CLOSE OF CAMPAIGN. 243 quite palatable. Yeast is easily made in the Soudan with sour dough and sugar.

As arsenals mayhap date back to the eras of Tubal Cain and Vulcan, it was to be expected the Khalifa would also have his modern smithy. He made his own gunpowder, shells, and bullets, and the metallic cases for his troops’ Remington rifles. The country was laid under contribution to supply copper for that purpose, and he essayed the filling of percussion caps with fulminate, not over successfully I hope. He had his cartridge manufactory, and a very well equipped engineer shop as well. Yea, the potentate was setting up a Zoo, wherein | saw three young lions chained to posts by neck collars, as though those savage beasts were watch-dogs. As for the engineer shop, with foundry and smithy attached, the Beit el Mauna, it was part of a cleverly planned square of buildings with a river frontage and a spacious yard. The designer was one El] Osta Abdullah, a former employee of General Gordon's in Khartoum Arsenal. There were several steam engines; the principal one driving the main shafting was of 28 horse-power. The fly-wheel was 4 feet in diameter. There were five lathes, one cathead lathe—36 inch, three drills, and other tools including a slotting machine, all in perfect going order. The machinery had formed part of the dismantled Khartoum Arsenal, and had been removed into Omdurman to be nearer the watchful eyes of Yacoub, who superintended the workshops, though destitute of mechanical knowledge. El] Osta was the foreman and had numbers of natives, free and prisoners, under