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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 17, 1907)
TAT THE sSTXEET OF THE SUVFRSFflTHS: i'9me3&!fm'j'' ;RBBHaaaBaBaBsawi sHF Una, - .- SBnBBOBjd A WHITE AFRICAN; WITH HIS TWO FY FRANK G. CARPENTER. OMDURMAN! The biggest native city of the Sultan! The capital of the Mahdi and the Khalifa, and the future great commercial center of this part of the world. I wish I could show It to you as I saw it, while riding on donkey back through It with Its Egyptian Governor. It Is one of the queerest cities of the world, and one of the most Important to Africa of the future. Founded by the Mahdi, or the Moham medan Messiah, and the scene of the most atrocious cruelties and extrava gances of Khalifa who succeeded him, It once contained about one million of Afri can Sudanese. It was then a great mili tary camp, composed of 100,000 mud houses, and Inhabited by tribes from all parts of the 1, 000,000 square miles, com prised In the realm of that savage Gov ernor. The Khalifa forced the people to come here to live that he might have their services In time of war. and he al lowed them to go home only to cultivate and harvest their crops, which they were forced to bring here for sale. He made Omdurman his seat of government, and he had his own residence here inside a great wall of sun-dried brick which In closed about 60 acres, and in which was an open-air mosque of 10 acres or more. Here the Khalifa had his palace and here he kept his 400 wives. Just outside here he had the great battle which ended In the destruction of himself and the city. Omdurman In 1907. The Omdurman of today is on the site of the great city of the Khalifa. It lies at the Junction of the White and Blue Ntles, in the bend where the White Nile flows Into the main stream. By the course of the river It Is about 1800 miles from the Mediterranean Sea, and, In a itraight lino, perhaps an equal distance north of the valley of the Congo. It Is far Inland from the Red Sea. and hun dreds of miles from the source of the Blue Nile In the Abyssinian Hills. The Omdurman of the present Is laid out on practically the same lines as that of the past, and it covers almost the same ground, although It has much fewer people. During my trip I climbed to the top of the old palace of the Khalifa and took a look over the city. The houses stretch along the Nile for even or eight miles, with a thicket of boats upon the shore opposite where the Blue Nile flows In. Some of the town is on the main stream, and it reaches out from the river In every direction. It Is a native city In every sense of the word. In its many thousand houses there are not a score which are of more than one itory. and you can count the house? made Df burnt brick on your fingers. It Is a city of mud, pure and simple. The one llory mud houses have mud walls about them, and the mud stores face streets paved only with mud. The vast lnclosures f the Khalifa are made of mud bricks, and the houses inside, which now form the quarters of the Anglo-Egyptian sol diers and officers, are of sunbaked dirt. Standing on the Khalifa's palace one can follow many of the streets with his eye. Some of them are of great width, but the majority are narrow and winding. The whole city. In fact, is a labyrinth cut up by the new avenues laid out by the British, with the holy buildings of the Khalifa's government structures in the center. Guided by the Governor. I was shown through the city by the Mamour. All the towns of the Sudan have a British official who rules them: but under each such governor Is a sub governor, who must be a native Egyp tian. This man Is the real executive, as far as carrying out the orders of the gov ernment Is concerned. He represents the natives, and understands all about them and their ways. The Mamour. with whom I went through Omdurman, is an ex cavalry officer of the army of the Khedive. His name Is Captain Ahmed Handy, and he fought with the British in P0PLG. ffl) 8s - v . iSE their wars against the Khalifa. He speaks English well, and, as he under stands both Turklsli and Arabic, he was able to tell me all about the city as we went through. I came down the Blue Nile from Khar tum In a skiff. The distance is about Ave miles, but we had to tack back and forth all the way. and the trip took over two hours. The Mamour met me on land ing. He had a good donkey fr me and we spent the whole day In going through one part of the city after another, mak ing the notes and taking the photo graphs which now He before me. Queer People These. I wish I could show you the Omdurman native's. They