For a long time Adlan had nothing to do; but he was always an influential man, and was continually trying to help those in distress. After the fall of El Obeid, and when all the clerks had been exiled to various parts, he never ceased until he obtained permission for their return. A short time before the Mahdi had quitted El Obeid, he had been employed in the beit el mal, and at Rahad, Wad Suleiman had appointed him his assistant. He was then despatched by the Mahdi to Berber, to secure the £60,000 which had been sent to Gordon from Cairo, and which had been left in the Berber treasury, owing to the interruption of communications with Khartum. Ibrahim brought the money, clothes, medals, decorations, and other valuables belonging to Gordon to the Mahdi. The clothes were sold, and cut to pieces to repair other garments, the metal of the medals, &c., was melted down, whilst the precious stones were sold, and eventually found their way to Cairo. Adlan soon gained considerable influence over the Khalifa, and had sufficient tact to moderate the inborn tyranny of his master. His desire to continually give assistance when he could, had made him very popular. He soon set to work to reorganize the beit el mal, and began by removing it from its original position to the river bank, thus avoiding the unnecessary transport of articles brought by boats to the stores. Here he built an extensive yard of sun-dried bricks, which he divided off into sections for the various departments of the administration. He made a large corn-store, in which a mountain of dhurra was collected--indeed, so high was it, that it could be seen from a considerable distance. This store was placed in charge of his assistant. Another yard was built containing a number of rooms, in which the slaves were kept under a guard of soldiers. Here the slaves were shackled, twenty or thirty together in one long chain, with iron rings round their necks. Any obstreperous slaves were generally shackled with one or two makias or iron rings round their ankles, joined together by a small chain or iron bar, which made walking very difficult. Slaves received a little dry dhurra from the beit el mal as food until they were sold. The female slaves generally grind the dhurra, and make a sort of polenta out of it, which is either eaten with water or boiled and eaten as balila. The dhurra ration of a slave is generally so small and so bad that numbers of them die of starvation long before they are fortunate enough to be sold.