Part 2

Crossing the inlet southwards to the mainland, we step into the large suburb called El Gêf, with a much larger population than the insular town, very irregular streets, and the houses mere native (Bishareen) huts. There is also a very lively bazaar, and, in the north-west of the place, the barracks, one section of which, a few years ago, was armed with three pieces of cannon. In the outskirts are the wells—surrounded by gardens and date plantations—which supply the people with drinking-water, although, from the nearness of the wells to the sea, this is brackish, and would scarcely be considered palatable by foreign troops. El Gêf is really an oasis; all round it, save seawards, extend many miles of salt and arid wilderness. Indeed, the whole distance from Suakim to Berber—two hundred and eighty miles inland—is for the most part desert, the route garnished here and there with wells of water and encampments of the wandering Bishareen, who, with the Haddendowa, a similar set of people, possess the whole wilderness from east of the first cataract of the Nile up to Kassala and the boundaries of Abyssinia. These tribes, though sometimes called Bedouin, whom in many respects they resemble, are really a very different people. Bedouin proper are Arabs of the Semitic, while the Bishareen are of the Hamitic family.

The chief articles of export are cotton, gum-arabic, cattle, hides, butter, tamarinds, senna leaves, and ivory. The imports consist of cotton goods, iron, wood, carpets, weapons, steel, and fancy wares. Berber in the east, and Kassala in the south, are the great centres for all the caravan traffic of Suakim, which is also the port on the one side for the whole Soudan—an inland country as large as India—and on the other side, for Arabia. Hence it is much visited by Mohammedan pilgrims to Mecca, their port of Jeddah occupying a corresponding position on the Arabian to that which Suakim does on the African coast. Twenty years ago, from three to four thousand slaves per annum were shipped from here to Jeddah, and though this monstrous traffic has been much crippled of late years by the Egyptian government, out of regard for English feeling, it is to be feared that it is not yet extinct. Oddly enough, Hassan Mousa Akad, one of the ringleaders in Arabi’s recent rebellion, and the greatest slave-merchant in Egypt, was exiled to this very slave-port of Suakim, hence his complicity in the Soudan disturbances is not unnaturally suspected. The total population of the town and suburb is estimated by Schweinfurth—one of our greatest authorities—at from eleven to thirteen thousand. The port is now in regular communication with Suez by steamer—four days’ journey—and with Europe by telegraph. The Egyptian governor (Mudeer) and vice-governor (Wakeel) live at Suakim, and the budget for the district in 1882 was—income, £25,945; expenditure, £20,492—thus being one of the few districts of the Soudan which yielded a surplus.

In ancient times, the whole of what we may call the Suakim seaboard—extending northwards along the coast as far as a line drawn from the first cataract, and southwards as far even as Bab-el-Mandeb—was known as the Troglodyte country. The Troglodytes, as the name implies, dwelt in caves, were by occupation herdsmen, and often uncivilised and wretched in the extreme. A graphic picture of the hard life of another Troglodyte people, dwelling in the rocky fastnesses east of Jordan, is preserved for us in the thirtieth chapter of the book of Job. ‘For want and famine,’ it says, ‘they are solitary; fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste. Who cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots for their meat. They were driven forth of men (who cried after them as after a thief), to dwell in the cliffs of the valleys, in caves of the earth, and in the rocks.’

Perhaps the Troglodytes of the Nubian shore were a superior stock of their kind; at anyrate, they appear to have been impressed into the army of the ancient Pharaohs, and to have shared in the first invasion of the kingdom of Judah, and the first spoliation of Solomon’s Temple. The name of the Pharaoh of that time was Shishak, and two accounts of his expedition have come down to us: one is in the historical books of Scripture (2 Chronicles, xii., also 1 Kings, xiv.); and the other, remarkably enough, is by Shishak himself. That of the Egyptian king is contained in the famous hieroglyphic inscription on the walls of the temple of Karnak at Thebes, in Upper Egypt, a great part of which is still legible, after the lapse of nearly three thousand years! The book of Chronicles tells us with what an immense army of charioteers, cavalry, and infantry, Shishak overran Judea. He marched against it ‘with twelve hundred chariots, and threescore thousand horsemen: and the people were without number that came with him out of Egypt; the Lubims, the Sukkiims, and the Ethiopians.’ Of these three allies, the first are probably the Libyans (as in Daniel, xi. 43), and the last the same as the modern Abyssinians. For the middle name of ‘Sukkiims,’ the old Greek translation of the Bible—made by Jews a century or two before the birth of Christ—substitutes the word _Troglodytes_, the very people of the Nubian coast whom we have been considering, and who are now known as Bishareen. But yet more, Pliny the elder, an old Latin writer, who died A.D. 79, mentions, in his enumeration of places on this Troglodyte coast, a town called Suche, which, according to the general opinion of scholars, is identical with the modern port of Suakim, at present (while we write) governed by an English admiral, and its fortifications manned by British sailors and marines.

