The New Harvest Came Only In Time To Save The Inhabitants Of The Soudan
From Becoming Extinct.
The remnant were preserved for further misfortunes.
War, scarcity, and oppression there had always been.
But strange and
mysterious troubles began to afflict the tortured tribes. The face of
heaven was pitiless or averted. In 1890 innumerable swarms of locusts
descended on the impoverished soil. The multitude of their red or yellow
bodies veiled the sun and darkened the air, and although their flesh,
tasting when roasted like fried shrimps, might afford a delicate meal to
the natives, they took so heavy a toll of the crops that the famine was
prolonged and scarcity became constant. Since their first appearance the
locusts are said to have returned annually [Ohrwalder, TEN YEARS'
CAPTIVITY.] Their destructive efforts were aided by millions of little
red mice, who destroyed the seeds before they could grow. So vast and
immeasurable was the number of these tiny pests that after a heavy rain
the whole country was strewn with, and almost tinted by, the
squirrel-coloured corpses of the drowned.
Yet, in spite of all the strokes of fate, the Khalifa maintained his
authority unshaken. The centralisation which always occurs in military
States was accelerated by the famine. The provincial towns dwindled;
thousands and tens of thousands perished; but Omdurman continually grew,
and its ruler still directed the energies of a powerful army. Thus for
the present we might leave the Dervish Empire. Yet the gloomy city of
blood, mud, and filth that arose by the confluence of the Niles deserves
a final glance while still in the pride of independent barbarism.
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