ABSTRACT
Mahdi. After the fall of Khart(lm the Mahdi took up his abode in Omdurman, and gradually the people flocked there, until a city measuring 5 miles by 2 came into being. Its population was estimated at 400,000. The chief buildings were the Great Mosque, the Mahdi's Tomb, the Khalifa Abdallah's Palace, and the Palace of Ya'~ub, his son. The Mosque was enclosed by a brick wall, several hundreds of yards round; the Mahdi's tomb was built by the Khalifa, is close to the Mosque, and was surmounted by a dome ending in three brass balls and a spear head, and its height was about 70 feet. The dome was badly injured in the bombardment of Omdurman on September 2nd, and since the building was the symbol of, up to a certain point, successful rebellion and fanaticism, and was certain to become a goal for pllgrimages, and the home of fraudulent miracles, it was destroyed by charges of guncotton. For the same reasons the Mahdi's body was burnt, and the ashes thrown into the river, and this was done on the advice of MuQ.ammadan officers and notables; the Mahdi's head is said to have been buried at Wadi I:Ialfah. Omdurman: was defended by a stone wall, which varied in height from I I to 30 feet, and from 9 to 12 feet in thickness. The Arsenal was about It miles from the Mosque; the Bet aI-Mal, or Treasury, lay on the river bank, to the north of the town; the Slave Market was to the south of it, and the prison was on the river bank, about the centre of the town. Communication was kept up with Khar~um by means of a submarine cable worked by ex-Government officials. *
* Plans of Omdurman and Khartilm by Sir Rudolf Slatin Pasha will be found in his" Fire and Sword in the Stldall," London, 1896.
