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THE PALGRAVE HANDBOOK
OF LITERARY TRANSLATION

Edited by
Jean Boase-Beier, Lina Fisher and Hiroko Furukawa
Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting

Series Editor
Margaret Rogers
School of Literature and Languages
University of Surrey
Guildford, UK
This series examines the crucial role which translation and interpreting in their
myriad forms play at all levels of communication in today’s world, from the
local to the global. Whilst this role is being increasingly recognised in some
quarters (for example, through European Union legislation), in others it remains
controversial for economic, political and social reasons. The rapidly changing
landscape of translation and interpreting practice is accompanied by equally
challenging developments in their academic study, often in an interdisciplinary
framework and increasingly reflecting commonalities between what were once
considered to be separate disciplines. The books in this series address specific
issues in both translation and interpreting with the aim not only of charting but
also of shaping the discipline with respect to contemporary practice and research.

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14574
 Jean Boase-Beier • Lina Fisher
Hiroko Furukawa
Editors

The Palgrave
Handbook of Literary
Translation
Editors
Jean Boase-Beier Lina Fisher
School of Literature, Drama and Creative Independent Scholar
Writing Norwich, UK
University of East Anglia
Norwich, UK

Hiroko Furukawa
Department of English
Tohoku Gakuin University
Sendai, Japan

Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting

ISBN 978-3-319-75752-0    ISBN 978-3-319-75753-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75753-7

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 Preface

A great deal of the research done in the discipline of Literary Translation

(which we write with capitals to indicate its status as a discipline, as opposed
to the practice of literary translation) starts with a case study of a particular
work, or author, of a translator, or of a specific aspect of the translation com-
plex such as the nature of the original text, the style of the translated text, the
way translators read, or the way books are marketed as translations. Yet the
actual methodologies of case studies are rarely discussed. Furthermore, the use
of case studies has often been implicit rather than explicit. This is true both of
individual studies and also of the discipline as a whole. We thus felt that the
time had come to base a Handbook of Literary Translation more explicitly on
case studies, and to discuss best practice, as well as the problems, possibilities
and impact of case studies in Literary Translation.
We encouraged contributors from across the globe to develop, report on, or
extract a case study specifically for this book. Literary Translation research is
interdisciplinary, and it borrows methods, strategies, theories, or outcomes from
other disciplines. But it also involves various languages, cultures, times or places.
Thus, the contributors to this book deal with a wide range of languages and
language variations, for example Catalan, Chinese, Dutch, English, French,
German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Nigerian English, Russian, Spanish, Scottish
English and Turkish. And the texts discussed were produced and have been
received in many different parts of the world, for example in Africa, Asia,
Europe, North and South America. This diversity reflects the diversity of
Literary Translation research today.
The book comprises three sections: (I) Literary Translation and Style, (II)
The Author-Translator-Reader Relationship, and (III) Literary Translation
and Identity.

v
vi Preface

Section I investigates stylistic aspects of translations. For example, in the

chapter “Translating the Poetry of Nelly Sachs”, Jean Boase-Beier uses cogni-
tive poetics to examine the reconstruction of ambiguity and stylistic complex-
ity in poetry. Hiroko Cockerill explores how Russian-Japanese translations
created new stylistic and linguistic norms in Japanese in the chapter “Stylistic
Choices in the Japanese Translations of Crime and Punishment”. And, in the
chapter “Transcreating Memes: Translating Chinese Concrete Poetry”, Marion
Winters describes the use of a corpus-stylistic approach to translated texts.
Section II focuses on the relationships between author and translator(s),
between translator(s) and readers, or the tri-partite relationship between
author, translator(s) and readers. In the chapter “The Restored New Testament
of Willis Barnstone”, for instance, Philip Wilson maintains that Willis
Barnstone’s New Testament has restored the source text to show the origin of
Christianity in Jewish Messianism. Kirsten Malmkjær explores how
Kierkegaard’s concepts of “angst” and “repetition” influenced later Danish lit-
erature, both translations and original writing, in the chapter “Angst and
Repetition in Danish Literature and Its Translation: From Kierkegaard to
Kristensen and Høeg”. And Susan Bassnett, in the chapter “Questioning
Authority and Authenticity: The Creative Translations of Josephine Balmer”,
questions the notion of “original” in Translation Studies, especially with
regard to ancient texts, where there may be no information about the authors –
who they were, when they lived, and which gender they had – and in fact only
fragmentary texts exist.
Section III explores the relationships between national identity and literary
translation. For example, in the chapter “Sunjata in English: Paratexts,
Authorship, and the Postcolonial Exotic”, Kathryn Batchelor explores some
English translations of the West African Mande oral epic and discusses the
nature of authorship where there is no available source text, and stories are
retold by birds. Penelope Johnson, in the chapter “Border Writing in
Translation: The Spanish Translations of Woman Hollering Creek by the
Chicana Writer Sandra Cisneros”, shows how the US-Mexican borderland
culture has produced a rich hybrid literature, with a mixture of Mexican
Spanish and American English. And, in the chapter “Divorce Already?! Should
Israelis Read the Tanakh (Bible) in Translation?”, Dror Abend-David ques-
tions whether a Modern Hebrew translation of The Bible aids popular under-
standing or whether it is a political statement.
We hope that the wide variety of topics, perspectives and linguistic and
geographical locations, as well as the many shared interests and methods, will
make the book a useful resource for researchers not only in Translation Studies,
but also in related fields such as Linguistics, Languages and Cultural Studies,
 Preface
   vii

Stylistics, Comparative Literature or Literary Studies. Perhaps it will enable

researchers from these neighbouring fields to extend their research areas to
include translation.
The Handbook is aimed at researchers working at all levels. Postgraduate
students often use participant observation in their research, and include dis-
cussions of their translations and strategies as a matter of course. They, and
their supervisors, will be interested to see the many examples of actual studies,
with comments on the methodology applied and the insights gained. Other
researchers, including the most experienced and highly-published, will find
that the discussions collected here illustrate the rich variety of methods, tools,
areas and issues involved in case studies, and will thus, it is hoped, be able to
enhance their knowledge of the wider possibilities of research in Literary
Translation.

Norwich, UK Jean Boase-Beier

Norwich, UK Lina Fisher
Sendai, Japan Hiroko Furukawa
 Acknowledgments

Hiroko Furukawa (“A De-feminized Woman in Conan Doyle’s The Yellow

Face”) is grateful to Professor Andrew Chesterman, who inspired her to con-
duct research on a shadow translation at the 2014 CETRA (Centre for
Translation Studies) Summer School. She also thanks the translator Yu Okubo
for his generous support of this project. This work was supported by JSPS
KAKENHI Grant Numbers 16K02043 and 25760015.
Philip Wilson (“The Restored New Testament of Willis Barnstone”) would
like to thank Jean Boase-Beier, Valerie Henitiuk and Ross Wilson for invalu-
able advice.
Manuela Perteghella (“‘The Isle Is full of Noises’: Italian Voices in Strehler’s
La Tempesta”) would like to thank the Piccolo Teatro di Milano – Teatro
d’Europa, and in particular Silvia Colombo, at the Piccolo’s Historic Archives,
for kindly allowing her to reproduce the photographs from Strehler’s 1978
­production of La Tempesta. She wishes to thank Donzelli Editore and is also
grateful to the following copyright holders for kindly allowing her to reprint
copyrighted material: Giovanna and Natalia Lombardo and Andrea Jonasson
Strehler for the texts of the correspondence between Strehler and Lombardo;
Giovanna and Natalia Lombardo for the two versions of La Tempesta.
Francis R. Jones (“Biography as Network-Building: James S. Holmes and
Dutch-English Poetry Translation”) expresses his thanks to the Dutch
Foundation for Literature for enabling his study, and to Pauline Henry-
Tierney for her insightful comments on his chapter.
Richard Mansell (“Translators of Catalan as Activists During the Franco
Dictatorship”) would like to thank the following: Prof. Dominic Keown,
University of Cambridge, for the initial recommendation to look at
Hutchinson’s translations of Carner, and the invitation to speak on them at

ix
x Acknowledgments

the Ireland and Catalonia panel at the Annual Conference of the Association
of Hispanists of Great Britain and Ireland, held at NUI Galway, April 2014;
for their assistance in accessing archival material, Regina Whelan Richardson
and Ciara Joyce of Maynooth University Library, Charles Harrowell of Senate
House Library, University of London, Montserrat Caba of the Centre de
Documentació i Estudi Salvador Espriu, and the special collections staff of the
Biblioteca de Catalunya and the British Library.
 Contents

I ntroduction   1
Jean Boase-Beier, Lina Fisher, and Hiroko Furukawa

Section I Literary Translation and Style   19


Translating the Poetry of Nelly Sachs  21
Jean Boase-Beier


The Poetry of Gerrit Achterberg: A Translation Problem?  39
Antoinette Fawcett


Stylistic Choices in the Japanese Translations of Crime
and Punishment  63
Hiroko Cockerill

Genre in Translation: Reframing Patagonia Express  83

Susanne Klinger

 De-feminized Woman in Conan Doyle’s The Yellow Face 107

A
Hiroko Furukawa


Translating Voices in Crime Fiction: The Case of the French
Translation of Brookmyre’s Quite Ugly One Morning 125
Charlotte Bosseaux

xi
xii Contents


The Case of Natascha Wodin’s Autobiographical Novels: A Corpus-­
Stylistics Approach 145
Marion Winters


Hysteresis of Translatorial Habitus: A Case Study of Aziz Üstel’s
Turkish Translation of A Clockwork Orange 167
Hilal Erkazanci Durmuş


Transcreating Memes: Translating Chinese Concrete Poetry 187
Tong King Lee and Steven Wing-Kit Chan

