On the morning of 3rd September our troops moved out of Omdurman and encamped on the banks of the river some two miles to the north. The moment I had finished breakfast I made for the Mahdi's tomb. The interior was an absolute wreck. Vast quantities of stones and mortar, torn away by the Lyddite shells, were heaped upon the floor, and of the superstructure over the Mahdi's grave only the wooden framework remained. Some pieces of tawdry drapery which had covered the tomb lay on the ground, and these I brought away. Outside the tomb, a little to the right, I came across a truly awful spectacle. One of the terrible Lyddite shells had burst amongst some unfortunate Arabs near the Khalifa's palace. Eight men lay dead in a ghastly ring, some of them torn by horrid mutilations; but the curious point about some of the bodies was that they were not lying flat, but were sitting on the ground with fearfully contorted limbs and features. Could this be due to the deadly fumes of the picric acid contained in the Lyddite? The stonework of the tomb and the surrounding buildings was often stained yellow by this chemical. Outside in the open street fragments of Koran manuscripts were lying about in every direction.

I then set out to find Cross and the other correspondents. It was said that they were with the Staff, in strange and unwonted proximity to the Sirdar's tent. However, as nobody seemed to know where the Staff was, I wandered about for hours seeking my colleagues in vain.

As I passed along the river a barge drew up alongside to land the bodies of the British soldiers who had been killed. From some misunderstanding a wounded man slid out of the boat amongst the corpses, and began to walk up the bank, but was promptly sent back with the reprimand—"D——n you, what do you mean by coming ashore with this lot? You aren't dead!" Even amid such gruesome surroundings it was quite funny to see the disappointed look of the man as he returned to the barge to take his place under a separate category.

At last I came by accident upon Cross. The poor fellow was again in a state of prostration, and was lying under the blanket-tent of Captain Luther, R.A.M.C., in the camp of the Lancashire Fusiliers. The officers of this battalion had been most kind to Cross, and as the day was terribly hot he remained under the shelter of their tents until the evening, when he rejoined me in our own camp. He told me that on the previous night he had, like the rest of the correspondents, failed to get any food, and had slept on the sand without a blanket, though Steevens, with his usual kindness, had lent him an overcoat when the night air became chilly.

At length, after wandering up and down for miles in the blazing heat, I discovered the whereabouts of our camp out in the desert to the south-west of the town. All my colleagues were here except Villiers. Nobody seemed to know what had become him, and as the hours passed and he failed to turn up we began to get alarmed. His servant had pitched Villiers' umbrella tent, and beside it stood the bicycle, which was disfigured by an honourable scar, for the top of the valve was gone, and Hassan declared that it had been carried away by a Dervish bullet. I mounted the famous machine, intending to go for a ride to the execution ground, where several fine gibbets were standing, but as the back wheel was "buckled" I soon dismounted—with the proud consciousness, however, of being the first cyclist in Omdurman!

The streets of the town were perfectly loathsome. In every direction lay the decaying bodies of dead animals, and the stench was terrible. Moslems, from a curious intermixture of humanity and cruelty, never give a dying animal a coup de grÂce, and they seldom take the trouble to bury the carcass. Moreover, in some parts of the town one could scarcely walk fifty yards without coming across the bodies of men, and occasionally, I am sorry to say, those of women and little children. At least five hundred dead people lay scattered about the streets, some destroyed by Lyddite shells, but the majority pierced with bullets. I saw some of these corpses lying in the shallow water near the bank of the river, and as it seemed to be nobody's business to bury them, it is not surprising that our Guardsmen and other soldiers contracted the germs of enteric fever at Omdurman!

Inside the Khalifa's arsenal there were many curious things—spears, bows and arrows, coats of chain mail, machine guns, Krupps, various kinds of ammunition, and other warlike apparatus, ancient and modern. Three carriages of European make were also visible, which were said to have been used by the Khalifa on state occasions, though these vehicles could never have got beyond the main streets, for the simple reason that outside the town no roads exist.

