The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1885-02-19
A Portrait of the Mahdl.
From the Catholic World.

Imagine man about 40 years of age, of
medium height, as lean, as the saving is,
as shotten herring, with mahogany COM
plexion, coal. black beard and eyes, and
three vertical slashes on his pallid cheek.
add to this long cotton shirt as garment.
a narrow turban as a head dress, a pair of
wooden sandals, and in the hands-dry as
those OF mummy-a string of ninety
BEADS, corresponding to an equal number
OF divine attributes, and you. have the
Mahdi. Those who have seen him say
that Mohammed-Ahmed plays to perfec-
tion the part of visionary dervish. way.
ing his head when walking, and ,murmur-
ing constant prayers, his eyes fixed on
heaven. His father was carpenter, on
NafJ Island, in the Nubian province of
Dongola, and about 1852 came, with his
four children, to Chindi, q. small city on
the banks of the Nile south of, Berber,
When still very young he was placed as an
apprentice under the care of one of his
uncles, a ship-builder of Chabakah, oppo.
site SEMINAR. 1t seems that the future
prophet was not without his failings. for
one day his uncle thought well of fogging
him in regular French style. The pro-
ceedIng was not appreciated, and the child
ran away until he arrived in .Khartoum,
where he entered sort of school or con-
vent OF begging dervishes, who were in
charge of the monument erected over the
venerated remains of Check Hoghali,
patron of the city. There his life was
remarkable one for his piety; but as to
education, he never learned how to write
or even how to read fuently. Later he
went to a similar institution in Berber,
then to one in Aradup, on the south of
Kena. In the latter city he became, in
1870, the favorite disciple of an eminent
fakif, Cheick Nur-el-D ain, and finally was
ordained by him and went to Abbas Island,
White Nile. His fame as sanity man
was every year on the increase. He lived
In kind of pit or subterranean repository
for grain, called silo, which he had dug up
with his own hands and there he passed
his life, fasting and praying, burning in
cense day and night and repeating the
name of the Allah for hours at time I'M
til he would fall to the ground painting and
exhausted. If anybody spoke to him he
gave back no answer, except sentences
from the sacred book of Islam. Earthly
things seemed to inspire him only with
disgust and pity. He had made vow to
absorb himself in the contemplation of
divine projections and to weep all his life
for the sins of mankind. But his tears
did not destroy his powers of vision, and
and he kept his best eye wide open to bus
mess and the faithful coming by thou
sands and depositing rich offerings at the
mouth of his silo, he never failed to see
the gifts nor to stow them away carefully
for stOrmysdays. In 1878 he had become
so wealthy that he felt the necessity to de-
clare that Allah had ordered him to leave
his silO and to take unto himself large
collection of wives, whom, as truly prac-
tical man he chose among the most influ-
entail families in the country, especially
that OF the Bargains, the most opulent
slave traders on the White Nile.
Every one has still fresh in his memory
the appalling determination of Hicks
Pasha's eleven thousand men, surrounded
on the 5th of November, 1SS3-the first
day of the 14th century of the Hegira at
Kasghil while marching on Ell Obeid. This
horrible butchery, happening on the thres-
hold OF the century announced as the one
of the Last prophet, gave bloody consecra-
tion to Mohammed- Ahmed, who, after the
three days battle went all over the battle
field, piercing with his spear the CHASTITY
corpses of his enemies and exclaiming
1T is I, /, the Prophet, who destroyed
the heretics - compared to him Moham-
med was no more. in his mind than
small prophet. He alone was the only
great and powerful Messiah announced by
Mohammed himself. The Sultan of Con-
stantinople was no more the supreme Ca
liph, 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
have said enough to show what kindof
a man is the Nubian Mahdi.
The BALTIMORE & ONO RELIEF AS