This
Mek Nimmur was a son of the celebrated Mek Nimmur, the chief of
Shendy, a district upon the west bank of the Nile between Berber
and Khartoum. When the Egyptian forces, under the command of
Ismael Pasha, the son of the Viceroy Mehemet Ali Pasha, arrived
at Shendy, at the time of the conquest of Nubia, he called the
great Sheik Mek (from Melek, signifying king) Nimmur before him,
and demanded the following supplies for his army, as tribute for
the Pasha:--1,000 young girls as slaves; 1,000 oxen; and of
camels, goats, sheep, each 1,000; also camel-loads of corn and
straw each 1,000, with a variety of other demands expressed by
the same figure. It is said that Mek Nimmur replied to these
demands with much courtesy, "Your arithmetic exhibits a charming
simplicity, as the only figure appears to be 1,000." In a short
time the supplies began to arrive, strings of camels, laden with
corn, assembled at Shendy in the Egyptian camp; cattle, goats,
sheep, came in from all sides; fodder for the Egyptian cavalry,
to the amount of 1,000 camel-loads, was brought to head-quarters,
and piled in a huge wall that encircled the tent of the General
Ismael Pasha. In the dead of night, while he slept, the crackling
of fire was heard, and flames burst out upon all sides of the dry
and combustible fodder; the Arabs had fired the straw in all
directions, and a roar of flame in a fatal ring surrounded the
Pasha's tent, which caught the fire.
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