Most of the Dervish ammunition used in the battle seems to have been of home manufacture. All the Martini cartridges I picked up amongst their dead were extremely well made of "solid drawn" brass, and stamped with a ? and a ?. I imagine that these letters may stand for Khartum and Pentekachi, the unfortunate Greek who succeeded in manufacturing gunpowder for the Mahdi, and was finally blown to atoms by an explosion of the magazine. On a Martini rifle which I secured from the battlefield, the Enfield stamp is still visible. Some disgraceful facts were revealed at the time when Berber was occupied, and the public documents fell into our hands, for, in addition to various offers of assistance addressed to the Khalifa from people in high positions at Cairo, some invoices were discovered which showed clearly that a certain Manchester firm had supplied the Khalifa with lead for the manufacture of bullets! It is difficult to believe that an Englishman could sink so low as to supply his country's enemy with munitions of war for the sake of filthy lucre!

A new bullet, by the way, was used in the recent campaign. Its title is sufficiently significant. It is called the "man-stopping bullet," and simply means that an ordinary .303 Lee-Metford bullet is scooped out at the end to the depth of about half an inch. When this missile strikes an object the hollow nose instantly expands like an umbrella, inflicting a tremendous shock, which was frequently not secured when the ordinary solid bullet, with its enormous velocity (two thousand feet a second at the muzzle), passed clean through an enemy's body, but failed to administer a sufficiently crushing blow. At Krugersdorp an ordinary Lee-Metford bullet was driven right through the brain of a Boer; and so far was the tiny puncture from being immediately fatal, that the Dutchman walked to church next Sunday—though it is true that on the Sunday following he went there again in a coffin. Of course this solid bullet, when it chanced to come in contact with a bone, served its purpose well, and shattered the bone to atoms. The first occasion, I believe, on which the Lee-Metford bullet was fired into a human body was at the well-known Featherstone riots; and I remember seeing a drawing made by a medical man at the time of the foot of one of the rioters, which had been struck. Not only was the lower part of the leg bone completely smashed, but almost every bone in the foot had been broken more or less by the terrific force of the bullet.

À propos of dum-dum bullets, man-stopping bullets, et hoc genus omne, a good deal of false sentiment has been evoked in England and France. The main object of a soldier in battle is to put his opponent out of action, and it is found by experience that the ordinary bullet does not adequately secure this result when employed against barbarous or semi-barbarous enemies. A civilised combatant, when he is struck by a bullet—even if the wound be a comparatively slight one, say through the shoulder—almost invariably sits down on the ground; but the nervous system of the savage is a far less delicate organism, and nothing short of a crushing blow will check his wild onset. Even in the Martini-Henry days scores of Dervishes rushed upon the British troops at Abu Klea and elsewhere, with the blood spurting from seven or eight bullet wounds, and then cut and thrust with deadly effect until loss of blood told, and they fell dead in or about the square. One of the two British officers who lost their lives at the Atbara fight was killed by a large elephant bullet, the hollow base of which had been filled with a fulminate. This was an explosive bullet, quite a distinct species from the missile described above.

The fire from our zeriba, which mowed the Dervishes down in rows and heaps, must have been simply appalling. The ordinary metaphors of "rain" and "hail" are scarcely adequate to describe the awful effect of modern rifles and machine guns when their fire is steady and concentrated. It is rather a wall of lead than a rain, which, as it advances, sweeps everything instantly from its track. There must be a limit to human endurance, one would think, even in the excitement of battle, and the time may well come when human art will prove superior to human courage and discipline, and civilised troops will refuse to expose themselves to what may have become practically the certainty of death or wounds, or, at anyrate, of enormous risk. The educational and social forces at work in modern life certainly do not tend to foster the old-fashioned virtue of unquestioning obedience, or the consolations to be derived from religious faith. Yet it is precisely these two things which alone have often enabled a leader to count with confidence upon a response to his call when he summons his followers to almost certain destruction—the surrender of life and all that life holds dear.

