Our Houseboat on the Nile

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1901. Excerpt: ... MAKING HISTORY As the Howadji smoked his pipe before the hotel door next morning, along came a lot of natives carrying officers' luggage and Soudan traps, closely followed by the hero of the late battle of Ombarakat--Wingate Pacha himself--with his aide-de-camp and the commandant of Assouan. The future Sirdar is in civilian's dress, but his aide-de-camp still in khaki uniform. It seems an incredibly short time since news came down of the capture and death of the Khalifa, and we feel that his head may well be in one of the tin boxes; but we are assured that this is not the case, and that he received suitable burial not far from where he fell. And what did you consider suitable burial? we asked. A hole in the ground, while one of the officers looked on to see if the hole was deep enough. Though they say we are mistaken about his head being in one of the boxes, it is not long before his gibbah is spread out on the flagstones of the hotel court like a lion skin that some big game man might have brought in. The gibbah, the patched shirt of the Khalifa, in which he met his death, is of quite new white cotton cloth, the patches of colored stuffs sewn neatly here and there, in imitation of the patches upon the garment of an humble prophet. In the centre is the hole by which the bullet entered his breast, around are the spots of blood from the death wound, and that he must have fallen on his left side is proved by the blood having trickled down that side of this battle coat. For in a gibbah any fellah is in battle attire, while once out of his gibbah a soldier assumes the guise of a fellah. This Assouan courtyard is often the centre of interest. The last exhibition we remember as taking place here was that of an immense fish of nearly a hundred pounds, ...