are stranger than any I have seen In my' African travels. They come from all parts of the Sudan and represent 40. or 50 odd trl,es. Some of the faces are as black as a stove, some are dark brown and others have .the color of rich Jersey cream. One of the queer- est men I met during my Journey was an African with a complexion as rosy as that of a tow-headed American baby and hair quite as white. He was a water carrier, dressed In a red cap and long gown. He had two great cans on the ends of a pole which rested on his shoul der, and he was trotting through the j streets carrying water from one of the i wells to his black Sudanese customers. I His feet and hands were bare and they were as white as my own. I stopped him and made him lift his red fez cap to see whether his hair was white by age. It was flaxen, however, rather than silver, and he told me that his years numbered only 25. The Mamour talked with him in Arabic, and learned that he was a pure Sudanese, corrlng from one of the provinces near the watershed of the Congo. He said that his parents were Jet black, but that many men of his oolor lived In the region from whence he came. I stood him up against the mud wall in the street, antTTiad two Sudanese women, each blacker than the Ink with which this paper is printed, stand beside him and then made their photographs. The man did not like this at first, but when at the close I pave him a coin worth about 25 cents he salaamed to the ground and went away happy. Tribal Marks. I am surprised at how many of these people have scars on their faces. Nearly every other man I meet has the marks of great gashes on his cheeks, forehead or breast, and some of the women are scarred so as to give the idea of terrible brutalities having been perpetrated upon them. As a rule, however, these scars have been voluntarily made. They are to mark the tribe and family to which their owners belong. The Mamour tells me that eve., tribe has its own special cut, and that he can tell from Just where a man comes by such marks. The cuts are of all shapes. Sometimes a cheek will have three parallel gashes, and at another time you will notice that the cuts are crossed, while at others they look like a Chinese puzzle. The dress of the people is etrange. Those of the better classes wear long gowns and are clad not unlike the Egyp tians. Many of the poor are almost naked-, and the boys' and girls often go about with only a belt of strings at the waist. The strings are like tassels, and they fall to the middle of the thigh. Very small children wear nothing whatever. Many of the women wear no clothing above the waist, and they seem to have no false modesty about the exposure of their persons. I saw one near the ferry as I landed this morning. She was a good looking glrll of 18, as black as oiled ebony, as straight as a string and as plump as a partridge. She- was standing outside a mud hut shaking a sieve containing sesame seed. She held the sieve with both hands high up over her head, so that the wind might blow away the cha. as the seed fell to the ground. She was naked to the waist, and her pose was almost ex actly that of the famed "Vestal Virgin" in the Corcoran Art Gallery at Washing ton. Omdurman is the business center of the THE StiNDAT OKEGOMAX. PORTLAND. NOVEMBER 17, 1907. v5Z4? &ZRLS TCfRNJNjtr THE WHEEL TTfAT Furnishes thb Soudan. Goods are sent from here to all parts of the country, and grain, gum ara ble, ostrich feathers, ivory and native cot ton are brought in for sale. The town has 100 restaurants, 20 coffee-houses and 300 wells. It has markets of various kinds, and there are long streets of bazaars or stores, in which each trade has Its own section, many Of the articles sold being made on the ground. One of the most interesting places Is the woman's market. This consists of a vast number of mat tents or shelters, under each of which a woman sits with her wares piled about her. She may have vegetables, grain or fowls, or' articles of native cloth and other things made by the people. The women have the monopoly of the sales here. Men may come and buy, but they cannot peddle anything within the women's precincts, nor can they open stands there. I understand that tho women are shrewd traders. Their markets cover several acres, and during my stay they were thronged with black and brown natives. Not far from this market I came into the great square upon which the streets of the stores enter. This square contains ten or more acres. There are a number of restaurants facing it. and in one corner there is a cattle market where donkeys, camels and horses are sold. The