On the morning following the battle of Omdurman, a number of the townspeople came out to the camp, complaining of the rough usage which they had been subjected to at the hands of the Soudanese troops left in charge of the town, and of the looting of their houses. The majority, not knowing that the Sirdar and his staff were fluent Arabic scholars, brought their complaints to me, and asked me to interpret for them. In my then excited and half-dazed state, I rushed off to report the matters. Colonel Maxwell at once called up a hundred men, and with an officer and sergeant, instructed me to proceed to the town and see the men posted to the houses of the complainants. The real truth of the matter, of course, only came out later, and as I do not know of any one else who is in as good a position as I am to relate it, I submit the following. Long before the troops reached the town, the inhabitants were busily engaged in looting the Mahdieh institutions and the deserted houses of the fleeing Baggara and others. Their local knowledge obviated the necessity of _searching_ for loot; they knew where |282| there was anything at all worth taking and took it, anticipating the troops by half a day. Into every occupied house loot was being carried, if not by the head of the household, then by the servants and others attached to the establishment, while the head mounted guard. True, the soldiers did loot towards midnight; but what? angareebs (the native seats and bedsteads combined), on which to rest themselves instead of lying down on the filth-sodden ground of Omdurman. Heaven knows they richly deserved the temporary loan of these angareebs. Wherever residents were looted, it was their own fault. The victorious and therefore happy and grinning Blacks kept an eye on their hereditary enemies—the lighter coloured population, as they passed backwards and forwards, always entering their huts loaded and emerging empty-handed. In their eagerness to collect all they could, they threw down their loot, and hurried off for more, and during their absence the Black “Tommy” annexed whatever he thought might be useful to him. [Illustration: TROPHIES TAKEN AT OMDURMAN.]