The large windows admit a quantity of light into the tomb, which is decorated inside with the most glaring colours. The actual grave is not situated quite in the centre of the building, and is covered by a painted wooden catafalque. To reduce the glare, the windows are well curtained. Every night, and all through the night, quantities of candles are kept burning; and it is impossible not to be impressed with the solemnity of the tomb. The walls are so thick that the tropical sun cannot penetrate, and there is always a cool refreshing breeze inside. The rich perfumes with which the tomb is being continually sprinkled fill the air with the most agreeable odours. The surrounding wall, which marks the limits of the Mahdi's original enclosure, is so high as to conceal the superstructure on which the dome rests. This tomb means to the Sudan Moslems what the Kaba at Mecca means to the thousands of pilgrims who visit it; but pilgrimage is not enjoined to the Mahdi's tomb. To come to Omdurman is quite sufficient without being obliged to go through various ceremonies. Omdurman is detested in the Sudan; and no one who is not obliged to live there would stay for a day longer than he could help; and the farther people can distance themselves from it, the better they like it. Since the Mahdi appeared, pilgrimage to Mecca ceased, because, while he was alive, a visit to him was supposed to supply all its advantages. And when he died, a visit to his tomb was supposed to confer even greater benefits than the pilgrimage to Mecca. Several of the Fallata, who came from distant parts of Bornu, Wadai, &c., were stopped at Omdurman when on their way to Mecca. Thus have the Sudanese become schismatic to the orthodox Moslem religion, asserting that those who do not believe in the Mahdi, even though they be Moslems, are unbelievers. Now, of course, all these ideas have quite disappeared, and all true friends of Islam in the Sudan bitterly deplore the present state of affairs. Several people used to say to us, "Our position is a most miserable one! You Christians have nothing to reproach yourselves with on the score of religion, but with us Moslems such a state of affairs as the present is too dreadful to contemplate, and we know no rest." A great number of people now repeat, in the privacy of their own homes, the daily prayers, although they have gone all through them in the mosque; but as they do not believe in the Mahdi, they consider the prayers said in his mosque to be valueless. Quantities of women visit the Mahdi's tomb; for, though most of them no longer believe in him as the Mahdi, they still look upon him, on account of his great victories, as a saint to whom God has given a great position in the other world because of his holiness. But, after all, these ideas are held for the most part by his enormous circle of relations, whose motives are always somewhat interested.