sales are under the government, to thj extent that an animal must be sold there If a good title goes with it. If the transfer Is made ejee where the terms of the bargain may be questioned, and therefore the traders come. Selling Money. It Is strange to have shops that sell money. I do not mean stock exchanges or banks, but real stores with money on the counters, and stacked up In bundles and laid away in piles on the shelves. That is what they have in Omdurman. There are caravans going out from here to all parts of north-central Africa, and each must have Its own currency for the Journey. These people are not far from the dark ages, as far as their financial matters are concerned. Many of the tribes do not know what coinage means; they use neither copper, silver nor gold, and one of our dollars would be worth nothing. Among many of the people brass wire fend beads are the only currency, and, strange to say, every locality has its own style of beads and its favorite wire. If blue beads are popular you can buy nothing with red ones, and If the people want beads of metal it Is useless to offer them glass. In some localities cloth is used as money, and In others salt is the medium of exchange. The salt is molded or cut out of the salt-rock -n sticks, and so many sticks will buy a cow or a camel. The owner of one of the largest money stores of the Sudan Is a Syrian. I found him not far from the great market, and he told me that he would be glad to outfit me if I went into the wilds. I priced some of his beads. Those made of amber were especially costly. He had one string of amber lumps, five in number. Each bead was the size of a black walnut, and he asked for the string three English pounds, or about fifteen American dol lars. The string will be worn as a charm about some woman's bare waist, and it may form the whole wardrobe of the maiden who gets It. Among the Silversmiths. Not far from this bead money estab lishment the Mamour and I entered the street of the silversmiths. This contains many shops in which black men and boys are busy making the barbaric Jewel ry of the Sudan. Jewels are the savings banks of this region, and many of the articles are of pure silver and pure gold. Some are very heavy. I priced rings of silver worth $5 apiece and handled a pair of gold earrings which the Jeweler said were worth $60. The earrings were each as big around as a coffee cup, and their thickness at the place where they are fastened into the ear was that of a lead pencil. The man who had them for sale was barefooted. He wore a long white gown and a cap of white cotton, and f.is whole dress could "not have cost more than $10. He was a black, and he bad WJ Frank G. Carpenter Writes From the Chief City of the Soudan Where Shops Sell Money Tribes of Natives Are Distinguished by Self inflicted Scars Upon the Face half a dozen black boys and men working away in his shop. Each smith sat on the ground before a little anvil about eight Inches high and six Inches wide, and pounded at the silver or gold object he was making. In another shop I saw them making silver anklets as thick as my thumb, and in another they were turning out silver filagree work as fine as anj from Genoa or Bangkok. The Mamour asked two of Good Stories Told of Prominent People Rare Ice. IRVING BROKAW. America's champion figure skater, said of skating at a din ner at the Knickerbocker Club in New York: "We are not good skaters in this. part of the country because we don't get enough ice. Good Ice is as rare with us as Jewels. The way we prize it is almost laughable. "In my boyhood I knew a man, Jeremy Come by name, who used to lease a skating pond each Winter, and charge 25 cents admission to it. "One Winter the weather was horribly mild. With December well on, the pond had not once frozen over. Jeremy Corne was In despair. "Then a cold day came, and a light scum formed on .oe water. There was another cold day, and that soum turned to clear green ice. A crowd of young people came with their skates and their, quarters, but Jeremy would notfclet them on the pond. " 'The Ice is still too thin to bear ye,' he said. 'Ye'd spile everything, and maybe get drownded into the bargain. If I let ye on now. Gall round agin tomor row. "The young people went away disap pointed, but one venturous youth, when Jeremy's back was turned, slipped on his skates and skimmed out gaily into the middle of the pond. " "Come back here!' yelled Jeremy. 