MISS MARRABLE’S ELOPEMENT.

IN TWO CHAPTERS—CHAPTER II.

Miss Marrable, who, when she received this love-letter, was sitting in her bedroom, was thunderstruck. At first, she thought of going to Amy and charging her with baseness and ingratitude; but after some reflection, she decided to let matters, for the time at least, take their course, and to confound the schemes of the rash couple by means of a grand stroke at the final moment. She went, however, at once to Lucy, in whom, as I have said, she had great confidence, and told her all.

‘How foolish of her,’ said Lucy.

‘Yes, my dear! how foolish, and how wicked!’ assented Miss Marrable. ‘I feel it my duty to prevent the carrying out of this mad plan, and also to make Amy suffer for her folly. I shall therefore send her this letter; and allow the hare-brained pair to mature their schemes.—And what, Lucy dear, do you think that I propose to do? You will never guess. Listen! Amy and I are of much the same height. I shall personate her by concealing—ahem—my face, and drive away with this vile young man; and then, when he believes that he has left me far behind, I shall overwhelm him with shame and confusion.’

Lucy could not help laughing. ‘That would really be good fun, aunt,’ she said. ‘Yes, send the letter to Amy; and by all means let matters take their course for the present.’

Miss Marrable did send the letter; and Amy duly received it, unsuspectingly; but five minutes later, Lucy revealed the whole plot to her, and threw her into the deepest trepidation.

Here, however, Lucy’s superior coolness came in most usefully. ‘You need not despair,’ said the elder cousin. ‘If aunt thinks of having fun with you and Mr Jellicoe, why not turn the tables, and have fun with her? You must find some other way of carrying on your correspondence; but at the same time answer this letter by the old medium. Your answer will of course fall into aunt’s hands. You must mislead her, and then’——

‘But,’ objected Amy, ‘how am I to make matters turn out properly?’

‘Listen!’ said Lucy. ‘Aunt proposes to personate you. Very well. Put off the time of your elopement, say, for half an hour; and meantime Mr Jellicoe must find some one to personate him. My idea is for aunt to elope with the billiard-marker, and so give you time to get away. Do you see?’

Amy could not at first grasp the significance of this bold proposition; but when she succeeded in doing so, she was delighted with it.

‘I shall tell Mr Rhodes,’ said Lucy, when she had sufficiently explained the plan; ‘for I know that he will gladly help you; and Mr Jellicoe can talk it all over with him and have the benefit of his advice.’

‘But what will aunt say when she discovers how we—how you—have deceived her?’ asked Amy.

‘Ah!’ said Lucy slily, ‘I must talk about that too with Mr Rhodes. But never fear!’ And she went off to rejoin Miss Marrable, who was still much flurried.

Later in the day, Lucy met Robert on the beach, and told him what had happened. ‘And now,’ she said in conclusion, ‘I am going to make a dreadful proposition to you. We must also elope together!’

‘I am sure I don’t mind,’ said Mr Rhodes. ‘After hearing your news, I was going to propose as much myself. It would take you out of the reach of your aunt’s reproaches, when she finds out the trick that has been played upon her.’

