Omdurman, which once had a population of a million, is a strange city of mud. The houses and stores are one-story flat-roofed buildings with drain pipes extending out over the street that drip on the passers-by when it rains.

Within sight of the British and their civilization, the Sudanese blacks live miserably, crowded into their burrow-like mud huts, possessing only a few pots and bowls and the sheets of calico in which many of the women wrap themselves.