'Come back, consarn ye!' "The ice was very thin. It cracked as the youth advanced, with a -noise like thunder. His path was marked with white cracks like the veins of leaves. " 'Back with ye!" yelled Jeremy. "But a louder cracking resounded In the cold, still air, and the youth, throw ing up his arms, disappeared. He bobbed up again instantly and began to flop about and struggle, clutching wildly a: the Ice that encircled him In the hole he had made, but the thin Ice only broke under his weight, letting him down suddenly Into the black water again. "Jeremy, beside himself to see his good Ice going like that, yelled from the bank: " 'Come out o' that, or the water won't freeze! But don't ye break what Ice there Is left, do ye hear? Crawl under neath to where I am, and I'll knock a hole for ye to git out by.' " The Reward of Politeness. President Harahan, of the Illinois Cen tral, at a dinner in New York compared foreign with home railroads. "And another thing." he said, "our railway servants are more courteous than foreign ones. Foreign porters and ticket sellers are a very crusty lot. "An American and a Briton were once riding up to London in a first-class car riage. The American, at a certain sta tion, leaned out and said to the porter on the platform: " 'What station is this, brother?' " 'Birmingham, of course,' said the por ter. In a surly tone. 'Can't you see 'the name posted up?' "The American, after drawing in his head, said to the Englishman: " 'Now, that was a piece of discourtesy you wouidn't meet with in America. An American porter would have answ ered me with polished politeness.' "The Englishman smiled. " 'Ah, but it was your own fault, that rebuff,' he said. 'Pardon me for men the Jewelers to bring their anvils out In the sun in order that I might photograph them and they kindly complied. A little farther on we entered the shoe bazaar, where scores of merchants were selling red leather slippers turned up at the toes, antl in a court not far away we found merchants selling hides and leather fresh from the tanneries. They were salt ing the hides in the square, and laying them out in the sun to dry. tioning it, but your manner was too blult, too rough-and-ready. The porter took you for a er a bounder. Now, at the next station, 1 will myself ask a porter the same question, and I'll ask It In the gracious, condescending way we do such things over here. I warrant you I'll receive the most courteous of answers.' "'AH right." said the American shortly, a little hurt at having been mistaken for a bounder. "Well, at the next station, the carriage drew up near a porter, and the English manhe was a typical, rotund, rosy old John Bull put his head out of the win dow, showed all his false teeth in a glit tering smile, and purred: " 'Porter, would you kindly tell me the name of this station? "The porter glanced up, and then, as he slouched off, called back over his shoulder: " "Ah, shut tha trap, tha bacon-faced old buffer! Put tha daft fat head In be fore I knock it off for thee." A Solid Liquid. Captain Biglow, of Yale, was talking about an applicant for the football teajn. "He will never make a football player," said Captain Biglow. "He Is as different from a football player as a bottle of brown fluid I beheld last Summer was different from beer. "A man with a motor-cycle stopped at a mountain inn where I was lunching one sultry afternoon, and asked for a bottle of beer. The landlord took from a sunny shelf a bottle hung with . cob webs. He dusted It. and set it before the cyclist with a flourish. " 'You'll find this the best Milwaukee, sir.' he said. "The cyclist opened the bottle, poured a little into a glass, and frowned. " 'Landlord,' he said, 'this is very thick and muddy beer." "The landlord lifted the glass and looked at it. He tilted It from side to side. It was so thick and muddy that it would scarcely spill. " 'It's the thunder,' he muttered. 'It's the thunder that has done this.' " 'Well, thunder or no thunder, I can't drink It,' said the motor-cyclist; 'but I'll tell you what you might do. You might Just put it in a paper bag for me, and I'll eat It on my way home." " The Eye on the Pole. Admiral Chadwlck, at the recent convention of the League of American Municipalities at Norfolk, said that most European cities, especially the cities of Germany, were better gov erned than ours. "Why," said Admiral Chadwlck aft erwards, "some of our cities are con ducted in so absurd a manner that It seems as if their cittzens know no more about municipal government than savages know about optics. "Savages and the seml-clvllized know little, of course, of optics, of modern progress, or of science. Let me tell you something apropos that happened to a friend of mine. "I have a friend, an ex-sailor, who owns a big