222° KHARTOUM CAMPAIGN.

the Khalifa, who, I was told, only left his palace about five oclock or sometime after we had penetrated into Omdurman. Notables and dervishes who came in to us were freely used by the staff to run hither and thither conveying intimation to all their friends, that the war being over they should lay down their arms. In that way the news of the collapse of Mahdism was widely spread, and bands of thirty and forty of the Jehadieh and even of the Baggara surrendered.

The presence of our Soudanese soldiers facilitated matters, for they saw in them, at any rate, countrymen.

I had no difficulty in persuading several large groups of dervishes, whom I could see from my horse inside their compounds, to come out into the lanes or roadway and lay down their rifles. By such means the headquarters advance through the town was made possible and relatively easy. The sun had set and darkness was upon us before the Sirdar and staff, going at times in single file, reached the common prison where the Assouan merchant, Charles Neufeld, was confined. Whilst accompanying a convoy of rifles presented by the Egyptian Government in 1886 to Sheikh Saleh of the friendly Kabbabish tribe, Neufeld had been captured by a party of dervishes. Like the other European prisoners who fell into their hands, he had undergone great hardships and experienced all the trials of misfortune.

Neufeld and several hundred natives who had incurred the Khalifa’s ire or distrust were found in a pestilential enclosure less than an acre in extent, surrounded by mud-walls. All of them wore heavy leg chains, and a few were handcuffed besides. The