MASSACRE OF THE GARRISON AT KHARTOUM.

Kumara Times, Issue 2665, 6 April 1885, Page 3

MASSACRE OF THE GARRISON AT KHARTOUM.

The Daily Chronicle’s correspondent, describing the scene which followed Gordon’s death, says : The Mahdi’s troops—the wild hunters of Kordofan and those Cossacks of the Soudan, the Baggara horsemen—rushed in swelling hordes into the devoted city,’ and the word was given to slay. A massacre of indescribable ferocity followed. Those who had remained faithful to the gallant Englishman who had stood between them and the knife so long, regardless of age or sex, were ruthlessly butchered. The women, for the most part, were murdered in cold blood and little children were spitted on the Arab spears in pure wantonness. All those relatives of the faithful 500 under Nusri Pasha, who met and assisted us at Gubat, shared the general fate. From the accounts of an eye-witness who boarded Sir Charles Wilson’s steamer on the return voyage from Khartoum it would appear that “for an entire day the. streets of the city ran with blood;” but allowing for Oriental exaggeration, there can be no doubt that thesceneof carnage which followed the entry of the Mahdi’s fierce warriors into the city which had defied them so long was one of unparalleled horror since the days of Tamerlane. The bulk of troops, however, willingly joined the Mahdi, and his chiefs speedily organised a complete system of defence for the city, throwing up outlyim' redoubts arranged on a soiuk[ military ptinciplo, and commanding the approaches of the city from all points, into these outlying fortifications immense number of marksmen have been thrown; together with vast quantities

of arms, cartridges, and shells. If all this be as described, and the Mahdi bo well supplied with provisions, the taking of Khartoum will be a most wearisome and arduous task, and will have to be conducted on those principles which govern the conduct of sieges in European warfare. The same writer says that, despite Gordon’s cheering letter of December 291 h, announcing that Khartoum was “ all right,” the garrison had for a long time previous been suffering intense privation, and that this fact doubtless contributed to render the work of treason the more easy of accomplishment.