On 4th September, at 9.15 a.m., four gunboats conveyed the Sirdar and various detachments of troops, with most of the correspondents, across the Nile to Khartum. We moved alongside the quay in front of the ruins of Gordon's palace, and the troops formed a rough semicircle, with the Sirdar, his Staff, and the two foreign AttachÉs inside. Four chaplains took their stand with their faces to the river, ready to conduct a memorial service. At ten o'clock the Union Jack was run up from one of the flagstaffs which surmounted the ruined faÇade of the palace, and almost immediately afterwards the Crescent flag of Egypt was unfurled. The gunboat Melik fired twenty-one guns, but as no blank ammunition was forthcoming, twenty-one shells were sent screaming up the Nile—a most unique and realistic form of salute! After this hearty cheers were given for Her Gracious Majesty the Queen and His Highness the Khedive. Then came a brief and simple service to the memory of the brave man who, thirteen long years ago, had so often stood on the very terrace which lay in ruins before us, and, hoping against hope, looked northwards over the desert—but in vain—for any sign of help from England! The air of Gordon's favourite hymn was played, and as its cadence fell upon the ears, one's thoughts recalled the words of the exquisite verses—

How truly must the spirit of these lines have been felt by Gordon, that noble and sincere Christian, deserted by man, yet doubtless sustained by the abiding presence of his Master in life and death.

During our brief stay at Omdurman every variety of loot was hawked about the camp for sale. Huge shields of hippopotamus hide, spears, swords, old rifles, Mahdist coins, and other trophies of battle or pillage, found ready purchasers. A negro paid me a visit who was clad in chain mail, cut rather after the fashion of a dress coat. There was, indeed, quite a flavour of the Margate sands about the appearance of this Ethiopian, with his striped cotton trousers and his metallic coat, the tails of which, like those of Burnand's hero, "positively swept the ground." These suits of mail were beautifully made of steel rings, and could be purchased for about twenty-five shillings each; but they were very heavy and awkward things to carry about. Everybody brought back a Dervish sword or two, which were often very interesting. Some blades had the famous Ferrara stamp, others were marked by the mail-clad figure which is said to belong to the period of the Crusades, from which, at anyrate, the general pattern of Dervish swords—a straight blade with a plain cross hilt—seems to date. The pretty gibbehs, too, were brought home in large numbers; there were nearly eleven thousand of them available for selection on the sandy plain three miles away! The history of the Dervish gibbeh is rather a quaint one. The original garment was, of course, the plain white cotton coat of the Arab; but the Mahdi, who was somewhat ascetic—in theory, at anyrate, if not in practice—ordered his followers to sew black patches upon their nice white coats, as tokens of humility. But alas for human frailty, what was intended to curb the spiritual pride of the faithful became a direct incentive to the vainglorious adornment of their persons! The ladies of Omdurman were strongly opposed to the dowdiness of the black patches upon their husbands and lovers, and, under the influence of the more Æsthetic circles of Dervish society, the white gibbehs were gradually tricked out with gaudy squares of blue, red, and purple.

Many of the dead bodies in the field had rosaries round their necks, usually made of box or sandal wood. Nobody paid much attention to these ornaments, but from one point of view they are interesting. Was the use of a row of beads for religious purposes borrowed from the Christians by the Moslems, or vice versÂ? Another curious relic was an insulator from a Dervish field telegraph, which had been worked between a point near Gebel Surgham and Omdurman during the battle. Many of the dead Emirs wore watches, one of which was marked "Dent, London."

Our soldiers seemed to thoroughly enjoy the rest at Omdurman. They had probably some very quaint ideas of our geographical surroundings and the reason for our presence in the Sudan. On 4th September some companies of Sudanese who had been sent up the river in pursuit of the Khalifa were seen returning in the distance with a long string of Dervish prisoners. There was great excitement amongst the British troops; whole battalions ran wildly over the sand expecting to catch a glimpse of the Dervish leader, and I heard one Tommy Atkins say to his comrade, "'Urry up, Bill, come along; they've cotched the bloody Khee-dive!"

