This beach is one of the great sights of Omdurman, and a fascinating spectacle it is. On a busy day it is absolutely crowded with traders and porters from all parts of the Soudan. It is the great market-place for gum from Kordofan, feathers from Darfur, ivory from the Bahr el Ghazal, dhurra from the Blue Nile country, and everything else that comes in by boat or camel. All day long the porters go to and fro, carrying their loads and chanting their monotonous songs, chiefly tall, broad-chested, but spindle-shanked negroes from the Nile Valley, Dinkas, Shilluks, Bongos, or Bari, with here and there a short, thick-set, sturdy hillman from Southern Kordofan or Dar Nuba. Women equally diverse in type sit sorting the different qualities of gum. Naked children, brown and black, tumble and chatter in every direction. It is difficult to drag one’s self away, so strange and novel and varied are the sights. But Omdurman has much more to show. First and foremost the Khalifa’s house, the only two-storied building in the town, and built of brick. It is occupied now by the British inspectors. Hard by are the ruins of the Mahdi’s tomb, too solidly built to be entirely destroyed, but even its partial demolition has been sufficient to put a complete stop to pilgrimages. In front is the great square in which the Khalifa used to preach to his assembled dervishes. It is surrounded by a high wall excellently built, said to be the work of the German Neufeld. It is witness now of scenes very different from those of the old fanatical days, so far removed in everything but time—perhaps the parade of a Soudanese battalion, a football match, or the arrival of a string of camels laden with gum from El Obeid. In the Beit el Amana are some interesting relics of the past. Here are the brass cannon taken originally by the Mahdi from the Egyptians, and piles of captured dervish muskets of every shape and form, swords and caps; and here, too, is the Khalifa’s carriage, a ramshackle, broken-down old four-wheeled chariot. It is a puzzle how it ever got to Omdurman. It looks as if it were built for some quiet old maiden lady in a French provincial town, but it fell on a strange master in its old age; and Slatin Pasha, now Inspector-General of the Soudan, had to run as a footman before it. Close by is the great broad street leading northwards, by which the British troops marched in on the battle. Every step is reminiscent of the last evening of days of the dervish tyranny.