During these excursions the Khalifa observes carefully all that is going on around him and what the people are doing. On one occasion, when he rode to the beit el mal and was surveying the mighty river, a woman wearing man's clothes was brought to him from a ship close by. In reply to the Khalifa's question what she was doing, she said she was preparing the crew's food; he then asked if she was married, and she said no, thereupon he began joking and presented her to Wad Adlan; but the latter, seeing that she was neither young nor pretty, readily answered that he was already possessor of the four lawful wives. The Khalifa could not of course violate the law, so he summoned the captain of the ship and insisted on him marrying this old creature on the spot; he also casually remarked that the sailors had a noggara (copper drum) on board, and he immediately gave a general order that no drums were to be allowed on board boats. On another occasion he noticed a very thick cloud of smoke, and on inquiry he found that it came from a soap manufactory; he therefore immediately issued orders that the soap monopoly rested with the beit el mal, and that any other manufactory was prohibited. In this way he deprived numbers of people of a means of livelihood. One day he remarked a large heap of sewage in the centre of the town, which spread a most foul odour all around; this was the cause of the Khalifa himself stating in the mosque that if, when he inspected the town three days hence, he found any refuse, the trespassers should be very severely punished. Everyone now became directly responsible for the cleanliness of his own dwelling and its vicinity, and this order had a most excellent effect; it was further enforced by the presence of horsemen, who took good care to see that the instructions were carefully carried out. The Khalifa also went so far as to order that if any impurity should be found in the public streets, the owner of the defiled place should carry it away himself with his own hands to the appointed place. This was a cause of great delight to the street-arabs, who heaped insults on the disgraced individual by shouting after him "Shalhu!" ("He has taken it away!") But as it was with the Mahdi, so it is with the Khalifa--at first orders are obeyed with the greatest alacrity, and then people get as careless as ever. Omdurman at the present time is by no means a particularly clean or sanitary town.