A Prisoner of the Khaleefa/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X
PRISON JUSTICE
What I have written previously concerning the Nebbi Khiddr history will, in the following notes of prison life, assist the reader in better understanding how such mutual and transparent deceptions might be practised by the Khaleefa and the gaolers as are related here. It will be remembered that the Khaleefa, following the example of the Mahdi, laid claim to the Nebbi Khiddr as his prophet or constant messenger — a sort of modern Mercury amongst the Soudanese; hence the mutual, but unacknowledged deceptions which might be practised by the Khaleefa and his followers one against the other, but with always this proviso: as the Khaleefa had the power of life and death, and his spoken word was absolute, no one dare, even by suggestion, imply that he had in any way deceived or hoodwinked Abdullahi, else the Nebbi Khiddr would not have rested content until his detractor had been shortened by a head.
When the many escapes from the Saier zareeba became of too common gossip to be any longer concealed, Abdullahi ordered a wall to be built in place of the thorn zareeba, and later, to obviate the necessity of the prisoners going to the Nile banks for drinking water and ablutions, a well was sunk to provide infiltration water for the purposes mentioned.[1] Until these works were ordered to be made, the prisoners were mainly employed in building mud-brick houses for the gaolers; and when these were finished we had to attend to certain of the household duties — the tending of children, sheep, goats, and the carrying of water from the Nile. Of all the tasks set the prisoners, the household duties were the most pleasant, or, at all events, the least distasteful. Most of the gaolers were able to keep up a large establishment on the proceeds of their baksheesh and ill-gotten gains, but with a multiplicity of wives or concubines a very natural result followed — household bickerings and squabbles, in which one wife or concubine was bound to come off worst; and this gave the wide-awake prisoner engaged upon household duties his chance. He would soon detect which concubine was being "put upon," or whom the women-folk were most jealous of, and in a few days' time, as a result of his attentions in carrying her pots and pans, and bringing her water as many times in the day as she wished, he would be bemoaning in her sympathetic ears the hard fate of both of them, and trying to persuade her that what she was enduring was far worse than his imprisonment and chains. The old truism that "pity is akin to love" obtains equally as well under the dusky hide of a Soudanese damsel as under the white skin of her European sister, and very soon the pair would be maturing plans for an escape and elopement. The main difficulty was the removal of the man's chains and a rapid flight to some distant village; but the Soudan ladies are not a whit behind in woman's resourcefulness face to face with apparent impossibilities. Failing to arrange for a regular flight, the woman would secure some place of hiding in Omdurman itself. She would undertake all the arrangements, and I never knew of a failure in their plans.
Each month a list of the prisoners in the Saier, and an account of their progress in "education" would be submitted to Abdullahi, with recommendations for the release of certain prisoners, and each month, coincident with the preparation of this list, some prisoner would be missing from his usual place that night and next morning — and for ever afterwards; and this is how Soudan romances were managed. Sheep and goats would stray unaccountably. As these accidents always happened about sunset, the concubine would set off with the chained prisoner to bring in the strayed animals at the precise moment when her lord and master was engaged upon his official duties and locking up the prisoners in the Umm Hagar. On his calling at his house, the temporary absence would excite little or no suspicion, but as the hours sped on suspicions were aroused, and if on the following morning or the same night the sheep and goats found their way back unaided, the gaoler's only way out of the difficulty was to present a favourable report of the conduct of the escaped prisoner, in the hope that his release would be ordered by the Khaleefa. To acknowledge that he had escaped while employed in tending his sheep and goats would be to place the gaoler's head or liberty in danger, and the eloping couple well knew this. No sooner was the release ordered, than the happy couple would present themselves before the Kadi, to be married right off the Soudanese damsel in the possession of a husband, with no other wives or concubines to worry her in the house, and her husband free of his chains. True, he might divorce his wife the same day if he so chose, but then his and her object had been gained they were both clear of the gaoler, whom they knew dare not trump up any case against them in the hope of one or the other being again committed to prison, for, once released by the Khaleefa's orders, a prisoner might only be recommitted on them. Moreover, if one of the two should relate what had actually occurred, the gaoler himself, having deceived the Khaleefa with his report of good conduct and "education," would certainly be sent to prison or to the gallows.
