240 KHARTOUM CAMPAIGN.

Abdullah had vowed to him, that if he were able to have his own way he would make a close friend -of him, and have him always near his person. The Khalifa asserted he liked white men, admired their knowledge and ability, and would, were he permitted, have many of them in Khartoum. As everybody knew, he befriended the Greeks, because he could do that with safety, for the natives were not so jealous of them as of other white men. The Taaisha were, he declared, absurdly suspicious of his intercourse with Neufeld, and were always bringing him tales, to try and get him to kill all the white men without exception. His countrymen’'s jealous, narrow fanaticism annoyed him, but what, he asked, could he do, for he was very much in their power, and unable to afford to fly in their faces ? Abdullah often spoke thus, according to Neufeld, and, as the latter also said, frequently that leader of the fanatical dervishes exhibited keen interest in acquiring information about Europe and its people. He hoped to make peace some day with the outside world, and be allowed thereafter to rule the Soudan. All this, I submit, is rather puzzling, in view of the filthy den the Khalifa kept Neufeld shut up in, and the manner in which he loaded him with heavy leg-irons. During his captivity, Neufeld had with him an Abyssinian girl, or rather woman. She was taken prisoner with him. Thereafter she devotedly ministered to his wants, fetched water and food, and made, under his tuition, really eatable bread. Neufeld, who said he met me in 1884-85, up the Nile, when he was attached to the army, gave me a piece of this bread, and I found it