Khartoum Campaign, 1898; or the Re-Conquest of the SoudanBurleigh, Bennet
History
Khartoum Campaign, 1898; or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan
Burleigh, Bennet
Omdurman, Battle of, Omdurman, Sudan, 1898; Sudan -- History -- 1881-1899; Sudan -- History, Military
I had a good look over the Khalifa's war arsenal. There were plenty of
cannon, old and new, as well as machine guns, rifles, pistols, and
fowling pieces of all kinds. Musical instruments, war-drums,
elephants' tusks used as horns, coats of chain-mail old and new, and
steel helmets. Most of the latter are quite modern, being part of 600
supplied by a London firm of sword makers--Wilkinson & Co., Pall Mall,
to a former Khedive's body-guard. Somehow these plate and chain
crusader-like head-pieces seem all to have drifted south. There were
hundreds of dervish battle flags, including several duplicate black
silk banners such as the Khalifa carried during the action, and
thousands of native spears, swords, and shields. In short, it would be
easier to tell what was not in that extraordinary storehouse than what
was. Among other articles I saw were: Ivory, powder, percussion caps,
old lead, copper, tin, bronze, cloth, looms, pianos, sewing machines,
agricultural implements, boilers, steam-engines, ostrich feathers,
gum, hippopotamus hides, iron and wooden bedsteads, drums, bugles,
field glasses--Lieutenant Charles Grenfell's, lost at El Teb in the
Eastern Soudan in 1883, were found there--bolts, zinc, rivets, paints,
india-rubber, leather, boots, knapsacks, water-bottles, flags, and
clothes. There were three state coaches--one of them might at a pinch
have served for the Lord Mayor--and an American buggy. They needed a
little retrimming, but there was harness and material enough to have
rigged out the four vehicles in style. In short, the arsenal held the
jettisoned cargo of the whole aforetime Egyptian Soudan, with much
besides drawn from Abyssinia and Central Africa. Truly, the Khalifa
must have been a strange man, with a fine acquisitive instinct
abnormally cultivated.
[Illustration: NEUFELD, WITH ABYSSINIAN WIFE AND CHILDREN; ALSO FELLOW
PRISONER.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account