Section II The Author-Translator-Reader Relationship 207

Performing the Literal: Translating Chekhov’s Seagull for the Stage 209

Geraldine Brodie

The Restored New Testament of Willis Barnstone 231

Philip Wilson


Angst and Repetition in Danish Literature and Its Translation:
From Kierkegaard to Kristensen and Høeg 251
Kirsten Malmkjær


‘The Isle Is Full of Noises’: Italian Voices in Strehler’s La Tempesta 269
Manuela Perteghella

Ibsen for the Twenty-First Century 291

Janet Garton


Biography as Network-Building: James S. Holmes and Dutch-
English Poetry Translation 309
Francis R. Jones

Questioning Authority and Authenticity: The Creative Translations

of Josephine Balmer 333
Susan Bassnett

Absence and Presence: Translators and Prefaces 351

Michelle Bolduc
 Contents
   xiii


“Out of the Marvellous” as I Have Known It: Translating Heaney’s
Poetry 377
Marco Sonzogni

Section III Literary Translation and Identity 407

Sunjata in English: Paratexts, Authorship, and the Postcolonial

Exotic 409
Kathryn Batchelor


Border Writing in Translation: The Spanish Translations of Woman
Hollering Creek by the Chicana Writer Sandra Cisneros 427
Penelope Johnson


Cheating on Murasaki Shikibu: (In)fidelity, Politics, and the Quest
for an Authoritative Post-war Genji Translation 443
Matthew Chozick


Post-1945 Austrian Literature in Translation: Ingeborg
Bachmann in English 463
Lina Fisher


Divorce Already?! Should Israelis Read the Tanakh (Bible)
in Translation? 483
Dror Abend-David

 ranslation, World Literature, Postcolonial Identity 499

T
Paul F. Bandia


Translators of Catalan as Activists During the Franco Dictatorship 517
Richard Mansell

 onclusion 535
C
Jean Boase-Beier, Lina Fisher, and Hiroko Furukawa

Index 543
 Notes on Contributors

Dror Abend-David teaches at the department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures

at the University of Florida. He received his doctorate from NYU in Comparative
Literature. His first book, ‘Scorned my Nation’: A Comparison of Translations of The
Merchant of Venice into German, Hebrew, and Yiddish, was published with Peter Lang
in 2003. His second book, Media and Translation: An Interdisciplinary Approach, was
published with Bloomsbury Academic in 2014 (soft cover 2016). His third book,
Representing Translation: Languages, Translation and Translators in Contemporary Media
is forthcoming in 2018. Dror has published articles on Translation, Media, Drama,
Literature, and Jewish Culture.
Paul F. Bandia is Professor of Translation Studies at Concordia University, Montreal,
Canada, Associate Fellow at W.E.B. Du Bois Institute, Harvard University, currently
a member of the Executive Council of the International Association for Translation
and Intercultural Studies and President of the Association for Translation Studies in
Africa. He is the author of Translation as Reparation: Writing and Translation in
Postcolonial Africa (2008), editor of Orality and Translation Special Issue Translation
Studies (Vol. 8, no. 2, 2015), of Writing and Translating Francophone Discourses:
Africa, the Caribbean, Diaspora (2014), and co-editor of Charting the Future of
Translation History (2006), and Agents of Translation (2009).
Susan Bassnett is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Glasgow,
and Professor Emerita of the University of Warwick. She has written extensively on
Translation Studies, Comparative and World Literature, and has just finished editing
a collection of essays for Routledge on World Literature and Translation. She is a
Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Fellow of the Institute of Linguists and is
President of the British Comparative Literature Association.

xv
xvi Notes on Contributors

Kathryn Batchelor is Associate Professor of Translation and Francophone Studies at

the University of Nottingham, UK. Her publications include Decolonizing Translation:
Francophone African Novels in English Translation (2009); Translating Thought/Traduire
la pensée (2010), co-edited with Yves Gilonne; Intimate Enemies: ‘Translation in
Francophone Contexts (2013), co-edited with Claire Bisdorff; Translating Frantz Fanon
Across Continents and Languages (2017), co-edited with Sue-Ann Harding; and China-
Africa Relations: Building Images through Cultural Cooperation, Media Representation
and Communication (2017), with Xiaoling Zhang.
Jean Boase-Beier is Professor Emerita of Literature and Translation at the University
of East Anglia. Her academic work focuses on translation, style and poetry, and espe-
cially on the translation of Holocaust poetry. Recent publications include A Critical
Introduction to Translation Studies (2011, Bloomsbury); Translating the Poetry of the
Holocaust (2015, Bloomsbury) and the co-edited Translating Holocaust Lives (2017,
Bloomsbury). Jean Boase-Beier is also a translator of German poetry, and has pub-
lished translations of Ernst Meister, Rose Ausländer, and Volker von Törne. She is
translations editor at Arc Publications, for whom she edits four series of bilingual
poetry books.
Michelle Bolduc is Professor and Director of Translation Studies at The University
of Exeter. She works at the intersections of rhetoric and translation, and is the author
of The Medieval Poetics of Contraries (2006), as well as numerous articles on medieval
translation, rhetoric and philosophy. She is currently completing her monograph
Translation and the Re(dis)covery of Rhetoric. She was, with David Frank of the
University of Oregon, a recipient of the National Endowment for the Humanities
Scholarly Editions and Translations award, for the translation of and commentary on
the New Rhetoric Project, which will be published in two volumes.
Charlotte Bosseaux is Senior Lecturer in Translation Studies at Edinburgh University.
She has worked on point of view in literary translation and is the author of How does
it Feel: Point of View in Translation (Rodopi, 2007). Her current focus is on voice and
performance in audiovisual material and she published Dubbing, Film and Performance:
Uncanny Encounters (Peter Lang, 2015). Other publications include work on Marilyn
Monroe (2012 and 2012a) and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (2008 and 2014). She is cur-
rently researching documentaries dealing with Gender-Based Violence, investigating
how the voices of women are translated in this context (forthcoming).
Geraldine Brodie is Senior Lecturer in Translation Theory and Theatre Translation at
University College London. Her research and publications centre on theatre translation
practices in contemporary London, and she also created the UCL Translation in History
Lecture Series (2013–16). Recent publications include the volume Adapting Translation
for the Stage (Routledge 2017), co-edited with Emma Cole; the special issue, ‘Martin
Crimp: playwright, translator, translated’, of the Journal of Adaptation in Film and
Performance (2016), co-edited with Marie Nadia Karsky; and her monograph, The
Translator on Stage (Bloomsbury 2018).
 Notes on Contributors
   xvii

Steven Wing-Kit Chan currently teaches interpreting in the School of Chinese,

University of Hong Kong.
Matthew Chozick teaches in the departments of English and Japanese at Temple
University Japan Campus as well as in the Birmingham Centre for Translation at the
University of Birmingham (UK). His most recent translation, Him Her That (2013,
Awai Books) was hailed by Banana Yoshimoto as reading “as if magic coats the pages.”
Chozick’s writing on Japanese literary translation has appeared in Journal of World
Literature, New Ohio Review, Comparative Literature Studies and elsewhere. His liter-
ary research focuses on how the foreign reception of translations can alter perceptions
of cultural history in their domestic markets.
Hiroko Cockerill is an honorary research fellow at the University of Queensland in
Australia. A former lecturer in Japanese, she now works as a translator. Her research
publications include Style and Narrative in Translations: The Contribution of Futabatei
Shimei (St. Jerome, 2006) and Futabatei Shimei no roshiago hon’yaku: Chikugoyaku no
naijitsu to bunmatsushi no sōshutsu (Futabatei Shimei’s Translations from Russian: The
Reality of Verbatim Translation and the Creation of Sentence-endings) (Hōsei
University Press, 2015). She has translated two works by the Russian novelist
Aleksandr Potemkin: the novella Watashi (I) (Gunzosha, 2013), and the novel Ningen
chūshi (Humankind Suspended) (forthcoming).
Hilal Erkazanci Durmuş is a Lecturer in Translation and Interpreting Studies at
Hacettepe University, Turkey. She received her BA in Translation and Interpreting
Studies from Hacettepe University in 2001, and her MA from the same university in
2003. She received her PhD in Language, Linguistics and Translation Studies in 2006
from the University of East Anglia, UK. Her areas of research interest include stylis-
tics, sociolinguistics, sociology and literary translation.
Antoinette Fawcett translates from Dutch. After a career as an English teacher in sev-
eral countries, in 2014 she completed her PhD in Literary Translation at the University
of East Anglia. She is presently attached to the University of Newcastle as an Associate
Tutor in the MA programmes in Translation and Interpreting. She has co-edited two
recent academic books Translation: Theory and Practice in Dialogue (Continuum 2010)
and Literary Translation: Re-drawing the Boundaries (Palgrave Macmillan 2014).
Lina Fisher received a PhD in Literary Translation from the University of East
Anglia in 2016. She has taught Literary Translation at UEA and Translation Studies
at the University of Hull.
Hiroko Furukawa is Associate Professor at the Department of English at Tohoku
Gakuin University, Japan. Her main research interests are Literary Translation and lan-
guage and gender ideology. Recent publications include articles in Journals such as
Babel, TTR, International Journal of Cultural Studies and Perspectives, and chapters in
Translating Women: Different Voices and New Horizons (Routledge), and in Norm- and
Culture-Related Inquiries in Translation Research (Peter Lang). She is currently conducting
xviii Notes on Contributors

