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"Well, that would only be a work of two or three hours; but it was getting back on to their own ground, and beyond the risk of our cutting them offit was that which was the difficulty." "They cut the telegraph wires, didn't they?"

"Oh, yes, of course. They always commence operations in that way. But still they wouldn't have got anything like so long a start as they did if it had not been for the villagers themselves. The fellows who were despatched to this place to give us information of the raid actually put up for the night on their way here, and we didn't get the news till the next morning. What can you do with a people so 'casual' as that?"

It did seem a little easy-going, to be sure. One tried to imagine the Malise of Scott's poem stopping at a ighland inn, interrupting his wild career through the glens, with "danger, death, and deadly deed" behind him, for a cosy supper and a bed.

When the messengers did at last arrive the troops of the garrison were, it seems, engaged in manœuvring"Egyptian Army resisting an attack of Dervishes," being the order of the day's programme, and a droll misunderstanding occurred. "The Dervishes have captured a village, sir," was the breathless announcement made to the commanding officer watching the evolutions of the combatants; and "All right" was the natural reply. "So much the better for the officer in command of them." It was, of course, some little time before the two armies could be generally apprised of the fact that it was a question of real and not of sham Dervishes, and that they must unite forces in pursuit of the common enemy, who, thanks to the leisurely proceedings of the villagers, were by that time well on their way back to their base of operations.

"It was too many hours' start to give the rascals," said our informant, regretfully.

We expressed the surprise of ignorance at its being possible to give them any start at all. Surely a tribe whose business is "robbery under arms," would be as well mounted as a clan of Border-reivers in the old cattle-lifting

days. The camels of a band of raiding Dervishes ought to be a match for any others.

"Wait till you have seen ours," replied our friend, with a smile. "Our camelcorps are mounted on the finest animals to be obtained anywhere in the African desert. In fact, most people who come to Egypt don't really know what a camel is, and is capable of, until they have paid us a visit. There is as much difference between a cavalry camel of the first quality and the unkempt and ungainly brutes that shamble backwards and forwards between the Pyramids and the Mena House Hotel as there is between a cart-horse and a thoroughbred. But look! Here come some of the camel-corps back from exercise. We have not got such a good show today as we should have liked to give you, but you can almost see the difference in their way of 'going,' even at this distance."

Under a dense cloud of the desert dust two considerable detachments of camelcavalry were seen approaching us at the trot, which by the time they had got abreast of us had slackened into a walk. Truly, there was no exaggeration in the praises to which we had been listening. The difference between what may be called the camel of commerce and this humped charger was immense, astonishing, to any one who has not seen it almost incredible. It was the difference between a slouching, morose, and ragged street loafer and the same man set up and smartened into the welldrilled soldier of a crack regiment. The camel of commerce, as we most of us know him, is a coarse-haired, untidy brute,

knock-kneed and awkwardgaited, with a sullen, if not vindictive, expression of countenance, and a coat all tags and tufts. But these were clean-limbed and comely creatures, with skins that shone like satin in the evening sun. They carried their heads as if they were proud of them, and planted their feet with neatness and precision, keeping step as perfectly as the chargers of a troop of cavalry. Merely to see them walk was enough to dispel all doubts as to their ability to outstrip any animal that a Dervish is likely to be bestriding. And as for drill and disci

pline, we soon have an opportunity of judging of their efficiency in those respects when we follow our guide to the camping-ground and see scores of these usually unmanageable animals kneeling down in long rows at the word of command before the shallow trenches in which the men have placed for them their evening meal.

"We keep a detachment of the Camel Corps in a condition to take the field, you might almost say, at a moment's notice," another officer told us. "Rations for the men, forage for the beasts, arms and ammunition-everything in constant readiness. In less than half an hour after the order was given they would be on the march."