‘You are a dear old love!’ cried Lucy with enthusiasm. ‘I wouldn’t for the world have Amy made unhappy; and I feel that I must help her, although I don’t approve of elopements. Now go and talk to Mr Jellicoe; and don’t forget to have the licenses ready. Perhaps Mr Jellicoe can arrange for both Amy and me to sleep that night with the Joneses, whoever they may be; or perhaps, after all, we had better not go there, since aunt knows of that part of the scheme.’

‘I daresay,’ said Robert, ‘that I can arrange for both of you to sleep at the Browns at Llanyltid. They have a large house, and, curiously enough, my sister Dora, whom you have often met in town, is staying there with them; so you will have a companion and sympathiser. And now I will go and talk to Jellicoe.’

I need not follow in detail the progress of the new scheme of double elopement. Suffice it to say that the bogus correspondence destined to mislead Miss Marrable, was steadily kept up; that Amy and Vivian found other means of safely communicating with one another; that the Browns were written to; that the licenses were obtained; that three carriages-and-pairs were engaged, one to call at the hotel at nine o’clock P.M., and two at half-past; that coachmen were liberally feed; and finally, that the billiard-marker at the _Cors-y-Gedol_, a spruce young fellow of some education, was bribed, at considerable cost, to personate Vivian Jellicoe and to run away with Miss Marrable.

At length, Wednesday morning arrived; and with it came the last of the billet-doux that were to fall into the cunning spinster’s hands. One of them had been composed by Vivian and Robert, and written by the former on pink paper, folded billet-doux-wise. It ran as follows:

MY OWN AMY—I have satisfactorily arranged everything. The carriage will be at the door of the hotel at nine o’clock. I shall not show myself, for your aunt may be about. Be careful, therefore, to avoid her; and enter the carriage as quickly as possible. In order that there may be no mistake, I have told the driver to wear a white choker round his neck. I hope that you will be punctual. Everything depends upon punctuality. Till nine o’clock, good-bye.—Your most devoted

VIVIAN.

Miss Marrable, after reading this note, refolded it as usual, and took care that it reached Amy. Then, with the consciousness that she was about to perpetrate a great and good action, she sat down in her own room, and waited for Amy’s reply to be brought to her by the treacherous maid. The note, which was very brief, came to Miss Marrable in less than half an hour. ‘DEAR VIV,’ wrote Amy, ‘I will be ready, and will look out for the white choker.—Your loving A.’

In spite of the ordeal which was before her, the good old spinster was perfectly calm and unflurried. At one o’clock she made a very hearty luncheon; at half-past two she took her nieces for a walk, and talked to them with extraordinary affability about the emancipation of women; and at half-past six she appeared at the _table d’hôte_, and, just as if the occasion were an ordinary one, complained of the soup being too peppery, the fish too cold, and the mutton too underdone. Her coolness was admirable. Lucy and Amy, on the other hand, could scarcely conceal their excitement and agitation. They each looked at least a hundred times during dinner at the clock upon the mantel-piece; and they each started and turned red whenever the noise of carriage-wheels without was heard. After dinner, Miss Marrable went again to her room and began to make her preparations.

‘How sad it will be,’ she thought to herself, ‘for poor young Jellicoe when I discover myself and overwhelm him with reproaches. Men are but poor creatures. Perhaps he will faint. Yes; I will take my salts-bottle.’ She wrapped herself in an ulster belonging to Amy, and having shrouded her face in a thick veil, took a seat at her window, which happened to be immediately above the front-door of the hotel.

Meantime, Edward Griffiths the billiard-marker was ill at ease. He knew Miss Marrable by sight, and looked forward with terror to the prospect of an encounter with her at close quarters. Nevertheless, he had Vivian Jellicoe’s five-pound note in his pocket, and he was determined to see the affair bravely through. He felt, however, that his natural bravery would not be sufficient to support him; and he therefore, at about six o’clock, began to swallow a succession of potent doses of whisky-and-water, with the object of laying in a stock of Dutch courage. Whether the whisky was bad or the water was too powerful, I cannot say; but at ten minutes to nine, when Vivian Jellicoe arrived to give final directions and counsel to his substitute, he found Edward Griffiths decidedly the worse for liquor. Fortunately the young fellow was neither quarrelsome nor noisy in his cups. His main ambition seemed to be to go to sleep in peace; and no sooner had Vivian bundled him into one corner of the carriage, which was in waiting in the stable-yard, than Mr Griffiths incontinently slumbered. The carriage was then driven round to the front-door of the hotel. Miss Marrable, from her post of vantage, saw it, and, remarking that the coachman wore a white choker, descended at once, and listened, as she went, outside Amy’s room, to satisfy herself that that young lady had not forestalled her. The porter with alacrity opened the carriage-door. In the dark shadows of the interior, Miss Marrable caught sight of the figure of a man; and making sure that all was right, she entered at once. An instant later she was being whirled northward along the lonely Harlech Road.

