Hot drinking water, hot soles to your boots, hot animals to warm your bed, and your very clothes too great a burden to bear, rendered the place intolerable.
-Letters from Khartoum, Frank Power, August 2, 1883, To his Mother
Power was the journalist for the Times of London who narrowly escaped being killed by the Mahdist army alongside Hicks Pasha at the Battle of El Obeid in November 1883, having been invalided behind the lines due to a bad case of diarrhea. I fully understand how hot he found it there, but for God’s sake Man!, Why are you going to bed with animals?