The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1896-08-21


would be justified. he believed if ONLY
II would enable him to hold out until
the arrival of Hicks Pasha's relief ex-
petition. Ten thousand men in and
enormous square, with six thousand
camels crowded inside the human
quadrangle, were advancing from the
ME, oHerlng such liberal target that
no Sudanese rifle could miss it's mark.
That was the only hope, and it utterly
tailed; the army was annihilated The
story of the awful blunder was told
by one who seated himself on the edge
OF Stains carpet, lest he should soil
1t with his blood. And then Slatin
surrendered December. 1889.
SLATIN'S CAPTIVITY.
Captivity, with its tiresome lesson of
obedience and patience with the poor
consolation that ''he who lives long
sees much was the next phase of this
strange experience. Slatin put on a
jibba covered with patches, took the
oath of allegiance to the Mahdi, and.
to prove himself a Jealous convert.
made a practice of going through his
prayers most carefully in the sight of
the bystanders, holding in his hand the
rosary which all good Mohammedans
carry; but in reality he was repeating
over and over again the Lords prayer.
A neck-chain was bestowed upon him
but not for purposes of adornment,
nor to be laid aside at will. 1t con-
tanned eighty-three links, each a span
long. He would wrap it around his
body, and in this iron casing Cf it be-
came necessary to move him from one
camp to another) he was lifted on a
donkey, and held in position by a man
on each side; otherwise the weight
would have made him overbalance and
fall.
Meanwhile Gordon had been besieged
in Khartum, offering such resistance
as was possible when the garrison was
disaffected or half won over to the new
Prophet of God. The town was car
ried by assault on the 26th of January.
1885; and to prove to Slatin the full
extent of this calamity by a single ar
gument, three black soldiers, with in
sulting gestures, brought Gordon S
head wrapped in cloth. Ell Mahdi also
died within the year.
The discovery was made that Slatin
had hoped to escape and aid his gen
eral; so he, and a number of slaves
who were under sentnce for having
murdered their masters, were bound
together by a long, chain passing
around their feet and fastened to the
trunk of tree. But after term of
such Imprisonment it occurred to the
Khalifa, who had succeeded to the
Mahdi's power, that he was denying
himself rare pleasure; for he had
only to make Slatin a member of his
household in order to emphasize his
conquest. He would then be able to
point to the European with the re-
mark: This man was once a high
official of the government He is now
my slave" Therefore Slatin became
a member of the Khalifa's household
and stood at his masters door in sun
shine and in rain, walked barefooted
beside his masters horse, and attended
five prayers daily at the mosque in
Omdurman; and when he had found
favor through diplomatic f1attery, the
Khalifa would send, as his reward
ugly black wives, whom Slatin would
pass on to his servants-and then
somehow contrive to support his in,
creasing family of dependents on a
beggarly and uncertain pittance Fl
nally the Khalifa's cousin was offered
in marriage and Slatin had the courage
to refuse her. Servitude more CALLING
could not be imagined. When news
came of his mothers death in Austria
and Slatin communicated this to his
master, the latter said: "Your mother
cannot expect Gods mercy being
nothing but Christian
HORRORS OF STARVATION.
There was little relief if he turned
his eyes outward. In the country
along and between the White and Blue
Niles disagreement by the tyrant of
the Dervishes was productive of dis
asters and then grim famine. There
were terrible months at the close of
1SS9,when horrors came tumbling over
each other in their eagerness to shock
and to distress. "On one occasion"
Slatin says, 81 remember seeing a man
WIZ Hdu oelAou d DlL Vi ldllOW, anu ld0
crammed it into his mouth before its
owner could stop him. The latter
jumped at his throat, closed his hands
round it, and pressed it till the mans
eyes protruded; but he kept his mouth
tightly closed until he fell down in
sensible" Again: Zone night
it was full moon-I was going home.
when l saw something moving on the
ground and went near. AS / ap-
preached I saw three almost naked
women, with their long tangled hair
hanging about their shoulders. They
were squatting round young donkey,
which was lying on the ground They
had torn open its body with their teeth,
and were devouring its intestines while
the poor animal was still breathing.
Infuriated by hunger, they gazed at
me like maniacs. :" And again:
"a woman of the Jaalin Cwho are per-
haps the most moral tribe in the Su-
dam, accompanied by her only daugh-
ter, a lovely young girl. dragged her
self YEARLY to my house; both were at
deaths door from starvation The
woman said, Take this, my only