The Warner weekly sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1885, 1885-05-29
El MAhdi,

III MbIlII'
This great heather and full-blowrf
prophet was once a poor boy, without
a dollar in his pocket. Years ago,
when little 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 a be
done by a brave, courageous little boy,
even in a foreign land.
In appearance he is a brunette of
about the style of the successful meer-
schaum pipe. He does not dress us we
do, but wears q white turban thatlooks
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 siX-shooter
around his waist and he is dressed. 1t
doesn't take Mahdi long to make his
toilet.
Years ago he decided that he would
retire to a lonely island in the Nile and
pat himself in training for a prophet,
so he crawled into a cave and lived
there on whatever he could get hold
of. While others were down 1T 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 murder
the kings English.
Soon people began to hear of Ell
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 or
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 and
a very ordinary sheik, | am told-just
such a sheik as you could go in and
find on the ten cent counters of the
Soudan anywhere.
Mohammed Achmed for q long time
showed one of the prevailing charac-
teristics of a tramp, and so they be-
gan to educate him as a fakir. A fakir
is a man who has permission to ram
bic 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 90 around oyer 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 SOC None of
them ever did anything at home to
obtain a livelihood, SO they could 90
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 PEI
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 firmest
and most durable Bessemer steel
bowels,
No one but a, Bedouin would have
thought of such a style of warfare. 1t
is not, therefore, a question of who
can drink concentrated lye all sum-
mer and take his alimentary canal
home with him in the fall.
In the battle, She 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
gailops,up and down the line on a
Hheavy'' horse and the enemy pours a
CALLING fire ine, his ranks. He sells
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 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 mol
true.-BW Me-. in New York Mercury