In the town of Harrar, near the Red Sea, Arthur
Rimbaud surveyed with splenetic impatience the tragedy of
Khartoum. 'C'est justement les Anglais,' he wrote, 'avec leur
absurde politique, qui minent desormais le commerce de toutes ces
cotes. Ils ont voulu tout remanier et ils sont arrives a faire
pire que les Egyptiens et les Turcs, ruines par eux. Leur Gordon
est un idiot, leur Wolseley un ane, et toutes leurs entreprises
une suite insensee d'absurdites et de depredations.' So wrote the
amazing poet of the Saison d'Enfer amid those futile turmoils of
petty commerce, in which, with an inexplicable deliberation, he
had forgotten the enchantments of an unparalleled adolescence,
forgotten the fogs of London and the streets of Brussels,
forgotten Paris, forgotten the subtleties and the frenzies of
inspiration, forgotten the agonised embraces of Verlaine.
When the contents of Colonel Stewart's papers had been
interpreted to the Mahdi, he realised the serious condition of
Khartoum, and decided that the time had come to press the siege
to a final conclusion. At the end of October, he himself, at the
head of a fresh army, appeared outside the town. From that
moment, the investment assumed a more and more menacing
character. The lack of provisions now for the first time began to
make itself felt. November 30th--the date fixed by Gordon as the
last possible moment of his resistance--came and went; the
Expeditionary Force had made no sign.
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