During our brief stay at Omdurman every variety of loot was hawked about the camp for sale. Huge shields of hippopotamus hide, spears, swords, old rifles, Mahdist coins, and other trophies of battle or pillage, found ready purchasers. A negro paid me a visit who was clad in chain mail, cut rather after the fashion of a dress coat. There was, indeed, quite a flavour of the Margate sands about the appearance of this Ethiopian, with his striped cotton trousers and his metallic coat, the tails of which, like those of Burnand's hero, "positively swept the ground." These suits of mail were beautifully made of steel rings, and could be purchased for about twenty-five shillings each; but they were very heavy and awkward things to carry about. Everybody brought back a Dervish sword or two, which were often very interesting. Some blades had the famous Ferrara stamp, others were marked by the mail-clad figure which is said to belong to the period of the Crusades, from which, at anyrate, the general pattern of Dervish swords--a straight blade with a plain cross hilt--seems to date. The pretty _gibbehs_, too, were brought home in large numbers; there were nearly eleven thousand of them available for selection on the sandy plain three miles away! The history of the Dervish _gibbeh_ is rather a quaint one. The original garment was, of course, the plain white cotton coat of the Arab; but the Mahdi, who was somewhat ascetic--in theory, at anyrate, if not in practice--ordered his followers to sew black patches upon their nice white coats, as tokens of humility. But alas for human frailty, what was intended to curb the spiritual pride of the faithful became a direct incentive to the vainglorious adornment of their persons! The ladies of Omdurman were strongly opposed to the dowdiness of the black patches upon their husbands and lovers, and, under the influence of the more æsthetic circles of Dervish society, the white _gibbehs_ were gradually tricked out with gaudy squares of blue, red, and purple. Many of the dead bodies in the field had rosaries round their necks, usually made of box or sandal wood. Nobody paid much attention to these ornaments, but from one point of view they are interesting. Was the use of a row of beads for religious purposes borrowed from the Christians by the Moslems, or _vice versâ_? Another curious relic was an insulator from a Dervish field telegraph, which had been worked between a point near Gebel Surgham and Omdurman during the battle. Many of the dead Emirs wore watches, one of which was marked "Dent, London."