I was too important a prisoner to make my escape at all possible by such happy means as those above described. My only hope lay in trusty natives and swift camels which would outstrip my pursuers. I often envied my fellow-prisoners who exchanged the bonds of slavery for those of matrimony, for numbers of them came to see me after their "release," but I shudder to think what might have happened had I been released by the Khaleefa's orders, for, following the old adage that a drowning man clutches at a straw, I must have promised marriage to dozens of Soudan beauties (?) in the event of their doing anything towards wheedling their masters or the Khaleefa into releasing me, and it is quite certain that, on my release, I should have met at the prison-gates a clamouring crowd all claiming the honour.
But I should explain how it was that I came into direct contact with the hareems of the gaolers. Having studied physiology and medicine at Kénigsberg and Leipzig, I was often called upon by the natives in Upper Egypt, before the place was so well known to the travelling public as it is now, and in the absence of doctors, to attend them in cases of sickness or accident. My practice, being gratuitous, was a large one, and I soon became the "Hakeem Pasha" (principal medical officer). My reputation, if it did not precede me, at least accompanied me to Omdurman when I was captured, so that I was in constant requisition at the gaolers' hareems, paying "professional" visits ranging from cases in which the Khaleefa was soon to be presented with another subject, to the most trivial and sometimes imaginary complaints. So long as the women kept ailing, my life was rendered endurable, for I was able to sit down and chat with them for hours, waiting to see the result of concoctions made from, to me, unknown herbs and roots, of the properties of which I was ignorant; but the results were always satisfactory. The only medicine or chemical I came across of any value in the stores of the Beit-el-Mal was permanganate of potash, and I soon discovered that a Soudan constitution necessitated the application of this in crystals and not in liquid form. The effects, as may be imagined, were rapid, and, though my medical readers might be inclined to doubt the statement, the results were eminently satisfactory both to the patients and myself.
Occasionally I would be sent for to attend some one in the women's prison, which was situated a short distance from the Saier of Idris. The women's prison consisted of the common cell and a light zareeba, through which the curious might gaze on the women as they lay stretched on the ground during the day in the sun, undergoing their first period of imprisonment. The majority of the women prisoners were slaves locked up on some pretence or other to prevent their escaping. It might be that their master was arranging for some trading trip which would occupy him for weeks and, maybe, months. The simplest way ot preventing his property from running away during his absence was to trump up some charge against her, and have her locked up, knowing that her release might not be obtained until he returned and requested it. As in the mean time she would have to be fed at his expense, and gave her services free to the household of one of the gaolers, he was equally sure that the gaoler would not be too anxious to secure her release. Married women were sent to prison on all sorts of charges, ranging from suspected conjugal infidelity to the delivery of a curtain lecture. The women prisoners wore light chains connecting their anklets, but their lot was little better than that of the men. A charge of infidelity "not proven," as the Scotch have it, was followed by imprisonment and the application of three hundred stripes with the courbag, and when the woman had recovered from these, she would be sent into the house of one of the gaolers to be the maid-of-all-work for every one there; she would have to grind corn, attend to the children, carry water, and be driven as a slave night and day for weeks. A Mrs. Caudle or a termagant received from fifty to eighty lashes, and she too on recovery would be sent into one of the gaolers' hareems to work as hard as her possibly innocent and more severely punished companion in misery. A few weeks of such treatment sent the women back home completely cured of the faults for which they were sent to prison to be corrected, besides which the relation of their experiences acted as an effective deterrent on budding Mrs. Caudles and others.
The unloading of boats was the hardest work we were set to, and we were kept up to the mark by the ever-present lash; we might only be tired and ill when we could afford the luxury of paying for the complaint, for this labour was the most lucrative task our gaolers could set us to; we had either to work, or pay many times the equivalent of our labour. It was in connection with the unloading of boats, and this, too, when I was slowly recovering from my attack of typhus fever after the death of Ahmed Nur ed Din, that I received my first flogging. A young gaoler had pestered me for money, and as I had none to give him, he ordered me to slave at the unloading of the boats. The only way of exhibiting a real refusal was to sit down upon the ground, which I did, upon which the gaoler commenced to drag me towards the gateway of the Saier. On this I got upon my feet and knocked the gaoler off his. He ran to Idris es Saier, told his own tale, and Idris, approaching me, ordered me to get up — for I had again sat down — and assist in the unloading of the boats. I refused, and accused the gaoler of trying to extort monies from me. Upon this Idris struck me with his "safarog" (an instrument almost the exact counterpart of the Australian boomerang, and used by the Soudan tribes for precisely similar purposes); the blow he gave smashed the safarog and stunned me, and while only partly conscious I was turned over and condemned to receive there and then five hundred lashes.
