THE THRILLING STORY OF CHARLES NEUFELD'S EXPERIENCES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 208, 2 September 1899, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE THRILLING STORY OF CHARLES NEUFELD'S EXPERIENCES.

BELATBPA^nmNNERBYHIM-

Our Special Correspondent.)

LONDON, July 14.

.j bdiid of journalists who mot T'>D sn'L f eld at Charing Cross yesterCbar' cs «c and p ron ,ptly carried off that da.v &**_\ S(iva ge Club to be fed were hew to u . (l i y rewarded by hearing rather «n * a gerlof) ol - torsCi picturesque j,i B o«tlltl thc uistoi-y of his fearsome lmjentenMS expectation wits that Mr prlSO",d ewouW plead his obligations to the m World Magazine" us an excuse for "fl m- personal experiences. But ho dl Ihfne of the sort. He talked with dW "SStteedom, and the editor of tha: Judical, Who was present, seemed to ap'wTsenfeld Is a tall, thin, brick-red man 0_ huge cigar ever in his mouth aud an irs;:;:;r^n, ™ the _in How 1" ISS7 I set out from Wndy Zfn for Kordofan, in order to collect aO L valuable merchandise that was lying there My caravan, however, was unfortunate'almost from the very beginning; and after wandering hither and thither in the desert, waterless and almost distracted, we were betrayed by our treacherous guide Into the hands of the Dervishes. A few days later I was taken before the redoubtable Emir "Wad Nejoumi. who was at Dongold. By the way, he gave me lectures in Mah'dleb, and I retorted with object lessons on tho might of Great Britain, comparing a flrst-class battleship with a,Nile dahableh. Presently I found myself marvelling at the interest they all seemed to take in me.

"I soon found out, however, that my captors were under the comic impression that I was a high 'lighting pasha' of the English Government, and all protestations to the contrary were received almost with derision.

"My entry into Omdurman I am not llke•y to forget, for I was exposed for hours to the fury of the populace, and my sufferings jvere so intense that I frequently endeavoured to throw myself on to one of the broad-bladed spears with which the Der-

flshes menaced me in 'play.' They designY|ed, Indeed, some nice little diversions at my expense; these included blowing the two great ombeyehs, or war-horns, made from elephant tusks, right against my ears, driv-

ing me almost to madness, and giving me

the most frightful headaches. Then, presently, I was led out to be hanged, and, iv. deed, was only too eager to place my head in the noose that dangled above the angareeb on which I squatted. I was, however, pardoned at the last moment, thanks to the 'mercy' of the Khalifa, and taken to the dread Saier prison, which formed so conspicuous an object in the Mahdlst capital.

"As all the world knows by this time, the Saier was presided over by one Idris, the head gaoler, who was quite a character in his way. He appeared to subsist mainly on money squeezed out of the unfortunate..' under his charge, and was not even above levying toll upon the food sent in by friends to these poor wretches. Indeed, my own Abyssinian servant. Hasseena, used to have recourse to the following ruse in order to smuggle in enough foojl to keep me alive. The victuals really intended for me were carried in a bag concealed beneath her dress, whilst on her head she would carry another parcel of food by way of a sop to the thievish Saier gaolers. This would be promptly seized upon, and then—after much shrieking on her part—Hasseena would be allowed to pass inside empty-handed—at least so they thought.

"As to the memory of the nights in the Umm-Hagar, or stone-jug, within tlie Saier, this will probably be a nightmare to me for the rest of my life. There was no ventilatiou whatever, and not oven the remotest approach to sanitary arrangements, notwithstanding that the prisoners were so packed into the place that, in order to introduce newcomers, the gaolers had to hurl armfuls of lighted grass in among the struggling mass of humanity, and ply their hip-popotamus-hide whips on the reeking bodies of the men farthest away.

The howls and shrieks through the long, sweltering Nubian nights, the throwing about of filth, and the groans of tlie dyinfj as they lay upon the vile, saturated, and verminous floor, made up an experience sneh as no man is ever likely to forgot. Later on, however, I acquired a little mud hut of my own inside tlie prison walls.