a research project on style and norms in Japanese translations (2016–2020, Japan

Society for the Promotion of Science). Previously, she worked at publishing houses as a
magazine and book editor.
Janet Garton is Emeritus Professor of European Literature at the University of East
Anglia, Norwich. She has published several books on Scandinavian literature, includ-
ing Norwegian Women’s Writing (1993), the edited letters of Amalie and Erik Skram
(3 vols, 2002) and a biography of Amalie Skram, Amalie – et forfatterliv (2011). She
is a director of Norvik Press, which publishes Scandinavian literature in English
translation, and has translated several works of Norwegian and Danish literature,
including Knut Faldbakken: The Sleeping Prince (1988), Bjørg Vik: An Aquarium of
Women (1987), Kirsten Thorup: The God of Chance (2013), and Johan Borgen: Little
Lord (2016).
Penelope Johnson is an Assistant Professor at the School of Modern Languages and
Cultures in Durham University. She holds a PhD in Translation Studies from Newcastle
University. Her research and scholarship activities are based on postcolonial theory of
translation and transnationalism. She has published articles on translation and ideol-
ogy focusing on text selection, anthologizing and re-translations. Currently she is
researching the role of language mediation in pilgrimages.
Francis R. Jones is Professor of Translation Studies at Newcastle University’s School
of Modern Languages. He teaches Translation Studies, Literary Translation and
Research Methods. His research focuses on all aspects of poetry translation – such as
poetry translation and cognition, social networks, and politics. His recent research is
investigating collaborative poetry translating. He is also a poetry translator, working
largely from Dutch and Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian into standard English and
Northern-English dialects, though he has also translated from Hungarian, Russian,
and Caribbean creoles. He has published or co-published about 15 volumes of trans-
lated poetry, and has won several prizes.
Susanne Klinger is currently Assistant Professor at the Department of Translation
and Interpreting at Hacettepe University, Ankara. Before joining Hacettepe, she
taught at various universities both in Turkey and in the UK. Her research interests
span the disciplines of Translation Studies and Literature. Publications include a
monograph with Routledge entitled Translation and Linguistic Hybridity: Constructing
World-View. Previous to her academic career, she worked as a subtitler and translator.
Tong King Lee is Associate Professor of Translation in the School of Chinese,
University of Hong Kong.
Kirsten Malmkjær is Professor of Translation Studies at the University of Leicester,
UK, having previously taught at the universities of Birmingham, Cambridge and
Middlesex. She is especially interested in translation theory, Danish literature in
translation into English, the relationships between translation and other academic
 Notes on Contributors
   xix

subjects, for example linguistics, philosophy and language learning, and in the rela-
tionship between translation and creativity. Recent publications include the Routledge
Handbook of Translation Studies and Linguistics (ed.) and the collection of articles, Key
Cultural Texts in Translation (John Benjamins), co-edited with Adriana Serban and
Fransiska Louwagie.
Richard Mansell is Senior Lecturer in Translation at the University of Exeter, where
he joined the Department of Modern Languages in 2006. He has worked as a profes-
sional translator from Spanish and Catalan into English, and has also collaborated on
translations of Shakespeare into Catalan for the stage. His research focuses on two
areas: firstly, he takes a keen interest in translators and their networks, and how their
various activities intertwine, especially from a historical perspective; secondly, he
studies various aspects of the market for translated fiction in Anglophone territories,
and the roles of different members of the translation community.
Manuela Perteghella is a translator, researcher and curator. She has published
research in the field of literary and theatre translation, promoting the theory of transla-
tion as a creative and critical practice (Translation and Creativity, Continuum 2006;
One Poem in Search of a Translator, Peter Lang 2008; Staging and Performing Translation,
Palgrave 2011). She has taught translation at UK universities, and worked for various
theatre companies as administrator, script reader, translator and stage manager. She is
co-curator of TransARTation! Wandering Texts, Travelling Objects (2017) and
TalkingTransformations: Home on the Move (2018). http://transartation.co.uk/exhi-
bition/, http://www.talkingtransformations.eu/
Marco Sonzogni is Reader in Translation Studies in the School of Languages and
Cultures at the Victoria University of Wellington. He is a widely-published and
award-winning scholar, poet, literary translator and editor. His research is centred on
the work of two Nobel Laureate poets: Eugenio Montale (1896–1981) and Seamus
Heaney (1939–2013). He holds an Order of Merit from the Italian Government
(OMRI) for services to culture.
Philip Wilson is Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Politics, Philosophy,
Language and Communication Studies at the University of East Anglia, where he
teaches literature and philosophy. Publications include the edited collection Literary
Translation: Re-drawing the Boundaries (with Jean Boase-Beier and Antoinette
Fawcett, Palgrave Macmillan 2014), the monograph Translation after Wittgenstein
(Routledge 2015) and the translated anthology The Bright Rose (Arc 2015).
Forthcoming are The Routledge Handbook of Translation Studies and Philosophy (with
Piers Rawling, Routledge), The Norwich Histories of Alexander Neville (with Ingrid
Walton and Clive Wilkins-Jones, Boydell) and Simone Weil’s Venice Saved (with
Silvia Panizza, Bloomsbury).
Marion Winters is Senior Lecturer in Translation Studies at Heriot-Watt University,
Edinburgh, Scotland. She is founding editor of New Voices in Translation Studies,
xx Notes on Contributors

member of the IATIS Publications Committee and a professional member of the

German and Irish translators’ associations (BDÜ, ITIA). She has published several
articles on translator style and more recently on translated autobiographical writing;
her research interests include autobiographies in translation, corpus-linguistic meth-
odologies in Translation Studies, and more specifically translator style and character-
ization in translation.
 List of Figures

Transcreating Memes: Translating Chinese Concrete Poetry

Fig. 1 ‘White’ 192
Fig. 2 ‘Aurora’ 193
Fig. 3 ‘Solar’ 194
Fig. 4 ‘Sunyata’ 195
Fig. 5 Original text of ‘Breakfast Tablecloth of a Solitary Entomologist’ 196
Fig. 6 Translation of ‘Breakfast Tablecloth of a Solitary Entomologist’ 198
Fig. 7 Original text of ‘Photo of Egyptian Scenery in the Dream of a Fire
Department Captain’ 199
Fig. 8 Translation of ‘Photo of Egyptian Scenery in the Dream of a Fire
Department Captain’ 200
Fig. 9 Original text of ‘A Serial Novel: Huang Chao Killed Eight Million
People’201
Fig. 10 ‘Hitler Killed Six Million’ 202
‘The Isle Is Full of Noises’: Italian Voices in Strehler’s La Tempesta
Fig. 1 Giulia Lazzarini as Ariel, Tino Carraro as Prospero. (Photo by Luigi
Ciminaghi. Reproduced with kind permission of the Piccolo Teatro
di Milano – Teatro d’Europa) 285
Fig. 2 Michele Placido as Caliban and Tino Carraro as Prospero. (Photo by
Luigi Ciminaghi. Reproduced with kind permission of the Piccolo
Teatro di Milano – Teatro d’Europa) 286
Biography as Network-Building: James S. Holmes and Dutch-English
Poetry Translation
Fig. 1 Project counts per year, including multi-translator and/or multi-
poet projects (co-) edited by Holmes 316
Fig. 2 Identified source poets, co-translators and other editors on Holmes’s
projects—counts per year 317

xxi
xxii List of Figures

Fig. 3 Growth in Holmes’s co-translating networks (1964–1982) 321

Fig. 4 Holmes’s career map, 1976–1979 (multi-translator, multi-poet
projects only) 323
 List of Tables

The Poetry of Gerrit Achterberg: A Translation Problem?

Table 1 Achterberg’s poem ‘Druïde’ (1), with translation (2) and word-by-
word gloss (3) 52
Stylistic Choices in the Japanese Translations of Crime and Punishment
Table 1 “Kare” and non “-ta” endings in Tsumi to batsu by Uchida Roan 70
Table 2 The number of third-person pronouns in Chapters 1–3 of Part I 71
Table 3 The number of third-person pronouns in Chapters 4–7 of Part I 73
Table 4 The numbers of third-person pronouns in Chapters 1, 2 and 6 of
Part II and Chapter 6 of Part III 74
Table 5 The use of historic present tense in the Russian original and English
version of Crime and Punishment and non “-ta” endings in the six
versions of Tsumi to batsu76
A De-feminized Woman in Conan Doyle’s The Yellow Face
Table 1 Percentage of gendered sentence-final forms (Mikami’s translation
and Okubo’s early draft) 112
Table 2 Percentage of gendered sentence-final forms (Okubo’s early draft
and final version) 114
Table 3 Percentage of gendered sentence-final forms (Okubo’s final version
and published version) 115
Table 4 Percentage of gendered sentence-final forms (translations by
Mikami and Okubo) 116
The Case of Natascha Wodin’s Autobiographical Novels: A Corpus-
Stylistics Approach
Table 1 Global statistics (Wordsmith tools) 150
Table 2 Sentence length distribution (TetraplaX) 151

xxiii
xxiv List of Tables

Table 3 Sentence length details (TetraplaX) 151

Table 4 Repetition in the longest sentence in ELI (TetraplaX) 158
Performing the Literal: Translating Chekhov’s Seagull for the Stage
Table 1 Comparison of Nina’s references to herself as a “seagull” 218
Table 2 Extracts from reviews of The Seagull in the different versions by
Martin Crimp and David Hare 220
The Restored New Testament of Willis Barnstone
Table 1 Order of New Testament texts 237
Table 2 Nomenclature in Barnstone 239
Angst and Repetition in Danish Literature and Its Translation: From
Kierkegaard to Kristensen and Høeg
Table 1 Kierkegaard’s angst-related terms and Lowrie’s and Thomte’s
translations257
 Introduction
Jean Boase-Beier, Lina Fisher, and Hiroko Furukawa

Literary Translation and the Case Study

When James Holmes set out his ideas about the emerging discipline of
Translation Studies in 1972 (see Holmes 1994: 67–80), he did so, according
to his editor, Raymond van den Broeck, from the perspective of someone who
was “a gifted literary artist as well as a remarkably clear thinker in his academic
field” (van den Broeck 1994: 1).
The interaction of these two aspects of Holmes’ work was important for his
thinking about the nature of his discipline. As a poet and translator of poetry,
he often based his theoretical consideration of poetic translation on his own
practice (see e.g. Holmes 1994: 45–52). But, throughout his work, he makes
frequent reference to earlier translation traditions, to his immediate predeces-
sors in the fields of linguistics and literary studies, such as Roman Jakobson,
Jiři Levý or Itamar Even-Zohar (Holmes 1994: 35, 106–7), and to the need
for the development of analytical tools and methods (Holmes 1994: 42).

