The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1885-12-24
The Bodouin style OF Warfare:
This great heather and full-hlnH

1llS great neatncn anu 1uIl-DlOWu
prophet was once a poor boy, without
dollar in his pocket. Years ago,
when little Mehdi used to snare suck
ers along the White Nile, no ode
thought that to-day he would be the
champion heavyweight prophet OF the
known world. 1t shows what can be
done by brave, courageous little boy,
even in a foreign land.
In appearance he is brunette of
about the style of the successful meer
schaum pipe. He does not dress az we
do, but wears white turban that look
some like an Etruscan hens nest. On
chilly days he adds other articles of ap-
parel to this turban, though during the
summer months that is sufficient for
evening dress. In the morning he
puts on his turban, buckles six-shoot-
er around his waist, aud he is dressed.
1t doesn't take Mehdi long to make his
toilet.
Years ago he decided that he would
retire to a lonely island in the Nile an d
put himself in training for a prophet,
50 he crawled into cave and soon peo-
pie began to hear of Ell Mehdi, and he
had all the prophesying he could do,
and had to hire an amanuensis or as
sistant prophet to help him out. Dur
ing the holidays, when trade was brisk,
the Mehdi had to sit up and prophesy
till 10 or IL o'clock at night.
His real name is Mohammed Achmed,.
and he was the son of petty sheik. &
whose name l have forgotten. This
man was a very inferior person and a
very ordinary sheik, I am told-just
such a sheik as you could go in and
find on the 1O-cent counters of the
Soudan anywhere.
BY and by Mohammed Achmed got a
call to rise up William Reilly, and gath
er the clans of the Soudan together.
He went to them and told them in con-
fidence that he was the only genuine
all-wool prophet on the Nile, and if they
wanted some fun to get their double
barrel shot-guns and join the gang.
They did so. None of them ever did
anything at home to obtain a livelihood
so they could 60 away on the war
path all summer and their business
wouldn't suffer at all.
Then they proceeded to murder the
kings English, that had come there to
conquer and acquire their sand pile.
The Arabian style of warfare is pecu-
liar. 1t consists largely of drinking al
kali water on theiT part and in requir-
inn thu nnov,oSoc tn 10 thu
ninety days. So it becomes simply a
question of who has the finest and most
durible Bessemer steel bowels.
No one but a Bedouin would have
thought of such style of warfare. 1t
is not, therefore, question of courage
or everlasting justice, it is a question
of who can drink concentrated I've all
summer and take his stomach home
with him in the fall.
In battle the Arab charge is peculiar
in the extreme. The Arab does not
stand up in line of battle for an hour
while the commanding officer gallops
up and down in line on a heavy horse
and the enemy pours CALLING fire in
to his ranks. He sails up toward the
enemy. waves his Oriental night-shirt
in the Egyptian night air, shoots some
one. and goes away. When the battle
ground is examined on the following
day, it is discovered that eight-hundred
brave and handsome English soldiers
are killed and one old moth-eaten Arab
has stepped on his Gothic shirt tail and
sprained his ankle.
Ell Mehdi is not a bad looking man at
all, and the report that he has lost his
teeth, so that when he gives his orders
he has to gum Arabic, is not true.-Bill
Nye IN Burlinqton HasOkeye.