Five years in the Sudan . urning toOmdurman in about a month. Accompanying mefor the first part of the journey was Sir Rudolphvon Slatin Pasha, who, after the many vicissitudesof his life, was now Inspector-General in the countrywhere he had passed so many weary years in cap-tivity. Salitin Pasha, as the natives call him, isa short, fair man, with an extraordinarily youthfulappearance considering all that he has passed was to come on board with his staff at Khartoum,but the principal complement of men and storeswere embarked at the south gate of Omdurman(Bab el Khiblie). It was ther
Five years in the Sudan . urning toOmdurman in about a month. Accompanying mefor the first part of the journey was Sir Rudolphvon Slatin Pasha, who, after the many vicissitudesof his life, was now Inspector-General in the countrywhere he had passed so many weary years in cap-tivity. Salitin Pasha, as the natives call him, isa short, fair man, with an extraordinarily youthfulappearance considering all that he has passed was to come on board with his staff at Khartoum,but the principal complement of men and storeswere embarked at the south gate of Omdurman(Bab el Khiblie). It was there that I first saw theone side of the native character which I hated untilthe day I left the Sudan years afterwards—the noisyside. It is as impossible to describe as it is im-possible to forget. To begin with, everyone, ofcourse, talked at once, and talked at the top of theirvoices ; the men shouted to the women, and thewomen yelled in reply. I was to take up a partyof woodcutters, who were to be dropped at a wooding 40. C^^^^l^c^^ ^/^^ /§^z^ A y/o^ .SIR liLUoLIMI I;A1{0.\ VON SLATIX |l.\, ?;., (jf tlic 1. 4 FROM KHARTOUM TO TAUFIKIER 41 station some couple of hundred miles south; theywere going up there to stay, with their wives andtheir children, their goats and their poultry, and alltheir household belongings to boot. I did not objectto the household goods—they were, at least, silentwhen once they had been placed in the desiredposition on the barges alongside the steamer; ofthe rest I dont quite know which were the worst,the women or the poultry. They were so inextricablymixed that it was impossible to say which reallymade the most noise. I think that, individuallyperhaps, the honours of the day lay with the former,for, though they were greatly in the minority, theysucceeded in holding their own. Every woman whoappeared was carrying as many screeching chickenshead down as she could possibly manipulate; thechildren, and their
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