Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/339

 ABU-HAKAZ— MEIJ3EIS— UABA— KAftblAE— EL-8AFI. 269 huts of bmnchoR, so that no exterior signa might bear witneus to inequality amongst the MuHsuhnanH, all "sons of the sumo father." In the spring of the year 1885 the report reached Europe that El-Obeid had been burnt and plundered, the booty being carried away to Jebel-Dehr by Nowal, an Arab sheikh who had never submitted to the first Mahdi. Then came the news that a second or rival Mahdi, Mulcy Hassan Ali, made a triumphant entry into the capital of Kordof4n on March 12th, 1885. He bore a sword in his hand, rode on a white horse, and was followed by derwishes, by prisoners, and by his adherents with drawn swords. When he passed the people kissed the ground, and during his stay in the mosque a large pile was made, upon which a copy of the other Mahdi's Koran was burnt. The new Mahdi told the assembled multitudes that Mahommed had given him a sword wherewith to extirpate the " false " Mahdi and all his followers. Since then it appears that the forces of the rival Mahdis have met on the battlefield, and that the original Mahdi was defeated with g^eat slaughter and driven out of KordoflLn. Abu-Haraz — Melbeis. To the south-west of El-Obeid is Abu-Haraz, a somewhat important group of hamlets, situated in a large wooded valley, in the midst of gardens surrounded by quickset hedges. Melhcis, another town, is built in a depression near a morass occasionally flooded by the torrents which descend from Blount Kordof&n. In the vicinity of this town, on the banks of the Khor Kashgil, a tributary of the AbA- Hableh, is the spot where was fought in 1883 the decisive battle which put an end to the Egyptian rule by exterminating an army of eleven thousand men. At the same time the Europeans lost much of their prestige in the eyes of the natives, because the commander of the Egj'ptian troops was General Hicks, an Englishman, and the bulk of his officers had been selected from the British army. Throughout the whole of the Nile basin it was repeated from tribe to tribe that England had been conquered by the Mahdi, and that the cannons of the " Infidels " hod thundered in vain against the warriors sent by God. Bara — Eaimar — El-Safi. The main caravan routes in Kordof&n were till recently skirted by the tele- graph, which was much dreaded by the natives ; many of them hardly dared to speak when near the wires, lest their voices might be heard at Khartum or in Egypt. To the north of El-Obeid, the principal town, situated on the caravan route between Kordofan and the bend described by the Nile at Dabbeh, is Bara, founded by the Danagla merchants. Under the rule of the Dar-F6r people before the invasion of the Egyptians, this market-town was very prosperous ; at that time, according to tradition, *' all the Bara women wore earrings of gold and bracelet* and hair-pins of gold and silver." Near Bara was fought in 1821 the battle