"Of course I was not in prison for the whole twelve years. I was, Indeed, constantly devising means of working outside, for In this lay my only chance of escape. Mention of escape, by the way, brings me to the extraordinary series of failures which marked all attempts on my part to get away from the accursed city of hideous tyranny and death. But It is a long and strange story. Naturally, after Slatin Pacha's escape, stricter watch than ever was kept over us. . ,

"And yet the Khalifa was easily imposed upon.l remember an impostor—one Shwybo -turning up in Omdurman, and declaring that he could turn copper coins into gold— quite in the best style of the American 'scientist.' The Khalifa immediately communicated with the Amin-beit-el-Mal, or Keeper of the Treasury, and the crafty Shwybo was set to work with crucibles and the rest. For a time the poor fellow succeeded, mainly by trickery, in impressing the authorities, but at length the game was up, and he received such a scourging that he died from the effects. So you see there were touches of comedy as well as tragedy even in Omdurman.

"Then It is not generally known that 1 designed the famous Tomb of the Mahdl, having In my mind the Tombs of the Caliphs at Cairo. This work, together with the bogus refining of saltpetre and the constructing of impossible cartridge and pow-der-making machines, gave me longish respites from the terrible Uinm Hagar. Of course, I shall have a good deal to say in Qy story about the last days of Omdurman, seen 'from the inside,' so to speak.

"The Khalifa in those anxious times | changed his plans in the most extraordinary and unaccountable manner, and spies "'"•'ere constantly interviewing me in the | hope of finding out what the British would he likely to do. Here again there were i touches of comedy. An Algerian turned up ! """ho said he could make 'torpedoes.' What he meant was sub-aqueous mines in the Nile which were intended to destroy the gunboats. Naturally I was consulted (almost every notable person in the Soudan found himself in the Saier at one time or another, and ail confided in me in the fullest possible manner); and I am afraid'the results of the experiments were disastrous —for the Mahdists. A couple of old boilers were filled with gunpowder, and were Intended to be exploded by electricity, but something went wrong. They exploded prematurely, and sent headlong into the paradise of the Prophet some 50 or 60 Dervish workmen, including the Algerian who had originated the brilliant scheme.

"I sometimes regret the frightful anxiety and worry I caused the unfortunate official who was personally responsible to Abdulmhi for the saltpetre turned out by me. I "met him In Cairo recently, and he reproached me sadly. My 'saltpetre' was, designed•y. utter rubbish; and before passing it Into

the Beit-pl-Mal the poor official had to take large quantities of good saltpetre from the Dervish stores In order to mix with my impossible stuff.

"One of the most curious people I met was the unfortunate Bohemian baker, Joseppi, who endeavoured to escape, but was never heard of again. This poor demented fellow actually went to the Khalifa and told him that I was a great general in Europe, and yet, immediately after making this disastrous communication, ho came back confidingly as usual to share my scanty food.

"Our usual food, by tho way, was asseoda, the Soudan dourra roughly pounded and mixed Into a thick paste. It was not nourishing, but it was heavy, and stayed the pangs of hunger. Sometimes we had a sauce with it made from the pounded seeds of the Baamia Hybiscus, aud that was considered a perfect banquet. All the food sent iv for the prisoners, however, didn't reach them. What was smuggled In was fought for in a positively maniacal manner by the starving and desperate prisoners. Those having long chains, connecting their ankles, stood the best chance iv the crazy light for food aud life, as they were able tc take longer strides. In other circumstances the weird scenes might have been amusing, as they possessed all the elements of a sack race in the '.Id country sports. One saw ."0 or 40 living skeletons leaping and fighting; but one after another they would fall to the ground as the resultof weakness caused by starvation. Every day, for mouths, the bodies of eight or ten prisoners who had died of starvation would be thrown into the Nile.

"It was in connection with the unloading of some boats, shortly after 1 had recovered from an attack of typhus fever, that I received my first flogging. A young gaoler had pestered me for money, but I had none to give him; and after some complaints and assaults I was condemned to receive 500 lashes. Only GO or 70 were administered, however—at least, so I was told, for I lost

consciousness

"Some of the floggings were frightful to behold. On one occasion an old Fgyptian soldier named Mohammed Ajjaml was sent to me to be cured (for I was doctor also) of the effects of a flogging. He was carried into the prison to me with the fleshy part of his back cut into ribbons, and his hipbones exposed.

"The punishments In Omdurman were indeed ghastly. A married woman who had broken the seventh commandment would be stoned to death—providing that she confessed! Such cases were rare, but they occurred from time to time. A hole was dug in the ground, and the woman buried to the neck in it. Tlie crowd then stood facing their victim at a distance of about 15 to 20 yards. Then commenced a ghastly and devilish orgie of cruelty. None of the stones thrown had, singly, tho force or weight to cause unconsciousness of death, and the horrible a«iid revolting spectacle was presented of what appeared to bo a trunkless head jerking slightly backwards and forwards to avoid the stones."