J. Boase-Beier (*)
School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing,
University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK
e-mail: j.boase-beier@uea.ac.uk
L. Fisher
Independent Scholar, Norwich, UK
H. Furukawa
Department of English, Tohoku Gakuin University, Sendai, Japan
e-mail: f.hiroko@mail.tohoku-gakuin.ac.jp

© The Author(s) 2018 1

J. Boase-Beier et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Literary Translation, Palgrave Studies
in Translating and Interpreting, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75753-7_1
2 J. Boase-Beier et al.

Van den Broeck had first written his Introduction to the re-printed versions
of Holmes’ essays in 1988, and this was more than 15 years after Holmes set
his thoughts down, doing so at a time when the interactions between
universities in Holland and Belgium and other countries, notably Israel, were
just beginning to develop. It is not our intention to trace those developments
further here: the reader can find out more about the particular networks in
which Holmes was involved by reading the chapter “Biography as Network-
Building: James S. Holmes and Dutch-English Poetry Translation” in this
Handbook, where Holmes himself is the subject of a case study by Francis
R. Jones. There are also several useful overviews of Literary Translation,
including both its earlier manifestations (see e.g. Robinson 2002) and its
more recent developments (see e.g. Munday 2016).
What we would like to focus on here is the central importance of the way
theory and practice interact, because it is on the basis of this interaction that
we can understand the value of individual case studies, such as those collected
in this volume, in illustrating the many different aspects of Literary Translation.
Strictly speaking, we should say that the case studies have been previously
conducted by each researcher, and that what we can read in this book are
reports on them. We present these reports on case study research as a way of
allowing the reader to gain insight into different aspects of the theory-practice
relationship in Literary Translation. It would, however, be overly pedantic to
insist on the distinction between a case study as that which is carried out by a
researcher and a report as that which is presented in written form, and we
shall use the term “case study” to refer to both.
It would be simplistic to say that theories, whether in translation or anywhere
else, arise out of principles that derive from practice. Principles can indeed be
derived, and developed into theories, in this way. But it is also the case that
whatever initial theories a practitioner holds will themselves inform the transla-
tion practices from which principles are later derived by the translator or by
scholars analyzing the translator’s practice. In other words, practices do not just
happen: they result from theories, however preliminary and unformed those
theories might be. A theory is a mental picture of the world, and translators, like
anyone else, have such pictures in their minds before they embark upon prac-
tice, and they develop them, test them, refine them, ­formulate them, as the
mental picture comes up against elements of practice and is measured against
them (see Boase-Beier 2011: 75–7).
Theory and practice, then, determine each other. As we said above, the
first clear formulation of the discipline of Translation Studies was made by
Holmes on the basis of a particularly close interaction between theory and
 Introduction 3

practice specifically in the translation of literary texts. This was in part coin-
cidental: Holmes happened to be a poet and poetry translator, and he hap-
pened to be interested in systematizing what he found to be important in the
translation of poetry, as his collected essays (Holmes 1994) demonstrate. But
in part it is perhaps not coincidental, for it is also true to say, as Maria
Tymoczko does, that the translation of literary texts serves as a useful model
for translation theory more generally, because there is no “body of texts (…)
that is as large, as complex and as representative of cross-cultural textual
practices as the body of literary works created by human beings” (Tymoczko
2014: 14). A third reason for the central role that literary works have played
in the development of translation theory becomes apparent when we take
into account the views of cognitive poetics scholars such as Mark Turner
(1996: 4–5), who maintain that the mind is inherently literary, since the
ability to use metaphor, or to be ambiguous, or to reflect what we say in how
we say it (a literary device known as iconicity), are fundamental to all human
thought. In this view, the human mind is by nature a “literary mind” (see
Boase-Beier 2015: 85–97).
Notwithstanding the importance, for all these reasons, of the translation of
literary texts in the development of Translation Studies, we would not wish to
maintain that all translation is literary translation. Intuitively, one would not
want to say that the translation of a weather report, the interpretation of a
witness statement in court, or a translation of the leaflet supplied with a medi-
cation, were instances of literary translation.
Defining what constitutes a literary text is not easy, but there are three
qualities that we might reasonably expect literary texts to have. We might
assume that they are fictional. We might expect them to employ what are
generally considered to be literary devices, such as rhyme or ambiguity, to a
greater degree than non-literary texts, even if the mental equivalents of such
literary devices are indeed fundamental to our thinking. And we might wish
to consider as literary a text that has the potential to have particular cognitive
effects on its readers: giving rise to emotions such as grief, sadness, anger or
empathy, causing pleasure, or helping one to order one’s thoughts about a
situation or entity which is not actually present (see Richards 1970: 28–3;
Pilkington 2000: 116; Boase-Beier 2011: 38). And yet, straightforward as it
might seem to define “literary text” on this basis, we must bear in mind that
all these qualities might be found in texts we would not want to consider
­literary: news might be fictional, advertisements might use rhyme, reports on
government spending might provoke anger.
4 J. Boase-Beier et al.

However narrowly or broadly we define a literary text, and whether we

define it according to its truth content, to its language and style, or according
to its potential to have effects on its readers, that definition will have conse-
quences for what we consider to fall within the remit of Literary Translation.
In this book, we are assuming that Literary Translation (written with capi-
tals to distinguish it as a discipline in its own right) is a sub-discipline of
Translation Studies. It is a discipline that is concerned with, on the one hand,
the translation of texts that are considered to be literary, however “literary” is
defined. It is also concerned, on the other hand, with the translation of texts
in a literary way.
To take the first case, notwithstanding the difficulty of defining what is
literary, there are many obvious examples of translations that would usually
be considered to be literary translations simply on the basis of the nature of
the text translated from (the source text): about the translation of poems,
plays, or novels there is likely to be consensus. But, as we implied above, it
is also possible to consider the translation of advertisements, songs, religious
or philosophical texts as literary, depending on one’s view of the fictionality
of such texts or the degree to which they are seen to employ literary and
rhetorical devices such as repetition or ambiguity, or to have cognitive effects
on readers.
To decide what falls under the second case, the “translation of texts in a
literary way”, it could be argued that here we must also pay due attention to
the literary qualities of the source text, whether or not they are texts tradition-
ally considered to be literary. Texts that we decide are literary on the basis of
style, fictionality, or effect, or a combination of these qualities, are likely to be
translated in a literary way. But it is also possible to translate in a literary way
a text which does not itself seem obviously literary. For example, an advertise-
ment in Italian might not employ any obviously literary devices, but might be
translated into English using rhyme or alliteration because that would be con-
sidered more appropriate for an English audience, and therefore more likely
to be effective.
The examples of case studies in the chapters that make up this Handbook
have been chosen to reflect both of these understandings of the discipline of
Literary Translation: as a discipline that is concerned with the translation of
literary texts (see, e.g., “‘The Isle Is Full of Noises’: Italian Voices in Strehler’s
La Tempesta”, where Manuela Perteghella discusses the translation of
Shakespeare into Italian) and also as a discipline that is concerned with the
translation of texts in a literary way (such as the translation of the Hebrew
Bible, discussed by Dror Abend-David in the chapter “Divorce Already?!
Should Israelis Read the Tanakh (Bible) in Translation?”).
 Introduction 5

The term “Literary Translation” does not only refer to a discipline, however.
When written without the capital letters, it refers to either or both of the
practices the discipline concerns itself with: the translating of literary texts, or
the translating of any texts in a literary way.
What is interesting about case studies in Literary Translation used as a
research method is that they always combine literary translation as a practice
(of either type) with Literary Translation as a discipline that describes and
examines that practice. They are descriptive studies grounded in the actual
facts of translation, and are at the same time a useful tool in the formation of
theories.
We said above that theories are views of the world. But it could be argued
that not just any view qualifies as a theory. As Tymoczko (2014: 12) points
out, there are several definitions of the word “theory”; she maintains that
the most useful for Translation Studies is the technical term, whereby a
theory is a confirmed or accepted statement of generalized principles, rather
than the less strict sense of a mere conjecture or speculation. We might add
to this view the suggestion that a theory is a set of principles for which one
can put forward reasonable evidence. Theories can provide answers to
research questions, and they are adjusted when the answers they provide
seem unsatisfactory, either because other theories interact with them and
suggest alternative ways of seeing the world, or because they are confronted
with new data that cannot properly be explained by the theory as it stands
(See also Boase-Beier 2011: 73–75).
When we do research of any type in the area of Literary Translation, we
need to be aware of the ways in which our practical examples interact with the
theory, and individual case studies can provide detailed areas of description
that allow us to examine exactly this interaction. Thus, for example, we see
how feminist translation theory interacts with both the description and,
potentially, with the practice of translation, in the chapter “A De-feminized
Woman in Conan Doyle’s The Yellow Face”, where Hiroko Furukawa discusses
the translation of female speech into Japanese, or, in the chapter “Translation,
World Literature, Postcolonial Identity”, how Paul F. Bandia’s discussion
addresses the interaction of postcolonial theory with the description and anal-
ysis of the way texts by African writers are translated.
Because Literary Translation is a particularly interdisciplinary area of
research, drawing on other disciplines such as Linguistics, Stylistics,
Comparative Literature, and Literary Criticism, it is not only inevitable that
it will often take over methods and strategies from these other disciplines,
but the fact that it does so strengthens and enhances it. In a book that specifi-
cally addresses the way Literary Translation crosses disciplinary boundaries
6 J. Boase-Beier et al.