In addition to Dervish prisoners who were captured by the active Sudanese, hundreds came in voluntarily and surrendered themselves. Many were wounded more or less seriously, but of the rest a large number were enrolled as soldiers of the Khedive! What amazing versatility! On one day the Dervish rushes boldly against our shells and bullets, and on the next he joins us as a comrade in arms! Some of the French papers declared ungenerously that the Sirdar had armed these Dervish allies in order to dispatch them against Major Marchand. Such an act would under the circumstances have been legitimate, and had these newly enrolled soldiers of the Khedive been given a free hand, "the evacuation of Fashoda" would have been ancient history by this time! But of course no such intention ever entered the Sirdar's head. The brave Marchand certainly deserved a better fate than to be wiped out by ex-Dervishes.

The prisoners were released from their fetters on the night of the battle. Amongst them were a number of jet black Abyssinians, survivors of the sanguinary battle of Galabat. I saw Charles Neufeld, and he looked very little the worse for his stay at Omdurman. A great deal of English sympathy has been wasted on this person. The harrowing stories we have read in the papers of the poor captive languishing in hopeless captivity are sheer nonsense. On two separate occasions Neufeld had the chance of escape, for a clever and courageous Arab called Oman had been dispatched by the Intelligence Department to rescue the captive. Neufeld, however, refused to leave Omdurman unless he was accompanied by a black woman, with whom he lived. This was obviously out of the question. So Father Rossignoli was rescued instead, and brought safely to Assouan.

An infinitely more pathetic case was that of the two Austrian Sisters who had been compelled to marry Greeks. One of these, who was childless, returned to Cairo; but the other, who had borne her husband three children, elected—so I heard—to remain for good at Omdurman. The poor woman felt that she could never face her co-religionists at home after her vows of celibacy had been broken. I remember as I walked along the bazaar on the morning after the fight I noticed a European woman in Arab dress standing amongst a crowd of natives. She looked wistfully and sadly at the British as they passed, and I always regret that I did not speak to her.

Slatin Pasha soon returned from his pursuit of the Khalifa. The Egyptian cavalry had followed the tracks of the fugitive for thirty miles up the river, but as the horses were dead beat and no forage could be landed from the gunboat accompanying the pursuit, owing to a long stretch of marshy ground, the squadrons were compelled to return without the Khalifa. I happened to be strolling past Slatin's tent at the time, and he called me in and told me how terribly disappointed he was at the failure of the pursuit. He was kept very busy all the time we were at Omdurman by continual visits from many old Dervish friends and acquaintances. One day when I was with him a handsome old Arab with a white beard came into the tent, and sinking down without a word, bent his head over Slatin's shoulder and wept. At length he found words to tell us that his only son had been killed in the fighting. "Oh, Hassan," said Slatin, and could get no further—his kind heart was too full of pity; and as he placed his hand on to his old friend's shoulder and tried to soothe his sorrow, I turned away, unable to bear the sight of the father's grief.

As Cross grew no better, and there was little else to do in Omdurman, I asked Colonel Wingate to allow us a passage on the first gunboat leaving for the North. Accordingly, on the morning of the 6th, Cross, RenÉ Bull, and myself embarked on the Metemmeh, and steamed away down the river. Nobody was sorry to say good-bye to the repulsive streets of Omdurman.

Two barges packed with the rank and file of the Warwicks were lashed to either side of the Metemmeh, which carried on board Colonel Forbes and the officers of the battalion, together with Lieutenant Clerk of the 21st Lancers. We were all in excellent spirits, and fully expected to reach the Atbara in about thirty hours. As steam and current bore us rapidly past the battlefield in the twilight, the vultures circling over the distant plain and the broken zeriba by the river's bank were the only visible signs which remained to tell of our momentous victory.

