Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 March 1900 — BAGGARA FEROCITY. [ARTICLE]

BAGGARA FEROCITY.

6toriea of Awful Savagery Reported by British Troopers. In the beginning of the year 1896 the English general from Cairo was inspecting the frontier force at Wadi Haifa. The troops were engaged in a field day, when news came that a party of Dervishes had attacked and put to the sword the village of Addendan, some 20 miles north of Haifa. The Camel corps at once started to try and cut off the raiders in the desert on their return journey, but with little chance of success, as the news was more than 24 hours old. After going some 50 miles a patrol got on to their tracks, and found there the body of a black girl 6ome ten years of age, her feet cut to ribbons by the rocks and stones over which she had been driven, her back flayed by the stripes of her merciless captors. She had been beaten along until she could move no more, and then left to die in the desert.

Within a few weeks of this a Dervish patrol came down to within a mile of Sarras one evening. Two little boys were going out from the village to their father, who was tending his sakieh. They met this patrol and greeted the leader. He replied with a spear thrust, and his companions finished the work he had begun. The poor wee bodies were found by the troops a short time afterwards beheaded and disemboweled.

The following incident shows the untamable ferocity of the Baggara: Soon after the occupation of the Dongola province a camel corps patrol went out from Debba to the wells of Kofriat. These wells are very deep, and a long rope is requisite in order to obtain water. Close to the wells the patrol discovered the dead body of a Baggara warrior alongside his slaughtered horse. The man, a fugitive from Dongola and tortured with thirst, had arrived at the wells. Finding no means of obtaining water, and accepting his fate, he had deliberately killed his horse, broken his saddle, cut his bridle to pieces, buried hie weapons, and then calmly laid himself down to die, satisfied that nothing of his would fall into his enemy’s hands. | The principal leader in most of the frontier raids was one Osman Azrak by name, who afterwards met a well- ■ merited death at Omdurman. He vn ? the ogre of the frontier, and enjoyed an almost supernatural reputation, combined with an uncanny habit of being killed and coming to life again. | The inhabitants of Beris, which oasie i he raided, described him to the officer commanding the Camel corps as a giant eight feet high and with one eyo ; in the middle of his forehead. —Comhill Magazine.