(Boase-­Beier et al. 2014), the editors argue in their ‘Introduction’ (2014:

1–10), following Wolfgang Iser (2006: 9), that the nature of theories in the
Humanities tends to be such that they “derive their components from sources
outside themselves” (Iser 2006: 9) in order to provide a wider range of evi-
dence and a more reliable basis for theorizing than would otherwise be pos-
sible, given that such theories tend not to aim for the strict predictive force
of scientific theories. Though scientific theories are always “conditional” in
the sense that they are open to continual revision, theories in the Social
Sciences tend to be even more conditional, because they are more likely to be
considered unproven (see Brewer 2003b: 324). We would argue that theories
in the Humanities tend to be more conditional still, and so eclecticism in
theorising and in the marshalling of evidence is of particular importance.
In the previous paragraphs of this chapter we have been suggesting that case
study research is especially useful in Literary Translation because it allows us
to see the way theory and practice interact in a specific area, and in some
detail. Case study research, about which we will say more in the next section,
has long been commonplace in Linguistics and in many other areas of the
Social Sciences. Given that many, if not most, Literary Translation scholars,
like Holmes, are also translators, it is not surprising that most areas of research
address the interaction of theory and practice to various degrees. We can think
of many examples from the history of Translation Studies and especially of
Literary Translation, where scholars have formed their theories in a way that
clearly derives from practice, such as St Jerome, discussing Biblical translation
(see Robinson 2002: 22–30) or John Felstiner, whose view of translation as
“engaged literary interpretation” derives from his translations of Paul Celan
(see Felstiner 1989: 94). In other instances, we can see that the theories held
have an impact on the way a particular translator goes about translating.
Robert Lowell, for example, insisted in his 1958 book Imitations that the best
way to translate was to imagine how the author would have written had they
been “writing their poems now and in America” (Lowell 1990: xi). He carries
this idea out so faithfully in his work that some of his translations are rather
difficult to understand for today’s readers without going back to the originals.
In other cases, such as Walter Benjamin’s famous essay ‘The Task of the
Translator’ and the German translations of Charles Baudelaire that it prefaces
(see Benjamin 2016), the relationship between the views of the translator and
the translation itself is much more complex. Exactly in such instances, a
detailed case study could shed important light on both theory and practice.
So what constitutes a case study? In the next section, we explore the nature of
such a study in more detail.
Another random document with
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 Early in the next year he made the tour of all the Red Sea
provinces, including Harrar. But in spite of all this ceaseless activity,
the close of the year 1878 found things worse than ever. Trouble was
once more stirring on the Abyssinian frontier. The northern provinces
were quiet, but their quiet was the torpor of exhaustion. In Darfur
Harûn had once more reappeared, and in Kordofan, too, a rising had
taken place. In the Bahr el Ghazal Suleiman had this time revolted in
good earnest. Only Equatoria was comparatively happy under the
rule of Emin. Unyoro had been given up, and the Somerset Nile was
now the southern boundary. Gessi had been despatched by Gordon
to the Bahr el Ghazal, and in March he himself undertook an
expedition to Kordofan and Darfur, with the object of pacifying the
country and preventing help being sent to Suleiman. At the same
time he made great efforts to put down the slave-trade, and captured
many caravans. In June he was able to return to Khartoum, and left
for Cairo to confer with the new Khedive Tewfik. The short remainder
of his time as Governor-General was occupied with his mission to
Abyssinia, and in December he left for England.
Meantime Gessi had been performing marvels in the Bahr el
Ghazal. Gessi is one of the heroic figures of Soudan history. An
Italian by birth, he served in the Crimea as interpreter to the British
troops. In 1874 he joined Gordon in Central Africa. Thanks to his
energy, a dangerous rising of the Shilluks at Fashoda was put down,
and it was he who circumnavigated Lake Albert. The rising he had
now to face was most serious. Zubehr, before he left for Cairo after
the conquest of Darfur, had assembled his officers and made them
swear to revolt when he should send them word that the time was
ripe. That time was now come. Their organization was complete;
their following was numerous and well-equipped; they had already
proved the incapacity of the Government troops. It seemed that there
was nothing to stop them from dividing the Soudan provinces among
themselves, and finally throwing off the yoke of the hated and
despised Egyptian. They even announced that they intended to
seize Egypt itself. But they had reckoned without Gessi. With a
handful of troops, inferior in quality as well as in number, short of
supplies and ammunition, impeded by floods and generally cut off
from his base by the sudd, in two notable campaigns he utterly broke
their power, seized and shot Suleiman and his principal
confederates, and completely liberated the Bahr el Ghazal.
His end was characteristic of the fate of those who, in those dark
days, dared to serve the best interests of Egypt. In spite of his
successful administration of his province, he found his position made
impossible for him after Gordon’s departure. In September, 1880, he
resigned. After nearly perishing in the sudd, which blocked his
steamers, he reached Khartoum. But there, under the new regime,
he was no welcome guest. He struggled on to Suez, where he soon
after died, unrecognised and unrewarded, utterly worn out by his
exertions and privations. When such a man met with such treatment,
it was clear that there was no chance of the regeneration of the
Soudan under Egyptian rule. The last ray of hope had been
extinguished with Gordon’s departure.
 CHAPTER XV
THE PAST—Continued

Gordon’s successor at Khartoum was Raouf Pasha, the very man

whom he had dismissed from his post as Governor of Harrar two
years before for oppression and other malpractices. The
appointment was not of good augury, and the improvements which
had been made in the administration fell rapidly to pieces. The slave-
traders began to lift their heads; once more the caravans, with their
miserable human freight, began to journey towards Egypt or the Red
Sea; once more the horde of tax-collectors felt themselves set free to
levy their exactions at their will. The critical position of affairs in
Egypt itself was reflected in the Soudan. Economy and retrenchment
were the order of the day; under such a Government they were not
likely to mean anything else than an increase in the burden on the
provinces. Colonel Stewart, in his report on the Soudan, published in
1883, graphically describes the character of the irregular Bashi-
Bazouks who were employed to collect the taxes.

‘Many, if not most of these men,’ he says, ‘are very indifferent characters. They
are mostly swaggering bullies, robbing, plundering, and ill-treating the people with
impunity. Probably for every pound that reaches the Treasury they rob an equal
amount from the people. They are a constant menace to public tranquillity, and
before any amelioration can be expected they must be got rid of. As soldiers they
are valueless, having no discipline, nor, except in talk, do they exhibit any
extraordinary courage. Compared with that of negroes and Egyptians their pay is
high.’