Half an hour afterwards, two other carriages left the hotel, but in the opposite direction. In one of them were Lucy and Mr Rhodes; and in the other, Amy and Mr Jellicoe. It was nearly midnight ere they arrived at the Browns’ house at Llanyltid; but the Browns were all up and waiting for them, and the two runaway couples were warmly welcomed, and hospitably taken care of.

Miss Marrable was less fortunate. As soon as the carriage in which she sat had been driven beyond the lights of the town, she threw aside her veil, and gazed with magnificent scorn towards the dim form upon the seat in front of her. The look eliciting no response of any kind, Miss Marrable ventured to cough, at first gently, and then with considerable violence; but still the figure took no notice.

‘This is exceedingly strange,’ thought the spinster lady. ‘I must adopt more active measures.’ And with great tenderness, she prodded Mr Griffiths with the point of her umbrella. The billiard-marker groaned in his sleep. ‘Mr Jellicoe!’ she exclaimed in her deepest and most threatening tones. She had counted upon this exclamation producing an instantaneous and astonishing effect upon her companion; and she was wofully disappointed when he merely groaned again.

‘Gracious!’ she said to herself: ‘he is ill. He would never go on like that, if he were not ill. The fright has been too much for him. Oh, how sorry I am! These men are such weak creatures. I must stop the carriage!’ And, throwing down the sash of the window, she put out her head and cried to the driver to pull up his horses. But the driver, like the billiard-marker, had been very liberally feed; and he was determined that nothing should stop him until he reached Harlech; he therefore cracked his whip, to drown Miss Marrable’s voice, and drove down the next hill at a pace which threatened to shake the carriage to pieces.

‘Stop, stop! For goodness’ sake, stop!’ shouted Miss Marrable; but finding that her words were not listened to, she drew in her head, and strove to revive the wretched man in front of her. She held her salts-bottle to his nose; she chafed his hands; she fanned his brow; and she allowed his feverish head to rest upon her shoulder; but she could not awaken him.

‘If he should die!’ she thought. ‘I intended to frighten him; but not so much as this. Oh! this is terrible!’ And once more she tried to prevail upon the driver to stop; but in vain. The sight of distant lights, however, gave her at length some satisfaction. The carriage entered a long avenue, the gate of which lay ready opened for it; and about an hour and a quarter after leaving Abermaw, it drew up before the Joneses’ house near Harlech.

With a sigh of relief, Miss Marrable threw open the door and sprang out, to find herself in the presence of half-a-dozen people who were congregated upon the steps.

‘Quick!’ she cried; ‘don’t ask questions! He is ill; he is dying. Take him out!’

The Joneses, who had not been prepared for the apparition of a middle-aged spinster, and who were expecting Mr Jellicoe and Miss Allerton, were somewhat astonished.

‘Who is inside?’ asked Mr Tom Jones, the son and heir of the family.

‘Oh! Mr Jellicoe! Be quick! For mercy’s sake, be quick!’

‘You don’t mean it!’ cried Tom, rushing to the carriage to succour his friend. But an instant later he burst into a violent fit of laughter. ‘Why, it’s not Jellicoe at all!’ he said. ‘It’s Griffiths, the billiard-marker from the _Cors-y-Gedol_; and he is hopelessly drunk. Nice companion, indeed!’