We were not destined to reach the Atbara in thirty hours! The sun had set, and the reis had been advised to tie up to the banks for the night; but the obstinate fellow denied the necessity of any stoppage for another hour or two, so we went tearing down the stream at a tremendous pace. Dinner was just over—a curious meal, supported almost entirely by voluntary contributions of tinned meats, rice, jams, etc.—when, without a moment's warning, a tremendous shock sent everything and everybody sprawling over the deck. Loud cries of "We are going over" came from the river, and through the semi-darkness one could see that the troop barge had been wrenched from its lashings by the shock, and was heeling over in a terrible manner. Everybody on board the gunboat shouted "Sit down," "Keep still"; and it was very fine to see how the soldiers immediately obeyed their officers, though for the moment they fully expected to be capsized into the flooded stream. By good luck the detached barge righted itself and remained fixed in midstream, about thirty yards from the gunboat and the other barge.

Nobody quite knew where we were or what had happened, but as it seemed certain that we were not likely to go much further that night, we all made preparations for going to sleep. The upper deck was quite a small affair, and the space at our disposal was curtailed by the presence of a large table and a number of camp chairs. Over these few square yards of deck we had to dispose the recumbent forms of some twenty-six human beings. The result was a sort of Chinese puzzle. I had always heard that Nature, when she had any close packing to do, employed the beautiful simplicity of the hexagon, and suggested a trial of this system; but the theory, owing, probably, to dissimilarities in our lengths and breadths, would not work at all. We lay in wild disorder, but so tightly wedged together that it was impossible to move about when one had finally secured one's berth in this casual ward! A friend's boots gently reposed upon my pillow all night, while my own feet were thrust against the ribs of a transverse form below.

When the sun rose next morning we saw that the incompetent reis had run us right on to a sandy island which is submerged when the Nile is in full flood. The whole of that day was spent in endeavouring to drag the gunboat and the barges off the sandbank. The Nasr, under the command of Lieutenant Hon. H. L. A. Hood, happened to come along, and did her best to help us, but the only hawser available snapped like a thread from the strain put upon it, and the Nasr departed. The troops were then ordered to get into the shallows and try to push the barges off. What had been foreseen by several of us happened! The soldiers managed to shove one of the barges into deep water, and then several of them, unable to check their movements, found themselves out of their depths in the strong current. One poor fellow was drowned under our eyes, and two others were just rescued in a state of utter exhaustion by natives with life-belts. The whole thing was a complete muddle, and we all felt angry at the incompetence and obstinacy which had brought about the needless loss of life.

Another night was spent on this depressing sandbank, and at dinner we became aware that something dreadful had attached itself to the vessel. We looked over the side, and from the space between the gunboat and the left-hand barge emerged the body of an Egyptian cavalry man. The corpse bobbed up and down on the swirling waters in a horribly grotesque fashion. Its spurs had caught the woodwork of the barge for a few moments and delayed its rapid passage down the Nile. I remember we remarked, "Oh, it's only a dead Gyppy," and then went back to our dinner.

Next day we made a desperate effort to get afloat, and finally succeeded. Instead, however, of being the first to reach Atbara Camp, and to secure the earliest train service to Wady Halfa, we had had the mortification of seeing the Seaforth Highlanders pass us the day before.

At Nasri Island I landed to get the tent and other baggage which we had left behind us on leaving Wad Hamed, but was informed that the five ghyassas containing officers' luggage—and our own unfortunate belongings amongst it—had capsized two days before. My precious tent, two Gladstone bags, and a case of stores lay fathoms deep in the Nile, and all the consolation I had was to draw up a pathetic claim for compensation from the impecunious Egyptian War Office.

By the time we arrived at the Atbara, Cross's illness had increased, and his temperature had gone up to 100°. The army surgeon on board the Metemmeh advised him to stay in hospital at the Atbara for a few days before proceeding to Cairo, and the officer in charge of the hospital gave the same advice. I had already heard from another medical man that he did not detect any traces of typhoid symptoms in Cross; so one thought that he was merely suffering from the common feverishness which comes from a "touch of the sun," and passes off after a few days. I remained at the Atbara for a night, and then went on with the Warwicks to Wady Halfa, leaving a servant with Cross, who had arranged to follow by the next train in two days' time.