A last paper reorganization took place in 1882. Schools were to

be set up, a proper system of justice established, the slave-trade
was to be again suppressed. A capable Governor-General, Abd-el-
Kader, who might have made a great mark in happier times, was
appointed to supersede Raouf. But it was too late. The promised
reforms could be no more than acknowledgments of past
deficiencies. Egypt had wasted the golden opportunities created for
her by Baker and Gordon. The day of retribution was at hand. From
every quarter of the horizon the clouds had long been gathering, and
the tempest was now to burst. In August, 1881, the Mahdi had
proclaimed himself publicly during the Feast of Ramadan as the
prophet foretold by Mahomet.
Sheikh Mohammed Ahmed, strangely enough the son of a
carpenter, and a little over thirty years of age, was a native of
Dongola, but had been living for some time in the neighbourhood of
Khartoum, where he had acquired a great reputation for sanctity. The
Soudan was then, and still is, a soil peculiarly suitable for the growth
of prophets. The creed of Islam, as is well known, has a peculiar
fascination for the natives of Africa, owing, perhaps, to the simplicity
and directness of its essential formula. But it has generally only
overlaid, and not displaced, the old superstitions of pagan days. The
people are naturally credulous and excitable, and in the entire
absence of any education or learning there has been nothing to
restrain them. Almost any holy man can gain some kind of a
following—at any rate for a time. But the Mahdi was more than an
ordinary prophet, and the times were ripe for rebellion.
The venality and corruption of the Egyptian officials had produced
widespread discontent among the agricultural and trading classes.
The oppressive exactions of the tax-collectors had reduced many to
ruin and beggary. It seemed that any change of rulers must be a
relief. The spasmodic efforts to suppress the slave-trade had
seriously alarmed the nomad tribes, whose chief source of wealth it
was. The one thing wanted was some strong influence to bind
together the discordant elements of revolt. It was found in the idea
preached by the Mahdi of the regeneration of Islam by force of arms.
After the long years of wrong and oppression the promise of
universal equality, with one law and one religion for all, was sweet to
hear. To the people that sat in darkness it seemed that a great light
had indeed arisen. The four great sects of the Mohammedan
Soudan sank their differences in favour of the Prophet of the new
dispensation. The stern character of his teaching, his earnest
denunciation of earthly vanities and pleasures, his prohibition of the
use of intoxicants and smoking, did much at the outset to rouse the
fanatical fervour of his adherents. It was a social as well as a
religious revolution. The simple jibbeh, or cotton shirt, became the
badge of his followers and the emblem of his doctrine.
The course adopted by the Egyptian authorities was well
calculated to increase his prestige. First they ignored, then they
underrated, his power. Feeble attempts were made to seize him,
which failed utterly. At first Sennar was the centre of disturbance; a
little later the Mahdi appeared in Southern Kordofan. A small force of
regulars was sent against him in December, 1881; they fell into an
ambush and were utterly destroyed. In June, 1882, Yusuf Pasha,
Governor of Fashoda, with several thousand men, set out to crush
him finally. Yusuf had distinguished himself in Gessi’s famous
campaign. That an experienced leader of disciplined troops could
have anything to fear from a crowd of half-naked Arabs seemed to
him utterly impossible; so he neglected every precaution, with the
inevitable result of annihilation. Throughout the Soudan it was
regarded as little less than a miracle. The warlike tribes of the west
began to flock to the Mahdi’s standard. His fame spread to the
farthest extremities of Darfur. By the end of 1882 he had three
armies in the field. Everywhere the Egyptian garrisons were
beleaguered. The hated tax-collectors and outlying bodies of troops
were the first to feel the vengeance of the rebels. Early in 1883 came
the fall of El Obeid, after a most gallant resistance under Mohamed
Pasha Said. The Egyptian Government made a desperate attempt to
regain their position. Hicks Pasha arrived at Khartoum with 10,000
men, mostly raw recruits, and advanced into Kordofan. Betrayed by
their guides, suffering terribly from heat and thirst, deficient alike in
courage and discipline, the expedition was beaten before it set out.
On November 5 the massacre, for it was nothing else, took place,
and only 300 survivors were left. The effect was tremendous. On the
one side it was decided to abandon the Soudan and withdraw all the
garrisons, and Gordon was sent to carry out this task; on the other, a
gigantic impulse was given to the cause of Mahdism.
Great as Gordon’s influence had once been, it was impossible for
it to outweigh the religious fervour of the Mahdists. His position was
immensely weakened when it became known that his final object
was the evacuation of the Soudan. Many waverers felt that they
must in the end be left at the mercy of the Mahdi, and wavered no
more. Gordon’s view was that the only way to evacuate the Soudan
with honour and safety was to hold on to Khartoum, crush the enemy
if possible, and then to retire, leaving behind some form of
government capable of maintaining order. The only man, in his
opinion, capable of such a position was Zubehr. But his views were
not shared, perhaps hardly understood, by the authorities at home.
The British Government, committed sorely against their will to a
military occupation of Egypt, and earnestly desiring to make it as
short as possible, were most unwilling to undertake further
responsibilities in the Soudan. The conflict of opinion produced
paralysis. Neither policy was completely adopted. British troops
moved up to Assouan. In the Eastern Soudan the disaster of El Teb,
where once more the Egyptian troops under Valentine Baker allowed
themselves to be slaughtered like sheep, and the fall of Sinkat,
forced the Government to take military action. General Graham,
starting from Suakin, won brilliant victories at El Teb and Tamai, and
relieved the garrison at Tokar. But the proposal to make a dash on
Berber, now in the hands of the Mahdists, was vetoed, and
Graham’s troops retired. Meanwhile in the Nile Valley the golden
hours were flying fast. Gordon stood firmly by his policy of holding
Khartoum, partly in the hope, growing daily fainter, of being able to
turn the scale by his own personal exertions and influence, partly
with the intention of forcing the British Government to change what
seemed to him their disastrous and dishonourable policy of
abandoning the Soudan to the rebels. On their side, the Government
drifted, hesitating and temporizing, reluctant to reverse their settled
policy of peace. And so the tragic game was played. Month by month
the investment of Khartoum grew closer. Slatin Bey in Darfur, after
fighting twenty-seven battles in the course of 1883, was deserted by
his troops and forced to surrender. El Fasher was reduced in the
following January. In the Bahr el Ghazal, Lupton Bey, the successor
of Gessi, after holding out for eighteen months, shared the same
fate, and was brought in a prisoner to Omdurman. In the east the
garrison of Gedaref made terms with the enemy. The Mahdi was
able to concentrate his forces at the important point.
Only in August, 1884, a relief expedition was decided on, and at
the end of December two columns started from Korti, one along the
Nile towards Abu Hamed, the other across the desert by Gakdul
Wells to Metemmeh and Khartoum. But the effort that might have
succeeded six months earlier was too late. Two days before the
relieving steamers arrived the weak defences of Khartoum had been
stormed, and Gordon had fallen.
For the moment it seemed that Gordon’s death would do what he
himself could not do when alive. Great preparations were made for a
new campaign in the autumn. The columns, which had drawn back
to Merowe after much severe fighting, were quartered for the
summer along the river. General Graham was again despatched to
Suakin with orders to crush Osman Digna, and a railway from that
place to Berber was begun. For two months there was hard fighting
at Hashin, at McNeill’s Zeriba, and at Tamai. But the hot fit passed.
The railway, which had been begun without any survey, quite in the
familiar Egyptian fashion, was given up. The whole Nile Valley was
left unoccupied as far as Kosheh. The dervishes pushed on, and
occupied Dongola, and, though decisively beaten at Ginnis at the
end of the year, they continued to maintain a harassing border
warfare.
The Mahdi died in June, 1885, carried off by a malignant fever, or,
as some say, poisoned by a woman, whilst in the middle of his
preparations for the invasion of Egypt. His successor, the Khalifa
Abdullahi, a Baggara of the Taaisha tribe from Darfur, took up his
plans. To the children of the desert Egypt might well seem an easy
and attractive field for plunder. They had had a rough experience of
the quality of British troops in action, but these new antagonists had