Miss Marrable is, as I have already said, a woman without weaknesses. On hearing this announcement, however, she fainted away. When, thanks to the kind attentions of the female members of the Joneses’ family, she revived, she indignantly charged those estimable people with having deliberately plotted her discomfiture; and she insisted upon at once returning to Abermaw; but the carriage (and Griffiths) had gone; so Mr Jones, senior, who grasped the situation, volunteered to drive Miss Marrable back to the _Cors-y-Gedol Hotel_; and by twelve o’clock, or shortly afterwards, she was again in her own room. It was then that she learned of the desertion of Lucy and Amy. I need not describe how she received the news, and how she declared that her abandoned nieces should never again behold her face; nor that, although she is a woman without weaknesses, she passed the greater part of the remainder of the night in violent hysterics. She telegraphed next day to Mr Larkspur and Mr Allerton; and repairing to the _Red Cow_, furiously denounced Sir Thomas Jellicoe as the basest and most heartless of men!

Three weeks afterwards, however, the edge of her anger had worn off. Lucy and Amy were married. It was foolish, but, perhaps, it was not wholly inexcusable; and thus reasoning, Miss Marrable, in the goodness of her heart, determined to gradually receive them back into her favour. But she has never wholly forgiven Lucy for suggesting the substitution of the billiard-marker for Vivian Jellicoe.

‘My dear,’ she says, when she retells the story of her drive to Harlech, ‘the wretched man was perfectly saturated with whisky, and I really don’t know what he might not have done if I hadn’t kept my eye steadily on him. But beneath my gaze he cowered, my dear, positively cowered! I never saw a savage brute so completely tamed.’

And to this day Miss Marrable believes that but for her Eye, the billiard-marker might—horrid thought!—have run away with her too.

A CURIOSITY IN JOURNALISM.

In the case of such a curiosity in official journalism as the _Police Gazette_, formerly known as the _Hue and Cry_, the public will be interested to learn a little more than the newspapers have briefly announced about the changes made in it by government authority. The paper itself, which was commenced shortly after the formation of the metropolitan police force in 1828, is not allowed to circulate beyond constabulary circles; but its efficiency of management unquestionably concerns the general community. Previous to the year 1828, the metropolis, like other centres of population, was under the care of the old parochial Watch, who, as corrupt as they were feeble, became an absolute street nuisance. Far from being a terror to evil-doers, their notorious negligence and inefficiency enabled the midnight burglar or daring footpad to pursue his criminal avocation with comparative impunity. Peel’s Act introduced a greatly improved _régime_; and the new police, nicknamed after their originator, were for a long time popularly known as ‘Peelers.’ The newly established force required new methods of working, and one of these was the starting of an official newspaper which, though it is perhaps the only one the public never see, has nevertheless often done them good service, and is now to be made of still more value.

It is probably known to few that there exists in connection with the Detective department at Scotland Yard a regular printing establishment, from which sheets are issued four times a day containing information as to persons ‘wanted,’ current offences, property stolen, lost, or found. A daily list of property stolen is also printed, and distributed to all licensed pawnbrokers. Particulars received from country constabulary forces are inserted in these publications, which are carefully read at parades and studied by the detectives. This, however, only applies to the metropolis; and a strong desire has long prevailed at headquarters to make that larger medium of publicity, the _Police Gazette_, more useful as a means of intercommunication between the whole of the two hundred and ninety police forces of the kingdom. Until the beginning of the present year, that wretched print had shown scarcely any progress or improvement since it was commenced. Its direction has hitherto been nominally in the hands of the chief clerk at Bow Street police court. In the past, much of its space has been wasted by the frequent repetition of details as to trifling cases; and no systematic arrangements were made for the widespread circulation of the paper among those for whom it is specially intended. The editorship has now been committed to Mr Howard Vincent, director of criminal investigations, who will be assisted by Chief-inspector Cutbush of the executive department at Scotland Yard. It is to the initiation of Mr Vincent that the improvements now made are chiefly due; and it may be remembered that in his presidential address to the Repression of Crime Section of the recent Social Congress at Huddersfield, that gentleman explained his intentions. The proposals he made were so favourably received, that subscriptions amounting to nearly one thousand pounds were placed at his disposal. These, however, have not been needed, as it happens that the improvements have been accompanied by an actual reduction of expense; and the Home Secretary has determined that the costs, limited within a certain moderate sum, shall still be borne entirely by the public funds.