River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1885-05-28
Ri Mahdi.

This. great heather and full-blown
prophet was once poor boy, without
dollar in his pocket. Years ago,
wlina lttle Mahdi used to snare suck
ers along the White Nile, no one
thought that to-day he would be the
champion heavy weight prophet OF the
known world. 1t shows what can be
done by brave, courageous little boy,
even in q foreign land.
In appearance he is a brunette oil
about the style OF the successful meer-
schaum pipe. He does not dress as we
do, but wears a white turban that looks
Somelike an Etruscan hens nest. On
chilly days he adds other articles OF
apparel to this turban, during the
summer months that is sufficient for
evening dress. In the morning he puts
on his turban, buckles a sx-shooteI
around his waist and he is dressed II
doesn't take Mahdl long to make his
toilet
Years ago he decided that he would
retire to a lonely island in the Nile and
put himself in training for prophet,
so he crawled into cave and lived
there on whatever he could get hold
of. While others were down ut Khar-
toum, having a good time at the skat-
ing rink, Mahdi remained IN his
gloomy cave, setting up the pins TO get
into the prophet business and murdef
the kings English
Soon people began to hear of f.
Mahdi, and as he put a card in the
morning papers of the Soudan, he at
once had all the prophesying he could
do and had to hire an amanuensiS OF
assistant prophet to help him out.
During the holidays, when trade was
brisk. the Mandi had to sit up and
prophesy till ten at night.
His real name is Mohammed Ach-
med, and he was the son of a petty
sheik, whose name l have forgotten.
This man was an inferior person ana
very ordinary sheik, am told-just
such sheik as you could 90 in and
find on the ten cent counters of the
Soudan anywhere.
Mohammed Achmed for long time
showed one of the prevailing charac-
teristics of tramp, and so they be-
gan to educate him as fakir. A fakir
is a man who has permission to ram
BILE through the country, chiSeling
people out of money and groceries in
the name of religion. He is a sort of
Oriental gospel bum, whose business
is TO GO around over the country weep
ing over the sins of tho people who are
too busy to be hypocrites. These fakirs
are always devout, hungay and sad.
They yearn for a bright immortality.
but they are in no great rush about
acquiring it. They are perfectly will
ing to wait till the Egyptian pullets
run out. am glad that we have no
fakirs in America.
BY and by Mohammed Achmed got
a call to rise up William Riley and
gather the clans of the Soudan to
gether. He went to them and told
them in confidence 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 n livelihood, SO they could go,
away on the warpath all summer and
their business wouldn't suffer at all.
They then proceeded to murder the
kings English, who had come there,
to conquer and acquire their sand
pile.
The Arabian style of warfare is pc
culiar. 1t consists largely in drinking
alkali water on their part and in re-
curing their enemies to do the same
for ninety days. So it becomes simply
a question of who has the iirmest
and most durable Bessemer steel
bowels,
No one but a Bedouin would have
thought of such style Of warfare. 1t
is not, therefore, question of who
can drink concentrated I've all sum-
mer and take his alimentary canal
home with him in the fall.
In the battle, the Arab charge is pc
culiar in the extreme, The Arab does
not stand up in line of battle for an
hour while the commanding officer
gallops up and down the line on "a
"heavy" horse and the enemy pours
calling fire into his ranks. He sails
up toward the enemy, waves his
Oriental night shirt in the Egyptian
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 hand
some English soldiers are killed and
one moth-eaten Arab has stepped ON
his Gothic shirt tail and sprained his,
ankle.
FL Mahdi is not 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.-BiU Nae, ia NeeO Y0rb Mercury.