The Masalit people are savage and cruel to a degree; they are in the habit of making waterskins out of the skins of their slain enemies. Slatin Bey told me that when in Darfur he had two of these skins--of a male and a female--which he had kept as curios. Some of the Darfur sheikhs had gone as far as to apply to the Sultan of Borgo for help, but he had refused to interfere in any way with Mahdieh. Then a man suddenly appeared amongst the Masalit about whose origin little was known; he represented himself as the arch-enemy of the hated Dervishes, who, under the guise of Mohammedanism, robbed, plundered, ravished, and murdered all they could lay their hands on. Such influence did this fiki, or religious teacher, gain over the superstitious masses of the west that some said he must be the true Mahdi; others said he was the fourth Khalifa (Osman); then again many said he was the celebrated Sheikh es Senussi, the great religious head of all the North African tribes, and whose influence has extended far into Central Africa. Several asserted that he was merely a delegate from the great Senussi. This religious reformer and adventurer styled himself "Abu Gemaizeh" (Gemaizeh is the Arabic name for the sycamore fig-tree), because it was said that the shade of this tree always accompanied him. At Omdurman all sorts of extraordinary stories were current about his supernatural gifts. Some said that he had the power of miraculously increasing food; an ordinary plate-full he would make sufficient for hundreds of people; others said that they had seen him produce milk from his finger-tips, and it was said that he could produce, in a moment, all sorts of things pleasant to the palate. He could raise a palm-tree out of barren ground, which, in the space of an hour, would become covered with fruit. In his sermons and letters he reproached the Khalifa for having oppressed and slaughtered Moslems, and having taken their wives for himself--a crime only committed by the "unbelievers"--and with God's help, he declared his intention of coming to Omdurman to annihilate "God's enemies," as he called the Dervishes. The sayings and doings of this extraordinary being attracted great attention throughout the entire Sudan. The Mahdi had first appeared in the west, and now an anti-Mahdi had sprung up from the west. Immense numbers of adherents flocked to his standard. Not only did the Furs, thirsting for vengeance, join him, but people from Bornu, Borgo, and Wadai collected around him. Osman Wad Adam despatched a force against him, which was annihilated, and he now begged the Khalifa to send him reinforcements. In answer to this appeal a number of Beni Jerrar Arabs were sent to him, but these also were destroyed almost to a man. These two important victories increased Abu Gemaizeh's prestige enormously, and when Abdullah saw that the oppressed Sudanese were secretly rejoicing at his discomfiture, he himself began to tremble for his authority.