Page:A Prisoner of the Khaleefa.djvu/159

Rh far as their weight of chains and strength would allow, you knew, when one fell, that it was the weakness caused by starvation which had brought him down. There he would lie where he fell, given over to despair, whilst those who did reach any messenger with food, rather than resenting the stripes given by the guards with the courbash, would almost appear glad of the open wounds these caused, so that they might caress the wounds with their hands and lick the blood from their fingers. This picture is not over- but underdrawn; but I have been advised to leave out minute details and other scenes, as unnecessarily harrowing.

We heard that cannibalism was being practised in the town, but none took place in the prison; in the Saier, when once the, despair engendered by starvation and cruelty took hold of a prisoner, he would lie down and wait for death; food he would never refuse if offered, but if water without food was offered, it was refused. Day after day, for months, the bodies of eight or ten prisoners, who had died of starvation, would be thrown into the Nile, and thousands must have died in the Saier. The population of the prison was always kept up owing to the hourly arrivals of starving wretches committed there for trying to steal food in the market-place, and it was from such as these that the fighting for food in the prison emanated chiefly. It can be well imagined how the most civilized being might be driven to madness and desperation, when, as the result of his trying to steal a bit of food, maybe for himself, maybe for