Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1885-02-20
NO. 8.



drawn for the Catholic World by A. NJ Cote, Ii D.
Imagine a man about 40 years Of age, Of
medium height as lean, as the saying is, as
shotten herring, with mahogany complex
! ion, coal. black beard and eyes, aud three YER
tical slashes on his pallid cheeks add TO this
long cotton shirt as a garment, a narrow
turban as a head. dress, pair OF wooden san
dals, and in the hands-dry as those of
mummy-a string Of 80 beads, corresponding
To an equal number Of divine attributes, and
you have seen the Mahd Those who have
seen him a. that Mohammed-Ahmedp plays
to perfection the part Of a visionary dervish,
waving his head when walking, and murmur-
ing constant prayers, his eyes fixed on heaven.
His father was a carpenter on N0ft island, in
the Nubian province of Dongola and about
1852 came with his four children. 10 Cbindi,
a small city on the banks of the N1e south
Of Berber. When still very young be was
placed as an apprentice under the care Of Que
of his uncles, q shipbuilder of Chabakah, op-
posite Sennar. 1t seems that the future pro-
phet was not without his faings, for one day
his uncle thought we'll Of hogging him in a
regular French style. The proceeding was
not appreciated, and the child ran away until
be arrived in Khartoum, where he entertd d q
sort OF school or convent Of begging dervith-
es, who were in charge Of the monument
erected over the venerated remains of Oheick
Hoghali, patron of the city. There his life
was remarkable one for bis piety, but, as to
education, he never learned how to write, or
even how to read Auently. Later he went to
a similar institution in B-rber, then TO one in
Aradup on the south Of Kena. In the latter
city be became in 1870 the favorite disciple
Of an eminent fakir Oheick Nur el D aim and
finally was ordained by him aud went TO Abb
bas island, White Nile.
His fame as q sanity man was every year
on the increase. He lived in a kind of Dit or
subterranean deposit for grain called a silo,
which he had dug out with his own hands;
and there he passed his life fasting and pray
log, burning incense day and night, and re-
peating the name of Allah for hours at time,
until he would fall to the ground painting and
exhausted. II anybody spoke TO him be gave
back no answer, except sentences from the
sacred books of Islam. Earthly things seem
ed to inspire him only with disgust and pity.
He had made a vow to absorb himself in the
contemplation of divine perfections, and to
weep all his life for the sins Of manknd but
bis tears did not destroy his powers Of vision,
and he kept his best eye wide open to busi-
ness, and, the faithful coming by thousands
and depositnR rich offerings at the mouth Of
his silo, he never failed to see the gifts and
to stow them carefully away for stormy days.
In 1873 he had become SO wealthy that he
felt the necessity to declare that Allah had or
dered him to leave his clio and to take unto
himself large collection of wives, whom, as
truly practical man, be chose from among
the most influential families of the country,
especially that of the Bagsrss the most opu-
lent slave traders on the White Nile.
Every one has still fresh in his memory the
appalling determination of Hicks Pashs's H.
600 men, surrounded on the 9th of Novem-
Der, 1888 3-the first day OF the 14lh century
Of the Hegira lat KasRhil, while marching
on El Obeid. This horrible butchery, hap
pening on the the threshold Of the century
announced as the one OF the last prophet,
gave bloody conservation to Mohammed-
Ahmed, who, after the three days battle,
went all over the battlefield, piercing with his
spear the CHASTITY corpses of his enemies, and
eXclaimiDg: "It is /. l, the prophet, who de-
stroyed the heretics !" Compared to him,
Mohammed was no more, in his mind. than
small prophet. He alone yas the only great
and powerful messiah, announced by Moham.
med himself. The sultan of Consiantinople
was no more the supreme caliph, the chief of
Islamism it was he, Mohammed Ahmed, and
he ordered his own name to be invoked in
public worship in the place of Mohammed's
right after the name of Allah