Returning my thanks to Abdullahi, I asked to be left in single blessedness for a time; but to this he replied that “his heart was heavy at the loss of my child; that no man might be happy without children, and he wished me to be happy; he also wished me to have all the comforts of life, which did not exist where woman was not; that if I did not take another wife, he would believe I was not content with my life in the Soudan under his protection.” It was a long rigmarole of a message he sent, and it wound up by saying that as I had been ill for two months, he must send a wife to attend to me, and had selected for the purpose a daughter of Abd-el-Latif Terran. This was making matters worse than ever, for this girl, although brought up in the Soudan, and speaking only Arabic, was a French subject, being the granddaughter of Dr. Terran, an old employé of the Government. She was only nominally Mohammedan, and lived in the “Christian quarter.” When marriages took place in this quarter, the Mohammedan form of marriage was gone through, and then Father Ohrwalder performed the Christian religious ceremony surreptitiously later in the day. I spoke to him about the Khaleefa’s intention, and as he knew I was already married, he advised me to try and get out of the proposed marriage by some means or another, as it would be considered binding. After casting about for excuses which I thought might appeal to the Khaleefa, I asked Hamad'na Allah to inform him that I thanked him for his selection of a wife, but as she was of European descent, had been brought up in a rich family where |188| the ladies are waited upon and never do any work, she would be no use to me, as I required some one to nurse me, do the cooking and house work, and go to the bazaar to buy food, all of which she had had servants to do for her; I therefore begged to be allowed to select a wife of the country. The latter part of my message evidently pleased the Khaleefa; it appeared to him as an earnest that I was “content,” but again he undertook the selection of the woman. When Abdullahi told any woman she was to be the wife of any one, she dare no more refuse to accept than the one she was sent to dare refuse to receive her. Fearing that he might send me some one from his hareem, I asked Nahoum and other friends to find me a wife—sharp. My object was to get her into the place before Abdullahi sent his “present,” whom, on arrival, I might send back on the plea that I was already married, and could not support two wives. Nahoum found me a wife, and sent me the following history of her. [Illustration: UMM ES SHOLE AND TWO CHILDREN.]