Only sixty or seventy, I was told, were inflicted; the remainder were not given, as Idris, seeing that I was unconscious, believed that I was dead, and in consequence received a terrible fright. I was carried to my place in the cell, while Idris set about clearing himself with the other prisoners, and explaining that it was all the work of the young gaoler. Idris knew what it meant to him had I been flogged to death, and, believing that I would not recover, he, when I did recover, evidently made up his mind to pay out the gaoler who was responsible for his fright in the first place, and for his servility to the other prisoners at the moment when he thought there were good grounds for it.
His opportunity came some little time later on, when the same gaoler invented another excuse for flogging me. I had bought from one of the gaolers a small mud hut, a few feet square, in the prison enclosure, and received permission from Idris es Saier to sleep in this at night instead of in the Umm Hagar. This young gaoler — and other gaolers as well — accepted baksheesh from prisoners to allow them to sleep in the open; and Idris, finding the contributions to his "starving children" falling off, suspected the reason, and lay in wait. Upon a night when a larger number than usual had been allowed to sleep outside the Umm Hagar, he suddenly made his appearance in the prison enclosure. There was nothing for our guardians to do but to pretend that the prisoners had been insubordinate, had refused to enter the Umm Hagar, and to lay about them with their whips. The young gaoler, not aware that I had paid the regulation baksheesh to Idris, made straight for my hut, dragged me out, and flogged me to the door of the common cell, a distance, maybe, of forty or fifty yards, but my thick jibbeh prevented the blows from telling with much effect as far as regards abrasion of the skin; nevertheless, their weight told on my diminished strength, and I again fell ill. The circumstance came to the ears of the Khaleefa through Idris, or the Nebbi Khiddr, and I had the huge satisfaction of seeing my tormentor dismissed from his lucrative post,
subjected to the two hundred lashes he was sentenced to receive, and then sent as a prisoner in chains to work at the very same boats, which he had had me flogged for refusing to assist in unloading. This, at the present moment, is the only bit of real justice I can remember during my twelve years' captivity.
I have in a former chapter given a slight description of flogging as I saw it practised when first captured by the dervishes; but the flogging in the Saier was a very different matter. The maximum number of stripes ever ordered was a thousand, and this number was often actually given, but in every case the stripes were given over the clothing. The rules of flogging were generally as follows: the first two hundred on the back below the region of the lumbar vertebræ, the third and fourth hundred on the shoulders, and the fifth hundred on the breast. When the maximum number of one thousand lashes was ordered, they were always given on the same parts as those of the first two hundred, and this punishment was resorted to for the purpose of extorting confessions. After eighty or one hundred blows, the jibbeh was cut into shreds, and soon became saturated with the blood of the victim; and while the effect of the individual blows may not have been as great as those from the cat-o'-nine-tails, the number given made up in quantity for what might have been lacking in quality, as is evidenced by the large numbers who died under the castigation or as a result of it later.
On one occasion an old black soldier of the Egyptian Army, named Mohammad Ajjami, who was employed as a runner (a foot-galloper — if I may invent the expression — of the Khaleefa on field days), was sent to me while in the prison to be cured of the effects of a flogging. He had by some means incurred the displeasure of Sheikh ed Din, the son of the Khaleefa, and by him had been sentenced to receive a public flogging, after which he was to be sent to the Saier to be "educated." He was carried into the prison to me after his flogging. The fleshy part of his back was cut into ribbons, and the hip-bones were exposed. For six or eight weeks I was constantly employed bathing this man's wounds with a dilute solution of carbolic acid, the carbolic crystals being sent to me by Sheikh ed Din himself for the purpose, for his father, the Khaleefa, jealous of his authority, had censured his son, telling him, as he constantly told others, that "In Usbaiee shareeknee fee mulkee, anna ikktahoo."[2] Ajjami recovered, and often came to see me in prison to express his gratitude. Sheikh ed Din himself was so pleased at the man's recovery that he begged his father to release me, so that I might practise the healing art amongst his Ansar, and teach it to others; but the Khaleefa was obdurate, and refused, his reasons for refusing to release me being better left to be related later by some of my fellow-captives.
