He loved Gordon's memory, and would tell many stories about him ; as, for instance, when riding together Gordon would always put him on the inside so that he would be shielded by the General's body from the bullets fired by the Mahdist at the party. Hamza Ef¥. escaped the massacre which followed the fall of Khartum, and later shared with Slatin the post of one of the Khalifa's mulazimen (orderlies). In the fights against us he was with the Dervish cavalry. After his surrender he was appointed police sergeant at El Eddaiya, where he caught Mahon Pasha's eye — that eye which is reputed to have the great gift of spotting the right man for the right job whatever he may be at anything else.