Chapter I: Preface

In the following pages I have aimed at furnishing some account of the interesting experiences which fell to our lot during the recent campaign in the Sudan.

My best thanks are due to several friends for the assistance they have rendered me, and I feel especially grateful to H.H. Prince Christian Victor of Schleswig-Holstein and Major Stuart-Wortley, C.M.G., for their very kind help in supplying me with much additional and interesting information about the work of the Gunboats and the Friendly Tribes.

I must also acknowledge the courteous permission accorded me by the Editor of the _Westminster Gazette_ to use in the compilation of this book some of the letters which I had previously contributed to the columns of his newspaper.

ERNEST N. BENNETT.

HERTFORD COLLEGE, OXFORD,
_1st November 1898_.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

FROM CAIRO TO THE ATBARA
PAGE
Correspondents' Permits--Academic Obstacles--Fellow-Passengers
to Alexandria--French Animosity in
Egypt--Indifferentism of Egyptian Natives--An
Interesting Dinner--Preparations for the Campaign--Egyptian
Magic--A Native "Medium"--Ali buys
a Sword--Departure from Cairo--A Matrimonial
Quarrel--Rumours about the Khalifa--Discomforts
of the Night Journey--The Luxor Hotel--Malevolent
Spiders--Karnak--By Rail to Shellal--Imbecility of
Ali's Brother--Hospital Arrangements--Dreariness
of a Nile Voyage--Cheerfulness of Tommy Atkins--A
Classic Tale of Horror--Death of a Soldier--From
Wady Halfa in a Cattle Truck--Abu Ahmed--First
Night at the Atbara--Chequered Career of the _El
Tahra_--Life at Atbara Camp--The Plagues of Egypt
up to Date--Perverse Camels--Failure of our
Attempts to overtake Lancers 1

CHAPTER II

FROM THE ATBARA TO WAD HAMED

A Crowded _Ghyassa_--A Talking Mummy--Slatin Pasha--Animal
Life on the Banks--The Pyramids of Meroe--Work
for Archæologists--A Gaalin Sheikh--A
Dervish Deserter--Abu Klea--A Sandstorm--Arrival
at Wad Hamed--We meet the Sirdar--Types of the
War Correspondent--Entomology--Insect Life in the
Sudan--Desert Circulating Library--Fly-fishing in
the Nile--Military "Fatigues"--Fugitives from
Omdurman--Our Camp Life at Wad Hamed--Thirst
in the Tropics--How we Dined--Good-bye to
Wad Hamed 56