always followed up their victories by retreat and evacuation. They
had no reason to doubt the continuation of the same nerveless
policy. The British Government talked loudly of abandoning Egypt
itself. Any resistance by Egyptian troops unsupported seemed an
absurdity. But unexpected obstacles arose. A revolt in Darfur, war
with Abyssinia, and the opposition of the great Kabbabish tribe,
combined to delay the Khalifa’s advance. Not until 1889 did he send
his best general, Wad el Nejumi, forward. Nejumi pressed on without
misgivings. Only Egyptian troops were guarding the frontier. But the
Egyptian battalions, trained and led by British officers, were no
longer mere droves of frightened sheep. Under Wodehouse at Argin,
and under Grenfell at Toski, they first checked, and then annihilated,
Nejumi’s army. Thenceforward the dervish power steadily declined.
The recapture in 1891 of Tokar, Osman Digna’s chief base of
supplies, put an end to his influence in the Suakin district. Raiding
and frontier warfare continued till 1896, but there was no serious
fighting, until the Dongola Expedition in 1896 marked the opening of
the well-prepared campaign which ended in the complete overthrow
of the Khalifa’s power.
Once more the day of punishment for the guilty had dawned. In
the disasters and defeats inflicted by the Mahdi, in the horrors of the
sack of Khartoum and many another town, Egypt had paid the
penalty for her sins against the Soudan. In blood and shame she had
reaped a full harvest. But the unhappy Soudanese had only thrown
off the yoke of one master to find themselves under that of one much
more terrible. Even before the Mahdi’s death plunder and success
had corrupted the new faith, and dimmed the first glow of religious
fervour. The Khalifa, under the guise of religion, had developed into
a cruel and bloodthirsty tyrant. He and his principal supporters,
Arabs from Western Darfur, regarded themselves as conquerors in a
foreign land. Especially since he had brought his own tribe, the
Taaisha, to settle in Omdurman, he had made it his policy to depress
the power of the Nile Valley tribes like the Jaalin and the Danagla.
On them fell the brunt of his military expeditions. Executions,
massacre, and confiscations, were the order of the day. The
inhabitants of whole districts, especially in the once-populous
country along the Blue Nile, were forced to come and live at
Omdurman, which grew into a city of 400,000 inhabitants. This
concentration, by at once creating a great demand and withdrawing
the agricultural population from their proper occupation, produced
the most terrible famines. Everything was sacrificed to the
supremacy of the western Arabs. In ten years more damage was
inflicted upon the country by this pack of human wolves than in all
the sixty years of Egyptian dominion, bad as it was. Slatin Pasha
estimates that 75 per cent. of the population perished. Great as the
abominations of the slave-trade had been before, they were never
greater than under the Khalifa’s rule. The export of slaves was
forbidden, but from all parts of the country they were brought in
droves to the market at Omdurman.
The slave-dealing tribes had been the principal instrument of
vengeance upon Egypt. It was now their turn for chastisement. The
Egyptian Sirdar, Sir H. Kitchener, who fought with the railway as well
as with troops, advanced to Dongola in September, 1896, and the
banks of the river were again occupied up to Merowe. Next year Abu
Hamed and Berber were taken, and the new railway laid from Wadi
Halfa across the Korosko desert. Early in 1898 the battle of the
Atbara was won by the Anglo-Egyptian troops. In September the
great battle of the campaign was fought at Kerreri, Omdurman was
taken, and the Egyptian flag was once more flying at Khartoum, this
time with the British flag beside it. By the end of the year the
authority of the new rulers was established, after some difficult and
troublesome campaigning, throughout the Eastern Soudan as far
south as Fazokhl and Famaka; gunboats, though blocked in the Bahr
el Gebel, had proceeded up the Bahr el Ghazal and hoisted the flags
near Meshra el Rek. Before the end of 1899 the Khalifa and the
remnant of his supporters still in the field had fought their last fight. In
the hour of their downfall the dervish chieftains displayed a splendid
courage worthy of their race. Proudly disdaining to be fugitives in the
lands they had ruled, they perished to a man with their faces to the
foe.
But of far greater importance than the final destruction of the
Khalifa were the events that followed on the fall of Omdurman, which
are inseparably connected with the name of Fashoda. Since the time
when the Khedive Ismail was pursuing his wild career of annexation
without attracting any particular attention except from the natives of
the countries annexed, the whole position of affairs had entirely
altered. In every direction European Powers had appeared upon the
scene. In the east Massowah had been handed over to the Italians in
1885, and they had inflicted several severe defeats upon the
dervishes. In 1893 a British Protectorate had been declared over
Uganda and Unyoro, and in 1895 the British flag was hoisted at
Duffile. The Belgians from the Congo Free State had pressed on to
the Nile, and in 1897 an expedition under Chaltin was successful in
taking Rejaf, which had long been the southernmost dervish post on
the river.
Most serious of all was the French movement from the Upper
Ubanghi district of French Congoland into the Bahr el Ghazal
province. The Belgians had already made considerable expeditions
in this quarter, and had penetrated as far north as Hofrat-en-Nahas
in Southern Darfur. In 1894 they made over their claims to the
French. The French Governor of the Upper Ubanghi, M. Liotard,
immediately began to lay his plans with great energy and forethought
for the solid establishment of French power in the Valley of the Nile.
At the end of 1895 he crossed the Congo-Nile watershed, and
seized Tembura on the river Sueh, an affluent of the Bahr el Ghazal.
He also occupied Dem Zubehr, on the Bahr el Homr. Captain
Marchand arrived with reinforcements from France in 1897, and after
spending some time in consolidating his position by occupying posts
throughout the country, he set out on the final stage of his journey.
After great difficulties and some fighting with the dervishes, he
reached Fashoda just eight weeks before the fall of Omdurman.
The French preparations had not escaped the attention of those
responsible for Egypt. As far as the Khalifa was concerned, the
advance of the Anglo-British troops might have been delayed for
some time; but in view of the French advance it was absolutely
necessary for Egypt to reassert her rights in the Soudan
emphatically and at once. Immediately after the occupation of
Omdurman Lord Kitchener hastened on to Fashoda, and found
Marchand already there. The situation was grave. For France it was
galling in the extreme to be foiled just in the moment of success, but
for Egypt the question was vital. The stake at issue was not the
possession of a few acres of swamp, but the control of the summer
water-supply. Marchand’s mission was by no means the mere freak
of an adventurous traveller, anxious to hoist his country’s flag. It was
undertaken as part of a policy skilfully planned and deliberately
pursued.
It was no mere coincidence that in the previous year the
Bonchamps Expedition had set out from Abyssinia, and
endeavoured, though vainly, to join hands with Marchand from the
east. Firmly based in the Bahr el Ghazal, masters of the Upper Nile
Valley, and joining hands with Abyssinia, the French would have
been in the end complete masters of the fate of Egypt. If the French
had insisted, there must have been war. Happily, they gave way, and
by the agreement of 1899 withdrew all their posts in the Bahr el
Ghazal. The boundary of the Soudan was fixed along the Nile-Congo
watershed.
Thus the Soudan emerged at last, and finally, it may be hoped,
from her ordeal of blood and fire. Her history will be no longer a
record of tyranny, rebellion, war, and famine, but of steady progress
under a just and civilized government. The work of Baker and
Gordon is bearing fruit at last. Great as were the joy and relief with
which the downfall of the dervish tyranny was hailed throughout the
Soudan, it was largely due to faith in the word and just dealing of
Englishmen—a faith that was first established by them and those
who worked with them—that the whole country settled down so
quickly.
Among all the pioneers of good government in the Soudan one
name stands out conspicuously. Most of the ease and success with
which the present government works is due to the realization of the
reforms recommended in Colonel D. H. Stewart’s Report on the
Soudan. The rulers of the Soudan are the first to acknowledge their
obligation to that masterly document, an epitome of keen
observation and practical wisdom. Fortunate is the country that is
served by such men as he. A few months after he had completed his
report he returned with Gordon to Khartoum. He, at least, had no
delusions as to their prospects of success. And yet he went as
cheerfully and lightly as though
 “Tendens Venafranos in agros
Aut Lacedæmonium Tarentum.”

