INTRODUCTORY.

A tottering and uxorious old Arab occasionally pays a visit to his house at Omdurman, when he wearies of his husbandry at Geili, or is satiated with the delights and dalliance of Cairo. It is

diflficult to realise that this hoary veteran of at least eighty winters, this venerable, courteous old gentle- man is the hero of a hundred hard-won fights, who conquered, and held, a country that was larger than

France.

So far as I know there has never appeared in English an account of this old warrior's achieve- ments, and I have attempted, in what follows, to

i:)Ut on record the story of his life as he recounted

it, in the year 1900, to Naoum Bey Shoucair (t). This story I have supplemented, and annotated from other sources, notably that of Nur Bey Angara, and Mohammed Adam, the Omda of Geili, who were with Zubeir in the early days of his triumphs. This account 1 have made no attempt to trick out with flowery language, or ornaments of speech. It

is set forth here, exactly as it fell from his lips : the

plain straight forward story of a plain fighting man.

In this way, |)erhaps, it may be easier to realise the simple directness of the man.

(I) Tarikh el Sudan.