Arizona republican., 1898-10-10


 Omdurman is told for the first time to- day, and history does not contain a bloodler, more gruesome tale. Battle is entirely misnomer when applied to the slaughter of the 12,OOO or 15,OOO human beings who perished there. The best friends of the victors, the stanch- est advocates of the triumph of civili- za!tlon over barbarism cannot describe 1t in less gloomy terms than as a nec- essary massacre. It demonstrated once more that the courage of fanati- clsm is superior to that Of civilization. Courage is perhaps the wrong word to apply to the reckless bravado with which hordes of dervishes rushed to death which was as futile and as inev- itable as if they had flung themselves over a precipice. Nevertheless, it is impossible to withhold tribute of ad- mlration of their savage valor which spared nothing in it's sacrifice to Allah
 It will require an effort to realize in reading the following extracts from the record of this day of carnage that one is not dealing with one of Rider Haggard's bloody chapters of African romance. The killing is so wholesale, the slaughter is so complete, that it is difficult to believe that it is a story or actuality at the end of the nineteenth century. This is G. w. Steevenss ac- count in the Daily Mail of the first at tack by the dervishss upon the British and Egyptian lines:
 THE DAY OF CARNAGE.
 ''It was now half-past 6. The flags seemed still very distant, the roar very faint and the thud of our first gun was almost startling. It may have startled them, too, but it starled them into life. The line of flags swung forward and mass of white flying linen swung for ward with it, too. They came very fast and they came very straight; and then presently they came no further. With a crash tha bullets leaped out of the British rifles. It began with the Guards and Warwicks-section yolleys at 1000 yards; then as the dervishes edged rightward it ran along to the Highlanders, the Lincolns and to Max wells brigade. The British stood up in double rank behind their zariha; the blacks lay down in tEeir sneltee trench; both poured out death as fast as they could load and press trigger. Shrapnel whistled and Maxims growled savagely. From all the line came per petual fire, fire fire, and shrieked forth in great gusts of destruction.
 And the enemy? No white trooper would have faced that. torrent of death for five minutes, but the Baggara and the blacks came on. The torrents swept into them and hurled them down in whole companies. You saw rigid line gather itself up and rush on even ly; then before a shrapnel shell or A Maxim the line suddenly quivered and stopped. The line was yet unbroken, but it was quite still. But other lines gathered up again, again and yet again; they went down and yet others rushed on. Sometimes they came near enough to see single figures quite plainly. One old man with white flag started with five comrades; all dropped, but he alone came bounding forward to within, 200 yards Cf the Fourteenth, Soudan- ese. Then he folded his arms across his face and his limbs loosened and he dropped sprawling to earth beside his flag.
 THE END OF MAHDISM
 Ut was the last day of Mahdism, and the greatest. They could never get near and they refused to hold back. By now the gro@nd bsfore us was all white with dead mems drapery. Rifles grew red hot; the soldiers seized them by the slings and dragged them back to the reserve to change for cool ones. It was not battle, but an execution.
 '1n the middle of it all you were sur prised to find that we were losing men. The crash of our own fire was so pro digiOUS that we could not hear their bullets whistle; yet they came and swOOped down and found victims. The dervishes were firing at their ex- treme range, and their bullets were many of them almost spent, but as they always fire high they often hit. So that while you might have thought you were at shoot of rabbits, you sudden | y heard the sharp cry, Bearer party l here, quick and & man was being l borne rearward. Few went down, but | here was a steady trickle to hospital | Bullets may have been spent and Cap | ain Caldecott of the Warwicks was | )ne of the strongest men in the army, | put that helped him nothing when the dropping ball took him in the temple | md came out through the jugular He | ay an hour unconscious, then opened 1 lis eyes with, For Gods sake, give me yater! and died as he drank. Most Of Ill the two Highland hattalions drcp-