244 KHARTOUM CAMPAIGN.

him. There were plenty of crucibles for iron as well as brass smelting. The’ blasts of furnaces and smithy fires were served from fanners driven by machinery.

There were paint shops and stores, the floors of which were laid in bricks. In truth, the arsenal was in process of extension. Two more engines for the shop were in course of completion. The steamers disabled or wrecked in the 1885 campaign had all been recovered and overhauled by the dervishes. They were sagacious enough to make use of all the skilled labour to be found amongst the Turkish and Egyptian prisoners who fell into their hands. Although the Khalifa’s river steamers, recaptured by the Sirdar, could steam fully as well as ever, their hulls and decks were dreadfully rotten and dilapidated, not a pound of paint nor any fresh timber having been used upon them in all the intervening years.

“Ts that mean, dirty compound, with those squalid mud-huts, facing the Khalifa’s big wall, Osman Digna’s house?” I asked. ‘ Yes,” said my native informant, “that is the house of the robber-chief, Osman Digna.”

I entered and found within only a few wretched slaves and poor Hadendowas. Osman, like the Khalifa, had given us the slip, leaving behind such of his people as he thought of no value, and hurrying away with all his women and treasure towards the south. They had horses and camels, and upon the best of them they decamped. Several of the notorious Osman Digna’s tribal retainers were caught. These wretched Hadendowas were, | was told, glad to be permitted subsequently to return to their own country. Over 300