plantation tn Ceylon. His workmen are very slww and lazy. In fact, when he is not about, they shirk their ' tasks dreadfully. And this Is why, having to go away for the day in a particularly busy season, my friend went out into the fields, called QIWURMAN. IS In the Manchester bazaar I found them celling cottons of many kinds and cali coes of gay patterns. There were but few American goods among them, and the chief importations were from Eng land and Germany. I saw American sew ing machines In the bazaar of the tail ors, and I understand that they are gen erally used throughout the Nile valley. During my stay in this section I bought some ostrich feathers of a merchant who sold nothing else. He had a large stock and his prices were fixed. My feathers cost me about $2 apiece, but they are the long white plumes of the wild ostrich, and are far finer than any from South Africa, where the birds are reared upon farms. In the Grain Markets. A large part of the grain of the Upper Soudan comes down Blue and White Niles to Omdurman. The grain markets are close to the river and they run for some distance along It. There Is no rain here at this time of the year, and hence there is no need for warehouses or sheds. The grain Is poured out on the hard ground In piles and left there until sold. If you will imagine several hun dred little mountains of white or red sand with wooden measures of various sizes lying- at their feet or stuck Into their sloping sides, you may have some idea of this Central African grain market. You must add the tents of canvas or mat shelters, in which the ebony merchants stay while waiting for their customers, and must make a crowd of black-skinned, white-gowned men and women moving about sam pling the wares and buying or selling. The merchants watch the grain all day, and if they are forced to go away at nightfall they smooth the hills out and make cabalistic marks upon them, so that they can easily know If their property is disturbed during their ab sence. The most common grains sold his men about him. and took from Its socket the glass eye that a gunshot wound obliges him to wear. " 'Men,' he said, holding the eye aloft. 'I am going away for the day. I must leave you alone with your work here. Your work is very important, and you must not neglect It while I'm gone. I shall be gone, but see, I shall leave my eye behind to watch you for me.' "He set the glass eye on the top of a pole with a stately gesture, and de parted amid a great silence. '"ftic men worked feverishly under the stern observation of the eye upon the pole. For two hours, till nearly 10 o'clock In the morning, they dug and delved like mad. Then one of their number, a clever chap, stole round to the rear of the pole, and, softly ap proaching the eye from behind, placed his hat over It. Thereupon a shout of Joy went up, and all hands lay down in tne shade and smoked and ate and I slept til sunset." The Montreal Gurgle. "Stuyvesant Fish," said a Pittsburg j banker, "is a very finicky person, j To get along with him, you must j b mighty particular about etiquette ! you must shave twice a day dress for j dinner all that sort of thing. If you i don't come up to his standard, he is apt 1 to say some very cutting things about you. "I once sat beside Mr. Fish at a dln- ner at the Union League in New York. mr. nsn. when the soup came on, be gan to cast sneering glances at a stout, red-faced chap opposite us; and finally he whispered to me: " "That man is from Montreal. I can tell It by his accent.' " 'By his accent?" said I. "But, Mr. Fish, the man hasn't spoken.' "Mr Fish's lip curled in a scornful smile. " 'I had reference,' he said, 'to the ac cent with which he eats his soup.' " Too Much Golf. Robert J. Burdette, the famous humor ist, during a recent visit to New York talked about golf. "It is a great game," he said to a re porter. "Do you have it here? In our beautiful Los Angeles we piny it all the year round We have it on the brain there. Golf caused a Los Angeles min ister to make a terrible slip in the pulpit the other Sunday. "The afternoon before this Sunday, the minister, who Is an enthusiastic golfer, had been nearly Heartbroken by the loss of a match game that had seemed entire ly his. But after playing superbly, he fell dff at the end, and his opponent beat him out. "This must have weighed on the minis ter's mind, for when he rose In the pul pit the next morning to announce his text, he began solemnly: " 'What shall.it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose the last hole?" " Worse and Worse. "The late Admiral Walker." said a naval officer