Page:The Moslem World - Volume 02.djvu/30

 but it was at a terrible cost. Many a poor fellow who went out never returned, In fact, when the roll was called after the battle was over, it was an open secret that a very large proportion of the men had lost their mess number in the fray. Twelve hours after the battle was over, from the British Consulate several of us watched the Sambooks coming in with the wounded and depositing them like bales of goods on the dirty Hodeidan shore, whence they were conveyed in a conservancy cart to the hospital, and one can more readily imagine than describe the state of their wounds when they got the length of the surgeon. Less than a week later, the tribesmen attacked Al Kufl and put its garrison of five hundred Turkish soldiers to death. Now the Idrese has again taken the field and has not only beaten the Turks in open battle, but so out-generalled them that he managed to get the Turkish gun-boats to fire on their own men and kill far more Turkish soldiers than even the Idrese's men did.

The Idrese' s object is to reform Islam, but of the movement itself I would say in the language of Arnold, "Its heart, its heart is stone, and so it cannot thrive." The tribesmen are, to a large extent, influenced by their love of gain and hatred of the Turks rather than by the Senussi-like doctrines of this Al Azhar disciple. Consequently there is lack of cohesion in his force which, unlike that of the Imam, will probably never recover from a really serious defeat.

When one speaks of the "Mullah" out here, one always means the Somali, who was at one time an interpreter on board a British man-of-war and afterwards led his countrymen against the Abyssinian, the British and the Italian troops in Somaliland. He, too, is a reformer, but as the scene of his operations is entirely confined to the Horn of Africa, he has nothing to do with Arabia.

The term "Mahdi" has, however, occasionally been applied to the "Imam"; and as there is a tradition to the effect that the Mahdi, after becoming master of Arabia, is to fill the earth with equity and to reign for seven years over a contented people before God calls him to eat the fruits of paradise, it is natural that this title