The remainder of our homeward journey was comparatively uneventful. The bad luck, however, which seemed to follow the Warwicks delayed us for twenty-four hours on our journey to Wady Halfa, for the wretched engines which dragged our cattle pens (first class) and baggage trucks (third class) repeatedly broke down from overheating and lack of grease.

During a short wait at Shellal my servant called my attention to a woman on the bank, who was apparently in great distress, and told me that she was weeping because she had been divorced by her husband. Such cases are often very cruel, for Mohammedan law allows a husband to write his wife a bill of divorcement without pretext of any sort. At the same time, he is bound to maintain her for three months, and her dowry is restored. Many good Moslems deplore the obsolete character of their divorce laws, which have outlived their usefulness. Still, it must not be forgotten that in one respect Moslem wives have for centuries enjoyed a privilege which was not possessed by Englishwomen until a recent date, namely, the absolute control of their own money and property. Female education, too, which is increasing rapidly in the towns, and later on will spread to the country districts, will doubtless serve to improve the status and welfare of native women. Monogamy is already almost universal with the fellahin, and is steadily gaining ground amongst the educated classes. A good deal of false sentiment is often expended by good people in England over the lot of their Mohammedan sisters, but they may rest assured that women all the world over have the amelioration of their condition very largely in their own hands. Further, a very slight acquaintance at first hand with Oriental countries will show one that Moslem home life is full of happiness, and that nowhere in the world is greater devotion lavished by parents upon their children.

At Luxor the blessings of civilisation met us again, in the shape of a nice breakfast at the hotel and a big bath. Most of us had slept more or less in our ordinary clothes for several weeks, and everyone, from the Colonel downwards, wallowed joyfully in an unlimited supply of warm water. As we sat at breakfast, someone told me that a camel had died just near the hotel from the bite of an asp. The snake, a little creature some eight inches long, was lying under the sand, according to its wont, with its head just above the ground. The poor camel trod on it, and was bitten in the foot. It speedily died, swollen to nearly double its ordinary size, and the natives lit a fire over its carcass. The Arabs dread the little asp terribly, and its bite is nearly always fatal. A special antitoxin has been prepared by the Institut Pasteur from the serum of horses bitten by poisonous snakes. A subcutaneous injection of ten cubic centimetres of this fluid is alleged to be a sure specific against the bite of any known species of venomous land-snake. But this preparation is practically useless in the Sudan, as it loses its efficacy if much exposed to light or to a high degree of heat. Nor has it, so far as I know, ever yet been tried in the case of any human being bitten by a deadly snake. I took some with me last year when exploring in Sokotra with the late Mr. Theodore Bent, but despite the glowing accounts of the efficacy of dowa Inglizi and offers of large bakshish, the faith of the natives was never robust enough to allow them to voluntarily submit to a snake bite for experimental purposes.

On the final stage of our railway journey from Luxor to Cairo, Lieutenant Clerk and I shared a carriage between us, and were extremely comfortable. Ali redoubled his efforts in the cooking line, and for our final meal in the train, to which we invited a military chaplain, the Rev. E. H. Pulling, we used up all our remaining tins, and dined off pÂtÉ de foie gras, a curried blend of prawns and chicken, and stewed apricots—a good instance of what a clever Arab servant can turn out with a spirit-lamp and a couple of tin saucepans in a crowded third-class carriage.

After waiting four days in Cairo, and receiving a telegram from the Atbara which gave me no cause for the least apprehension about Cross's condition, I left Alexandra on the 17th of September for Marseilles. On board I renewed my acquaintance with Major Stuart-Wortley, and amongst the other passengers were Prince Francis of Teck and Prince Christian Victor. Prince Francis had been very ill throughout the latter part of the campaign, but during the fight had risen from his bed, in spite of medical advice, and worked a Maxim gun with good effect.