in Washington, "be lieved heartily In marriage for sailors. He always urged sailors to wed. Nauti cal bachelors were held up to scorn by him. "Strolling with him in New York one day, we met a young ship-broker. Ad ANEG-YPTIAtf EX- CAVALRr OFFICER! "here are wheat, barley and durra. Th latter Is a kind of sorghum seed which forms the bread of the Soudan. It Is ground to a flour, either in hand mills or between stones moved about by bul locks or camels, and is eaten In the shape of round loaves of about the cir cumference of a tea plate and perhaps two Inches thick. The wheat Is of the macaroni variety, which grows well in these dry regions wherever irrigation Is possible. The Mills of the Soudan. Speaking of the flour of the Soudan, I visited one of the largest milling establishments of the country during my stay In Omdurman. The owner is one of the richest and most Influential of the Soudanese natives. He is an emir, and as such is one of the leading men of the town. His mills were In a great mud-walled compound, which contained also his srarden and home. rThe garden was Irrigated by a well. and upon entering It I saw two black slave girls turning the wheels which furnished the water supply. The mills were three In number. Each was a mud stable-like, one-story build ing, Just large enough to hold the mill stones and the track for the animals which turned them. The stones were similar to the old-fashioned grinding machines of our own country. Th. rested one upon the other and were so made that the grain flowed from a hopper Into the top stone. The motive power for each mill was a blindfolded camel, which moved around In a circle, turning the top stone. Each of the animals was driven by a black boy. who sat on the bar of the mill and rode there as he whipped them along. The flour so ground was fine. I picked up a handful and tasted it and found li quite good. Omdurman, October 6. miral Walker hailed the young man de lightedly. He clapped htm on the back, wrung his hand, and cried: " 'Congratulations on your marriage, my young friend. No more sewing on of buttons now, eh? " 'No. Indeed.' salfl the ship-broker, sharply, 'I wear a belt now. it keeps me so busy raising the money to pay my wife's bills that I have no time to sew on ' buttons.' " A Difficult Lingo. "When George Ade wintered In Egypt." said a Baltimorean, "It amused him a good deal to see the serious way In which his fellow-tourists took their smattering of Egyptian archaeology, of the Arabic tongue, triad of the an cient Egyptian dynasties. They had picked up all this flimsy knowledge in a week or two's reading, but they acted as though it was the precious fruit of a lifetime's study. "A Assouan, one fin! day, a young woman from St. Joseph complained that she could not understand the Arabic of her guide. To the crowd that encircled her shu pointed out the guide a bent old fellow with a white beard and she said bitterly that, aft er her thorough study of Arabic, It seemed strange that she and this guide could not converse "'It's your own fault. Miss Hodson. You should have hired a younger guide. These toothless old ones all speak gum Arabic' " Thomas, the Tank. E. J. Berwlnd, the great coal oper ator of Philadelphia, was asked by a reporter, at his beautiful Newport vil la, a rather stupid question In finance. Mr. Berwlnd laughed. "That question," he said, "is about as abcurd and as ludicrous as a tab leau I once saw In a little French theater In New Orleans. "The curtain rose up In the theater, revealing a large bed draped with crape, and occupied by an elderly woman who held a black-edged hand kerchief to her eyes, A widow, plain ly, of hut a few days' standing. She wept. Her wound was still raw. "On the other pillow beside the widow lay a large bottle of gin. She turned towards the bottle, and, sob bing as If her heart would break, she said tenderly: " 'Ah. when I see and smell the gin there. I think It's poor Thomas back at my side again.' " A Xew Definition. A rather cynical joke has been recently accredited to Senator Piatt. The Senator, on his last visit to the Manhattan Beach hotel, allowed a pretty little girl. a Western millionaire's daughter, to be presented to him. The little girl, in the course of one of her many delightful chats with the aged statesman, said: "Tell'me, won't you, Senator, what po litical economy Is?" "Political economy, my dear child." Senator Piatt replied, "is the art of never buying more 'votes than you actually need." The Nova Scotia government has ap pointed a commission to examine Into and report on the feasibility of old-age pensions for workmen.