Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1898-10-12
Misfellaneous &eading.
HOW DERvIsHES WERE SLAUGHTERED
Graphic Account of the Recent Great Bat
Bile of Omdurman.

tain bloodler, more Gruesome taIe.
Battle is entirely misnomer when ap-
piled to the slaughter of the $4,000 or
1000 human beings who perished
there. The best friends of the victors,
the staunchest advocates of the tri-
umph of civilization over barbarism
cannot describe it in less gloomy terms
than as necessary massacre. 1t dem.
onstrated once more that the courage
of fanaticism is superior to that of civ
ilzation. Courage is perhaps the
wrong word to apply to the reckless
bravado with which hordes of dervish.
es rushed to death which was as futile
and as inevitable as if they had flung
themselves over a precipice. Never
theless, it is impossible TO withhold d
tribute of admiration of their savage
valor which spared nothing in its sac
rifice to Allah.
This is G. w. Stevens account in
The Daily Mail of the first attack by
the dervishes upon the British aud
Egyptian lines:
ut was now halfpast 6. The flags
seemed still very distant, the roar very
faint and the thud of our first gun was
almost startling. 1t may have startled
them, too, but it startled them into
life. The line of flags swung forward
and Il mass of white flying linen swung
forward with it, too. They came very
fast and they came very straight;
and then presently they came no fur.
ther. With a crash the bullets leaped
out of the British rifles. 1t began
with the Guards and Warwicks-sec.
ton volleys at 1000 yards then as
the Dervishes edged rightwar'l it ran
along to the Highlanders, the Lincolns
and to Maxwell's brigade. The Brit.
ish stood up in double rank behind
their zariba the blacks lay down III
their shelter 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 perpetual fire, fire, and
shrieked forth in great gusts OF de-
structioD.
"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 aud hurried them
down in whole companies. You saw
rigid line gather itself up and rush
on evenly then before sharpnel shell
or Maxim the line suddenly quivere'l
and stopped. The line was yet un'
broken, but it was quite still. But
other lines gathered up again, again
and yet again they went down and
vet others rushed on. Sometimes they
came near enough to see single figures
quite plainly. Que old man with a
white flag started with five comrades
all dropped, but he alone came bound
ing forward TO within 200 yards of the
Fourteenth Soudanese. Then he folh-
ed his arms across his face and his
limbs loosened aud he dropped sprawl
ing TO earth beside his flag.
at was the last day of Mahdism,
and the greatest. They could never
get near and they refused to hold back.
BY now the ground before 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.
1t was not battle, but an execution.
"In the middle of it all you were
surprised to find that we were losing
men. The crash of our own fire was
so prodigious 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 a shoot of rabbits, you
suddenly heard the sharp cry, Bearer
party there, quick and man was
being borne rearward. Few went
down, but there was a steady trickle
to hospital. Bullets may have been
spent and Captain Caldecott, of the
Warwicks, was one of the strongest
men in the army, but that helped him
nothing when the dropping ball took
him in the temple and came out
through the jugular. He lay an hour
unconscious, then opened his eyes
with, For Gods sake, give me water !
and died as he drank. Most of all
the two Highland battalions dropped
men. The zariba behind which they
were unwisely posted obliged them to
stand, besides hampering them both
in fire and when it came TO movement !;
little clump of enemy gathered in a
hole in front of them, and by the time
guns came up to shell them out the
Camerons had lost some 25, and the
Seaforths above dozen.
"But loss on this scale was not to be
considered beside the awful slaughter
of the Dervishes. If they still came
on our men needed only time and am
munition and strength to point rife
to kill them off to the very last man.
Only by now-small wonder-they
were not driven back, they were all
killed in coming on. One section OF
fire after another hushed, and by s
o'clock the village and the plain were
still again. The last shell had burst
over the last visible group of Dervish-
es; now there was nothing but the
TN bending, grimly expectant line be-
fore Agaiga and the still carpet Of
white in front.
awe waited half an hour or so {; and
then the sudden bugle called us to our
feet. "Advance' it cried, 'to Omdur.
man !" added we.