We left Marseilles by the morning rapide on the 21st, and as we were crossing the Channel on the 22nd, Prince Christian handed me the Morning Post, and pointed to a paragraph which announced the death of Cross from enteric fever on the 20th.

The news took away for the time being all the joy of one's return. Twice I have been fated to lose my travelling companion by death when the work was finished which we set ourselves to do. Cross was an old Hertford man, who had rowed five in the 'Varsity boat of 1889, and had afterwards been appointed to an assistant mastership at Bedford. He had always been very loyal to his old college, and our successes on the river were largely due to his "coaching." We shall all—seniors and juniors alike—miss him greatly. In spite of constant attacks of illness from exposure to the sun, each of which left him weaker than before, Cross had refused to return from the front, and, as I said above, had actually dragged himself out of hospital in order to be present at the battle. But while his natural vivacity and vigour were to some extent impaired by physical debility, he was always unselfish in the "give and take" of camp life, and bore uncomplainingly the many discomforts which are necessarily experienced by the sick during the advance of an army. Still side by side with his courageous endurance of physical suffering, and the coolness which he showed when under fire for the first time, the central thought which occupied Cross's mind was that of returning to his beloved work at Bedford.

The Sudan campaign, which, thanks to the Sirdar's wonderful genius for organisation, has been so thoroughly successful, cannot be regarded as in any sense final. Unless our recovery of the Nile banks as far as Omdurman is followed by the possession of the Bahr-el-Ghazal, we may almost be said to have laboured in vain. If we stayed our hand at Khartum, or even Fashoda, the same remark which Lord Salisbury passed on the French possessions in the Sahara, that "the soil was rather light," would apply equally well to our arid conquests in the Sudan. The so-called French occupation of the Bahr-el-Ghazal must not be allowed to count for anything. Their utter failure as colonisers in French Congo, Senegal, and even Algeria, and the selfish tariffs with which they seek to exclude foreign industry from the regions which they reserve for Frenchmen who never come—these things deprive them of any moral claim to further annexations of vast territories in the interior of Africa. Moreover, the Bahr-el-Ghazal was indubitably a province of Egypt before the Mahdi's revolt, and must be restored to the Khedive intact. Under British control this fertile province will be able to develop its splendid resources. Coffee grows wild, timber abounds, and thousands of square miles are ready for the cultivation of corn, two crops of which can be grown in a single year. In ancient days Egypt was the granary of Europe. Rome and Byzantium were dependent almost entirely upon the Alexandrian corn-ships. In fact, one of the most serious accusations which could be brought against a citizen was that he was carrying on intrigues for the stoppage of these vessels. This actual charge was levied against the great Athanasius himself, and the philosopher Sopater, who was accused of delaying the corn supply by magical rites, was promptly decapitated by Constantine "because he was too clever" (d?' ?pe????? s?f?a?). There is no reason why the Bahr-el-Ghazal, when connected by river and rail with the sea, should not take its place as one of the great corn-growing countries of the world. Again, an exploration of the Nuba region to the north of the province may lead to the discovery of mineral wealth. At anyrate, during an earlier campaign, a Dervish caravan was captured by the forces under Sir Francis Grenfell, and amongst the merchandise was found a large quantity of gold which had been dug out of the Nuba Hills.

But even when the possession and organisation of the Bahr-el-Ghazal has become an accomplished fact, we find ourselves barred by a belt of territory some two hundred miles across, from Uganda to the north of Lake Tanganyika. Despite the vital importance of securing a road between Uganda and Nyassaland, Lord Salisbury allowed Germany to make the western frontier of its East African possessions conterminous with that of the Congo State, and thus completely bar our advance from north or south. But in this case what was lost by the weakness of one Government may be recovered by the firmness of another; and if this result be happily secured, the territories regained to civilisation by Lord Kitchener's genius will be united to our vast possessions in the South, and Mr. Cecil Rhodes' magnificent idea of a British Empire in Africa, stretching from Cairo to the Cape, will at length be realised in actual fact.