To die treacherously murdered on the Nile bank was a sorry fate

for such a man. The road to the Soudan is strewn with the bones of
many victims. But of them all it may be said, and especially of him:
Their work lives after them, and their memory is nobly avenged.
 CHAPTER XVI
THE NEW KHARTOUM

No one whose lot it has been to travel through the night on the
plains of a tropical country can forget the amazing effect produced
when the sun, with one great leap, as it seems, springs clear above
the horizon. All in a moment the world’s face is altered. Its features
are the same, yet utterly changed. The traveller, however hardened,
can scarcely fail to wonder at the transformation. A journey to the
Soudan to-day produces a very similar impression on one whose
mind is full of the memories of the dark past. The din of battle has
hardly ceased to echo, but the transformation is complete.
Even after Egypt, with all its fascinations, rich with the remains of
ages of civilization, full to the brim of questions and problems deeply
interesting to the student of history, archæology, politics, or
economics, the Soudan, with its triple capital, Khartoum, Omdurman,
Halfaya, comes upon you with a freshness and charm that are
indescribable. Travelling by the ordinary methods, you may go from
Alexandria to Khartoum in about six days. It is well worth while, even
for anyone who has been up and down the whole length of Egypt, to
take the whole journey in one piece. There is all the excitement of
starting for a new country, and at the same time an opportunity to
gather into a focus all the old impressions. Easily and smoothly you
swing through the fertile cotton-fields of the Delta, and its populous
cities and villages, prosperous but dirty, and at Cairo you settle down
into a most comfortable sleeping-car for the night journey to Luxor.
Early next morning you are in the cane-fields of Upper Egypt, with
the river close on one side and the desert on the other. At Luxor you
must change on to the narrow gauge for Assouan, and there is time
to refresh yourself with bath and breakfast, and to look across at the
Plain of Thebes and the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings, or to ride a
donkey out to Karnak. From Luxor to Assouan it is hot and dusty
enough, and you are glad to rest there for the night. Next day you
embark at Shellal, above the Dam, for Wadi Halfa, a voyage of some
200 miles. Coming down, the steamers do it in about twenty-four
hours, but upstream it is a leisurely voyage of three days. There is
plenty of time to see the interesting antiquities of Nubia, and, above
all, the famous rock-hewn temple of Abu Simbel, the colossal statues
of which are, perhaps, the most impressive of all the monuments of
Egypt. It is, besides, a most beautiful reach of the river; the hills
come down to the water in bold and rugged outlines, showing to
perfection in the pure, dry, desert air.
The effect of the Dam is clearly seen as far as Korosko. First of
all, at Shellal the boat is moored amid a grove of palm-trees, the
temples of Philæ are knee-deep in water, and the Nubian villages
look quaint enough as they stand on the edge of the desert, forlornly
mourning their strip of cultivated land, most of which the greedy
Reservoir has swallowed up. Probably a great part of these people
will now migrate to Dongola, but the loss of the land—for which,
indeed, compensation has been paid—is really a small matter to
them. Hardly anywhere is an able-bodied male to be seen; all are
away making their living as sailors or servants elsewhere, leaving
the women and old men to keep their homes. These Nubian
boatmen are a most happy and thrifty people, ready to work all day
and dance all night, always to the accompaniment of a song.
The boundary between Egypt and the Soudan, settled by the
Convention of 1899, runs along the twenty-second parallel; not far
beyond this is the frontier town of Halfa. There is no mistaking the
signs of British rule. The whole place is rigidly clean, an
extraordinary contrast to the filth of the Egyptian villages. The streets
are well laid out and scrupulously swept, and shady avenues of trees
are springing up. But at present Halfa is not particularly interesting,
except as the railway terminus of the Soudan. It is twenty-eight hours
to Khartoum. Nothing can be more comfortable than the well-
appointed sleeping-car train, which runs twice a week. Starting at
eight in the evening, you strike right across the Nubian Desert, most
desolate and forlorn of countries. The very stations have no names,
but are known merely by their numbers.
 In the morning you come to Abu Hamed, back to the Nile once
more. Abu Hamed is just at the elbow of the river, where it turns to
the west for its great circuit by Merowe and Dongola. Here was the
scene of one of the stiffest fights in the Soudan Campaign, when
General Hunter made his dash from Korti, in 1897, further down the
Nile, to seize the point for which the new railway was making from
Wadi Halfa, and here are the graves of Fitzclarence and Sidney,
officers of the 10th Soudanese, who fell in the battle. Around this
spot a ghostly legend hangs. It happened that the other white
officers of the battalion were wounded on the same day, and the
black troops marched back to their bivouac without any of their white
leaders. A black regiment is always accompanied by its women on
the march, and these have high notions of military honour. They
would have nothing to do with men who dared to return alive from
the field on which their officers had fallen. The warriors quailed
before their wives, and serious trouble was brewing, till a black
sergeant, who lay dying of his wounds, solved the difficulty. ‘Tell the
women,’ he said, ‘that enough of us are dead to guard the spirits of
the white men in the other world. I myself will mount the guard.’
There are innumerable witnesses to testify that he has kept his word.
The lesson was not lost. It was the same battalion which later, at the
Atbara, raced the Camerons for the enemy’s zareba, and, catching
their Colonel as he ran in front of them, bore him heels foremost right
through the camp, securely hedged by a living wall of bodies,
because a second loss like that of Abu Hamed was not to be thought
of.
From here onward the journey is full of interest. Berber is
springing up again from its ruins; it even boasts two stations, but it
has not an attractive look as a place to live in; there is as yet nothing
more than the mud huts of the country, and it is the hottest place in
the world. Next comes the Atbara River, though not the scene of the
battle, for that was thirty miles upstream; then Shendi, of fiery
memory, but now the Crewe of the Soudan, and finally, late at night,
you step out of the train at Halfaya, the railway terminus. One glance
at the sky will show you that you are really in the tropics. Canopus is
shining fiercely in the east. Right overhead the giant Orion strides
across the vault. Northwards the Great Bear stands like a huge note
of interrogation in the sky, and just over the opposite horizon the
Southern Cross is looming up.
Halfaya stands on the northern bank of the Blue Nile, near its
junction with the White. It is destined to be the workshop and
commercial quarter of the capital. At present the Government
steamboat factories and workshops are still at Omdurman, a legacy
from dervish days. But already the necessary buildings are springing
up, and as trade increases the railway terminus will attract more and
more to its immediate vicinity. The Blue Nile, just before its junction,
divides into two channels, which embrace the fertile island of Tuti.
Opposite Halfaya, and along the southern bank of the island, the
river runs in a glorious sweep due east and west for two or three
miles. Here, facing northwards, stands Khartoum, with as imposing a
situation as any capital could wish for.
A well-made road runs all along the river-front, which is being
gradually embanked and walled. Right in the centre rises the white
Palace, the official residence of the Governor-General, a handsome
building, on the site of Gordon’s old palace, set in a lovely garden.
On either side of it stretch a succession of Government offices and
the neat residences of Government officials, to the new, spacious,
and comfortable hotel on the one side and the Gordon College and
British barracks on the other, pleasantly variegated with gardens and
groves of palm-trees, acacias, limes, and bananas. Behind this
Government belt, the town is carefully laid out into wide streets and
squares in two other belts. The second of these contains, or will
contain, houses and shops built by private persons, but of a good
class and on approved plans; the third is open for the erection of any
buildings that the owners choose to construct. Finally, close to
Gordon’s rampart are the Soudanese barracks, and, right outside,
the native villages, laid out in squares allotted to different tribes,
where you may see huts of every shape, characteristic of many
different parts of Africa.
Considering that three years ago Khartoum was nothing more
than a dirty dust-heap, the work that has been accomplished by the
Royal Engineers is truly wonderful. Of course, the city is still in the
hands of the builders; everywhere are gangs of workmen levelling
roads, preparing foundations, making bricks of Nile mud, carrying,
hammering, digging, building. Women, too, are employed. Their
principal duty is bearing water for the lines of young trees that will
one day make each street a shady avenue. Already the town is
lighted with lamps far better than many an Egyptian city, and it is
hoped that in a short time a tramway will be in working order.
From November to March the climate is very delightful: it is hot, of
course, at times, but the north wind blows steadily and coolly
practically every day, and sometimes the nights are even cold. Even
if it is hot, there is always the Blue Nile to refresh the eyes. It is a
comfort to find that the Blue Nile is really blue—as blue as any Italian
lake. One is so often told that it is called blue because of the mud it
brings down during the flood—the mud which causes the ‘red’ water
so dear to the Egyptian cultivator. But anyone who looks at it cannot
fail to realize that its name is derived from its clear and limpid waters,
and not from its muddy flood-time. One of the most charming scenes
in Khartoum is the view of these blue waters seen from the windows
of the Soudan Club through a green maze of palms and lime-trees.
Khartoum, with its bungalows, offices, shops, and banks, is a
civilized town, summoned up out of nothing, as it were, by an
enchanter’s wand. Far different is Omdurman. Here, too, the
engineers have been at work, clearing, demolishing, and cleaning.
Only those who marched in after the battle four years ago and saw
those foul labyrinths of streets can realize how much has been
accomplished. But though purified and greatly shrunk, of course,
within its limits in the Khalifa’s time, Omdurman remains a real
Central African city, with nothing European about it. It was originally
intended to move all the inhabitants over to Khartoum; but the
natural convenience of its position on the left bank of the river, just at
the junction of the two Niles, makes it impossible to carry out this
intention. Its population is actually increasing at present, and it
seems far better to let natural forces work their way, and retain it as
the native quarter of the capital, distinct from the seat of government.
It possesses, too, a wide sloping foreshore, or beach, exactly suited
to the feluccas which ply upon the river.
 This beach is one of the great sights of Omdurman, and a
fascinating spectacle it is. On a busy day it is absolutely crowded
with traders and porters from all parts of the Soudan. It is the great
market-place for gum from Kordofan, feathers from Darfur, ivory from
the Bahr el Ghazal, dhurra from the Blue Nile country, and
everything else that comes in by boat or camel. All day long the
porters go to and fro, carrying their loads and chanting their
monotonous songs, chiefly tall, broad-chested, but spindle-shanked
negroes from the Nile Valley, Dinkas, Shilluks, Bongos, or Bari, with
here and there a short, thick-set, sturdy hillman from Southern
Kordofan or Dar Nuba. Women equally diverse in type sit sorting the
different qualities of gum. Naked children, brown and black, tumble
and chatter in every direction. It is difficult to drag one’s self away, so
strange and novel and varied are the sights.
But Omdurman has much more to show. First and foremost the
Khalifa’s house, the only two-storied building in the town, and built of
brick. It is occupied now by the British inspectors. Hard by are the
ruins of the Mahdi’s tomb, too solidly built to be entirely destroyed,
but even its partial demolition has been sufficient to put a complete
stop to pilgrimages. In front is the great square in which the Khalifa
used to preach to his assembled dervishes. It is surrounded by a
high wall excellently built, said to be the work of the German
Neufeld. It is witness now of scenes very different from those of the
old fanatical days, so far removed in everything but time—perhaps
the parade of a Soudanese battalion, a football match, or the arrival
of a string of camels laden with gum from El Obeid.
In the Beit el Amana are some interesting relics of the past. Here
are the brass cannon taken originally by the Mahdi from the
Egyptians, and piles of captured dervish muskets of every shape and
form, swords and caps; and here, too, is the Khalifa’s carriage, a
ramshackle, broken-down old four-wheeled chariot. It is a puzzle
how it ever got to Omdurman. It looks as if it were built for some
quiet old maiden lady in a French provincial town, but it fell on a
strange master in its old age; and Slatin Pasha, now Inspector-
General of the Soudan, had to run as a footman before it. Close by is
the great broad street leading northwards, by which the British troops
marched in on the battle. Every step is reminiscent of the last
evening of days of the dervish tyranny.
But the most fascinating sight of all is the sook, or market. The
mixture of races is amazing. It would take a trained scientist to
catalogue them all. From a camel to a silver bracelet, there is
nothing dear to a native that cannot be bought. Here are made and
sold the angarebs, or native bedsteads, woven with string across a
low four-legged wooden framework. As yet these people have not
much mechanical ingenuity, and their appliances for working in wood
and iron or other metals are rude in the extreme. The past in the
Soudan has not been conducive to the development of the arts, but
there is promise for the future.
One feature of the place is the curiosity shops, full of many
strange spears and shields, knives and sabres, and occasionally an
iron gauntlet or coat of mail such as the dervishes wore; but these
are rare now. These Arab shopmen know how to drive a hard
bargain, and love nothing better than chaffering over a price. All
curiosities are called ‘antiquos.’ There is an annual flower-show in
Khartoum, at which a prize is given for the best ‘antiquos.’ A
Soudanese turned up who was very anxious to compete for this
prize with a live porcupine, which he insisted was an ‘antiquo.’ He
was allowed to exhibit at last, but not for competition, on condition
that he himself led it about by a string, as the authorities could not
undertake its charge. With more justice a live tortoise is also
commonly offered for sale as a very choice ‘antiquo.’ In another
quarter are the rope-makers, twisting their long coils of fibre in
exactly the same way as they have been twisted for centuries;
further on, the basket and net makers are weaving dried reeds in
curious patterns. Yet another part is entirely devoted to the needs of
women. Here are combs and strings of all kinds of beads, unguents,
and the strange preparations they use for fixing the small plaits in
which they tie their hair; cinnamon bark and other scents, without
which no wedding is complete; cooking-pots and other articles of
their scanty domestic furniture; even dolls of most weird and
fantastic shapes and material, and many other quaint trifles. The
whole place is crowded with women, black and brown, many of them
tall in stature, easy and graceful in their movements, and, however
ugly they may be in other respects, nearly all with the most
beautifully shaped arms.
It is a strange contrast to go a little further on through the western
outskirts of the town, and to find a game of polo proceeding on the
hard desert sand. And beyond, again, in the middle of these great
spaces, far from the rush and turmoil of the town, are the quiet
graves of two or three of those who have laid down their lives in this
far country, and shall see their homes no more.
It would take a long time to get tired of merely riding about in
Omdurman and watching the thousand and one sights of such a
place, and reflecting on the stranger scenes that must so frequently
have been enacted there less than five short years ago. But if you
want a gallop in the desert, nothing is more delightful than to pass
along the broad street leading northwards through the deserted
quarters of the once huge city, and to ride, with the keen wind
blowing freshly in your face, to Gebel Surgham, the hill which
overlooks the field of Kerreri, that historic field of bloodshed. The
merest novice can easily follow every phase of the battle, and see
where wave after wave of the dervish hosts rushed madly but
heroically to their doom. Some of their skulls still lie bleaching in the
sun. There, too, is the khor where the Lancers made their famous
charge. Or you may take boat, and sail past the mud forts that
saluted the steamers which came just too late for the watcher
anxiously straining his eyes to see them from the palace in
Khartoum. Almost every spot has its own historic interest. Perhaps
as you skim along before the wind a battered old paddle-steamer
labours creaking past, towing a string of barges. It is one of Gordon’s
gunboats, once more patched up and restored to duty.
But of all the sights and interests of this fascinating place, by far
the most impressive, as in Cairo itself, is the ancient and mighty
river. Khartoum and Omdurman are what they are because here the
two great tributaries join their forces and set out across the waterless
desert on their great mission to Egypt. The spot where the Blue and
White rivers meet, and for some distance flow side by side
unmingled, would be still in many ways the most notable in all