My third flogging was received under the following circumstances. Having from Idris es Saier received permission to remain in my mud hovel, instead of spending the nights in the Umm Hagar, and feeling secure in my comparative freedom and safe from the exactions of the other gaolers, as I had baksheeshed Idris well, I firmly refused to be bled any further. My particular guardian, not daring, after what had occurred to my former guardian, to order me into the Umm Hagar, went a step further, and refused to allow me to leave my mud hut at all for any purpose whatever. I insisted upon being allowed to go to the place of ablution — about one hundred yards distant — and being refused, set off, receiving at every step a blow from the courbag. Being heavily chained, I was helpless, and could not reach my tormentor, as he could skip away from my reach, which was limited to the length of the bars connecting my feet, which bars were fifteen inches in length. It was on this occasion, nighttime too, that Idris es Saier paid another surprise visit to the prison enclosure to see what number of "unauthorized" prisoners were sleeping outside the Umm Hagar, and, furious at the number he discovered, he ordered all outside, without exception, to be flogged.
I and fifteen to twenty others received a hundred and fifty lashes each — at least, I received this number; others repented by crying out after twenty or thirty blows. I alternately clenched my teeth and bit my lips to prevent a sound of pain escaping, often as I was asked, "Will you not cry out? Is your head and heart still like black iron?" and the more they reminded me of the courage I was exhibiting, the more reason I had for not giving way or breaking down. — But the mental ordeal was far, far more terrible than the corporal punishment. There was I, a European, a Prussian, a man who had fought with the British troops in what transpired to be the "too late" expedition for the rescue of Gordon, now in the clutches of the tyrant and his myrmidons, whom we had hoped to rescue Gordon from; a white and a Christian — and the only professing Christian — chained and helpless, being flogged by a black, as much a captive and a slave as I was, and yet my superior and master. It is impossible for any one not having undergone a similar experience to appreciate the mental agonies I endured.
I may have been self-willed and strong-headed; I may, if you wish, have acted like a fool in my constant defiance of the Khaleefa and the tenets of the Mahdi; but now, looking back on those terrible times, I feel convinced that had poor Gordon lived, my actions would at least have met with his approbation, for the outward ceremony or observance of adherence to the Mohammedan faith was carried out on me under force, after the escape of Rossignoli. Death, in whatever form it came, would have come as a welcome visitor to me; but while doing all in my power to exasperate my captors to kill me, something — hope, courage, a clinging to life, pride in my race, or personal vanity in defying them to the end — restrained me from taking my own life, though Heaven knows that, if ever man had a good excuse for doing so, I had. But my conduct so impressed the Khaleefa that he told Wad Nejoumi, who asked for my release so that I might accompany him to Dongola to "open up trade," and told many others later, "Neufeld I will not release, but I will not kill him." Invariably, in speaking of me to others, as I was still unconverted, the Khaleefa omitted the name "Abdalla" which I had been given, and spoke of me as "Nofal" — the Arabic pronunciation of Neufeld.
- ↑ This well was named "Beer-el-Ummarra" (the well of the Emirs). When ordering its construction the Khaleefa instructed Idris es Saier to put all the important prisoners on the work, as the exercise would do them good. My gang consisted of Ibrahim Wad Adlan, Ajjab Abou Jinn, Mohammad Wad Bessir, Mohammad Abou Sinn, Abdalla Abou Sinn, Ali Wad-e!-Hadd, Ahmed Abd-el-Maajid, Mahmoud Wad Said, Hassan Um Barak, and the Shereef Khaleel — the aristocracy, I might say, of the Soudan. We did little or no work ourselves, we paid the imprisoned slaves for doing it; but whenever Idris es Saier made his appearance he would find us all busy. When telling us of the Khaleefa's orders, Idris hinted that it might be advisable for us to subscribe amongst ourselves for paid labour, and he would take charge of the money. At Wad Adlan's advice, we said we rather liked the idea of having some work to do to keep us occupied, Adlan knowing that Idris would keep the money and make us work just the same, or else pay over again for another batch of slaves.
- ↑ This expression was always used by the Khaleefa in any discussion. Holding up his forefinger, he said (translation of phrase): "Rather than this finger should be a partner in the governing of my realm, I should cut it off."