After three days march across scrubby undulating country (waterless) we came upon the ferik of Ali al-Tom, Nāzir of the Kababish. Ali al-Tom is an exceedingly intelligent and clever Arab chief...a short and dapper little man with piercing eyes, a sharp turn of humor, and a way of asking questions which demand a deal of answering. The wonders of invention aroused in him a polite interest.
-North Kordofan to South Dongola, H.C. Maydon, The Geographical Journal, January 1923
Ali al-Tom’s interest in the wonders of Western invention reminds me of the drovers, when Daoud gathered them around him to demonstrate his hand pump filter that turned the water in our newly tanned goatskins from black and stank to clean and clear. When after only four strokes the pump jammed and broke, they were too polite to say more than, Māshā’Allah, What God has Willed.