THE DEBUT OF BIMBASHI JOYCE
It was in the days when the tide of Mahdism, which had swept in such a
flood from the great Lakes and Darfur to the confines of Egypt, had at
last come to its full, and even begun, as some hoped, to show signs of a
turn. At its outset it had been terrible. It had engulfed Hicks's
army, swept over Gordon and Khartoum, rolled behind the British forces
as they retired down the river, and finally cast up a spray of raiding
parties as far north as Assouan. Then it found other channels to east
and west, to Central Africa and to Abyssinia, and retired a little on
the side of Egypt. For ten years there ensued a lull, during which the
frontier garrisons looked out upon those distant blue hills of Dongola.
Behind the violet mists which draped them lay a land of blood and
horror. From time to time some adventurer went south towards those
haze-girt mountains, tempted by stories of gum and ivory, but none ever
returned. Once a mutilated Egyptian and once a Greek woman, mad with
thirst and fear, made their way to the lines. They were the only
exports of that country of darkness. Sometimes the sunset would turn
those distant mists into a bank of crimson, and the dark mountains would
rise from that sinister reek like islands in a sea of blood.
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