236 KHARTOUM CAMPAIGN.

anything was neglected, not even the correspondents, who were evidently too seldom far removed from the General's thoughts. Hurrying into the town early on Saturday morning, 3rd September, to attend Howard’s funeral, I found that within half an hour after sunrise all the dead dervishes, with the murdered women and children, had been removed to the native burialgrounds outside Omdurman. In my rambles in the capital that day I visited the only two passable dwellings in the place, Abdullah's and his son Osman’s.

Both houses had a pretence of tidiness and comfort, particularly the Sheikh Ed Din’s. There were paved courtyards, doors, windows with shutters, plastered walls, cupboards, benches, and ottomans. In each there were several rooms furnished in a rude style with articles of European manufacture. Of glass-ware, crockery, and large mirrors there was an abundance.

The Khalifa’s favourite reception-room and a chamber in the harem were almost covered with big lookingglasses. Angry Jaalin and others who had forced an entrance on the previous day, or else mayhap the Lyddite bombs, had smashed the mirrors and most of the domestic ware into atoms. Spears and swords had been freely used to hack the furniture and fittings about. <A wealth of printed and manuscript books and papers in Arabic characters were scattered, torn, and thrown into a shed.

The kitchens, stables and out-houses were odorously barbaric in squalor. They were in strange contrast to any of the rooms in the rabbit warren of attached dwelling-places within the Khalifa’s private compound.