Although the beginning of a campaign often drags, the ending is usually abrupt. With the defeat and flight of Abdullah, Mahdism became a thing of the past. True, there were several minor engagements fought later against isolated recalcitrant bodies of dervishes who were too loyal to their old leaders. But these affairs in no way affected the result achieved upon the battle-field of Omdurman. During the night or early morning of the 2nd and 3rd of September, Colonel Macdonald's brigade advanced into the city to help to keep the peace, and to secure the surrender of all the armed bands of the enemy. Large bodies of dervishes were still moving about both within and without Omdurman. I had myself seen many hundreds of natives set out about dusk to revisit the battle-field in search of plunder, to rescue wounded friends, and to bury their dead kinsmen. Those who showed a peaceable disposition were not molested, but all with arms were arrested and penned under guards in the Praying Square. Many prisoners were secured on the battle-field, but relatively only a few thousands. On 3rd September and following days enormous numbers surrendered, coming into town or being sent in by the cavalry and friendlies. In fact, they became so numerous that it was found almost impossible to deal with them. When dervishes of the Jaalin and other tribes that had abandoned Mahdism came in they were at once told to behave themselves, and were allowed to go where they liked. The townsfolk and others who wished to be let alone, turned their jibbehs inside out, at once a renunciation of the Khalifa and his works as well as a sanitary gain. Some there were who, averse to over-cleanliness, simply tore the dervish patches off their dress, thus also resuming their fealty to the Khedive. The roll of prisoners, however, in spite of convenient blindness in letting all the lesser men who wished to escape do so, swelled to about 11,000. In a house to house visitation the more important rebel sheikhs and Baggara in hiding were caught and kept under arrest with their followers. All the Greeks and the local chiefs whom Slatin Pasha knew to be secretly inimical to the dervish rule, were from the first secured safe permits and absolute liberty. Among them were many of the Mahdi's relatives, former rulers of tribes, and Emirs once high in power. Of wounded dervishes over 9000 were treated by the British and Egyptian Army Medical Staffs, although the doctors' hands were busy enough for two days with our own sick and wounded. [Illustration: FRESH BATCH WOUNDED AND UNWOUNDED DERVISH PRISONERS, OMDURMAN, 4TH SEPT. 1898.]