INTRODUCTION 3

1885, when at this time I was attached as interpreter to the Gordon Relief Expedition, and stood within a few yards of General Earle at the battle of Kirbekan when he was killed. It is probable I was the last man he ever spoke to.

The guide and spy who reported my capture and death on the i3th or i4th of April, 1887, only reported

what he thought had actually happened, as a possible result of arrangements he had made ; while the refugee Wakih Idris, who reported in August, 1890, that I was conducting a large drapery establishment in Omdurman, must have been a Soudanese humorist, and, doubtless, hugely amused at his tale being believed in

the face of the Mahdi's and Khaleefa's crusade against finery and luxuries (although the tenets may have stopped short at the entrance to their hareems), and when every one, from the highest to the lowest, had

to wrear the roughest and commonest of woven material. A drapery establishment is generally asso-

ciated with fine clothing, silks, ribbons, and laces ; in Omdurman, such an establishment, if opened, would have been consigned to the flames, or the Beit el Mai, and its proprietor to the Saier (prison).

Yet again, when I am more heavily weighted with chains, and my gaoler, to evidence his detestation of the Kaffir (unbeliever) entrusted to his charge, goes out of his way to invent an excuse for giving me the lash, I am reported as being at liberty, my release having been granted on the representations of some

imaginary Emir, who claimed it on the ground that

I had arranged the betrayal of Sheikh Saleh's caravan.