Page:In Desert and Wilderness (Sienkiewicz, tr. Drezmal).djvu/152

 144 For some time the boat floated in silence. There could be heard only the grating of the oars on the boat's edges and once in a while a splash of water by a crocodile struck in the tail. Many of these ugly reptiles had swam down from the south to Khartûm, where they found an abundance of food, for the river teemed with corpses, not only of the people who were slaughtered after the capture of the city, but also of those who died of diseases which raged amidst the Mahdists and particularly among the slaves. The commands of the caliphs prohibited, indeed, "the contamination of the water," but they were not heeded, and the bodies which the crocodiles did not devour floated with the water, face downward, to the Sixth Cataract and even as far as Beber.

But Idris thought of something else, and after a while said:

"This morning we did not get anything to eat. I do not know whether we can hold out from hunger until the hour of prayer, and who will feed us later?"

"You are not a slave," replied Tadhil, "and can go to the market-place where merchants display their supplies. There you can obtain dried meat and sometimes dochnu (millet), but for a high price; as I told you, famine reigns in Omdurmân."

"But in the meantime wicked people will seize and kill those children."

"The soldiers will protect them, and if you give money to any one of them, he will willingly go for provisions."

This advice did not please Idris who had a greater desire to take money than to give it to any one, but before he was able to make reply the boat touched the bank.

To the children Omdurmân appeared different from Khartûm. In the latter place there were houses of several stories built of brick and stone; there was a "mudirya,"