The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-09-06
WORSE PLACE THANCUBA
GRAPHIC ACCOUNT OF THE THIRST
SUFFERED ~ THE SUDAN.
A Correspondent Following Kitchen
er Describes His SensatiOns-The
One Drink That SOOthes.


like the new soda-water sparklets, it would
make any mans fortune in an evening. The
irony of it is that there is much thirst here
such limitless thirst as might supply the
worlds whole population richly on the 9TH
er side there are millions of our fellow
creatures. surrounded by every liquor that
art can devise and patience perfect, but
wanting the thirst to drink withal. Gentle
men in England now abed will call them
selves accursed they were not here. And we.
the few white men who vainly strive to do
justice to these stupendous depths and in
tensities, these vast areas and periods of
thirs--how utterly and pitiably inadequate
we are to our high opportunity.
l wonder if you were ever thirsty? Prob
ably not 1 never had been till 1 came to
the Sudan, and that is why / came again.
If you have been really thirsty and often,
you will be able to distinguish many varia-
tions of the phenomenon. The sand-storm
thirst l hardly count. 1t is formed by the
light soil forming in the gullet. Wash the
soil away. and the thirst goes with it. This
can be done with water which you do not
even need to swallow
The desert thirst is more legitimate, so
called; it arises from the grilling sun on the
sand, from the dancing glare, and from hard
riding therein. This is not an unpleasant
thirst; the sweat evaporates on your face
in the wind of your own galloping, and
thereby produces a grateful GOODNESS with
out while thoat and gullet are white hot
within. The desert thirst consists in this
contrast it can be satisfied by gulp or
two of really cool water which has also been
evap )rating through a canvas bottle slung
on your saddle.
But in so far as it can be satisfied it is
no true Sudan thirst. The true Sudan
thirst is Unsuitable. The true Sudan thirst
which, to be sure. may be foundein COM
blnation with either or both of the others,
and generally isis born of sheer heat and
sheer sweat. Till you have felt it you have
not thirsted. Every drop of liquid is wrung
out of your body. You could swim in your
clothes, but, inside, your muscle shrinks to
your strength. your substance, your self, is
draining out of you; you are conscious of
a perpetual lquefaction and evaporation of
good, solid you. You must be Wetted till
YOU soften and swell to life again.
You are wetted. You pour in wet, and
your self soaks it in and swells-and then
instantly it gushes out again at every pore,
and the self contracts and willis. You swill
in more, and out it bubbles before you even
pores swish in spate like the very Atbara.
Useless; you must give it up and let the
goodness sluice out OF you There IS moth
OF thirst. And that goes on for three hours
after sunrise till an hour before SHUTDOWN
THE DAYS ROUTINE.
You must not think that we are idle all
this while--not even correspondents. The
real exercise of yourself and your ponies
you have begun before breakfast and intend
to continue after tea. For the rest, at
Fort Atbara, you can go down to the rail-
way station. If there is train there, there
will be troops getting out of it; if there is
read chalked on notice board the latest
bulletin of the health of every engine on
the road between there and Halfa. On the
platform, too. is the postoffice. You can
ask when the next post goes out or comes
III. The dirty Copt boy they call postmas-
ter will answer Tomorrow. The postal
service Is not good at Fort Atbara They
say the sirdar does not allow it room
enough. AS the room he does allow is en-
tlrely filled with the angarebs of the Off
Gals, and as they seldom arise from them,
there is doubtless much justice in the COM
plant.
There are other diversions for the CORE
spondent in the heat of the day. He may
walk in the null, station yard Null is
the Arabic for place where things are
dumped down, and dumped down in this
null they certainly are. Streets and streets
and streets of them-here case of pepper,
there the spare wheel of a gun, there jars
issue to more or less friendly tribes every
thing that an army should or would or
could want.
There you see the men who do the real
hard work of the army-not the men who
work hard and then rest, but the men who
work hard and never rest-the director of
the water transport the staff officer for
supplies and stores. the director of tele-
graphs. And there with the hardest worked
you see the tall, white-clad sirdar working
now breaking a mans heart with curt
censure, now eXalting him to heaven with
curt praise now antedating a movement
now Fastening an embarkation, now in
Aec11 fI1< loo nf hnVC how 1a
sirdar is there every man and every ma
chine must do a little better than his best
All this you may see, and sweat, between
the hour before sunrise and the hour before
sunset. 1t goes on always, but usually after
sunset you look at it no more.
For then the Sudan thirst has spent
itself and it is at your mercy. You begin
with a bombardment of hot tea. The thirst
thinks it's conquest assured; 1t takes the hot
tea for a signal Of surrender and hurls the
first cup arrogantly out again through your
skin. You fire in the second cup, and you
find that you have gained some ground. 1t
may be that tea is nearer the temperature
of your body than a merely tepid drink; 1t
may be some divine virtue in the herb, but
you feel the second cup of tea settle within
you. You feel yourself a degree less torrid,
a shade more substantial.
If YOU are wise you will rest content for
the moment with this advantage. Order
your pony and gallop an hour in the desert.
Won will sweat of course You need not
expect to escape that at any time. But the
sweat cools you off and you ride in with a
fresh SKIN. lake your IuD Ill your tent
The Nile cools faster than the land, and,
oh the deliciousnesS of the cold water lick
ing round you
A RECIPE.
Now comes the sweet revenge for all the
torrents of the day 1t is quite dark by
now, unless the moon be up, leaning to you
out of a tender blue immensely, silver,
caressing cool. Or else the sprightly candles
beckon from your dinner table, spread out
side the tent a halo of light and white in
the blackness, alert, inviting, cool. YOU too,
by now are clean and cool. You quite forget
whether the day was more than warm or
no.
But you remember the thirst. You are
COOL but within you are still dry, very dry
and shrunken. Take a long mug and drink
we'll what you will have poured into 1t; FOR
that pays for the Sudan. You are very
thirsty, and you are about to stake your
thirst. Let it be alcoholic for you nave
exuded much life in the day; let 1t above
that never fails you. but better still some
thing tonic Gin and soda? Gin and lime
Juice and soda? Gin and bitters and lime
juice and soda? Or else that triumphant
blend of all whettng favours an Anu
Hamed-gin, vermouth, angostura lime
juice. soda?
Mix it in due proportion: put in especially
plenty of soda-and then drink. For this Is
TO drink indeed. The others were only flush
ing your body with liquid as you might
flush a drain. But this. This spashes round
your throat slides softly down your sullet
till you feel ii run out into your stomach. II
spreads blessedly through body and spirit
not swirling through, like at Atbara, but
sand, substance in the void life in death
Your sap runs again, your ziltaong muscles