We looked along the lines of crouching and feeding camels, with their sturdy, sable Soudanese riders standing motionless behind them-the picture of organized efficiency-and we could well understand the present inclination of the Dervishes to give them as wide a berth as possible. The Khalifa's followers have had lessons in that wisdom since the severe one which they received at Toski in 1889. A year or two ago the country around Wady Halfa was alive with them, and though they never actually attacked our position, they had the audacity to threaten it. But since then they have been so effectually cleared out that this sudden excursion upon a Nubian village well to the north of the frontier which we defend was a peculiarly irritating surprise. It is the more so because, for political and other reasons, reprisals are out of the question.

"The watch-dog," observed one of our officers, with some bitterness, "is, unfortunately, tied. He is allowed to go only to the length of his chain, and then he is pulled up."

Obviously, therefore, if the thief can only get start enough to save his calves he gets off scot free. Yet, on the other

hand, one sees the futility of any temporary slipping of the collar. The watchdog sees it himself. There would not be the slightest difficulty in chastising the perpetrators of this raid by a descent upon the district from which they came. But what would be the use? "We should probably kill five per cent. of the men who were concerned in it," observed a high official of the Intelligence Department, "and 95 per cent. of people who have no more to do with it than you or I." There is nothing to be done but to keep "pegging away" at patrol work, and trust to catching the Dervishes in the very act on their next attempt. It may not be long before the opportunity occurs, for the Dervishes, one hears, are full of elation at their recent success. They could hardly be "more cock-awhoop," one of our friends puts in, "if they had sacked Cairo." They are boasting, it is believed, that it takes the camel corps of the infidels six hours to mobilize. It is the eager hope of every man in the garrison of Wady Halfa that they will soon test the accuracy of this calculation.

In talk of this kind the golden afternoon wears away in a still, starry, tropicai night. Dinner awaits us at the hospitable mess-room looking over the moon-lit Nile, and it is time to bring our walk through the camp to a close. Tomorrow we set our faces to the north once more, and leave behind us this furthest outpost of civilization in northern Africa, with its garrison of stalwart blacks, and their cheery young English officers, keeping inviolate the Pax Britannica, even as their spiritual fathers in history kept the Roman Peace on those distant barriers of their empire against which, until the day of its decline, the insurging tides of barbarism beat so long in vain.

From "From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier." By H. D. Traill. John Lane, Publisher. Price $1.50.

Achievements of Cavalry. By General Sir Evelyn Wood, V. C., G. C. B., G. C. M. G. George Bell & Sons, Publishers.

Africa, The New. By Aurel Schulz, M. D., and August Hammar, C. E. Wm. Heinemann, Publisher.

Armada, the Year After: and Other Historical Studies. By Martin Hume. Fisher Unwin, Publisher.

Arnold of Rugby, His School Life and Contributions to Education. Edited

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In Camp and Cantonment. By Edith E. Cuthell. Hurst & Blackett, Publishers.

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Pacific Tales. By Louis Becke. New Amsterdam Book Co., Publishers. Price $1.50.

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Books and Their Makers During the Middle Ages. By G. H. Putnam. Vol. II, 1500-1709. G. P. Putnam's Sons. Price $2.50.

British Central Africa. By Sir Henry

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Chopin's Greater Works: How They Should be Understood. By Jean Kleczynski. Translated by Natalie Janotha. Wm. Reeves, Publisher. Christian, The. By Hall Caine. D. Appleton & Co., Publishers. Price $1.50.

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French Revolution and English Literature, The. By Edward Dowden, LL. D. Charles Scribner's Sons, Publishers. Price $1.25.

History of Dogma. By Dr. Adolph Harnack. Translated by Neil Buchanan.

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Stone & Co., Publishers. Price $1.25. Philip Gilbert Hamerton: An Autobiography, 1834-1858, and a Memoir by His Wife, 1858-1894. Seeley, Publisher.

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Royal Smile, A: A Child's Story of York in the Seventeenth Century. Bentley, Publisher.

Salted With Fire. By George Macdonald. Hurst & Blackett, Publishers.

Social England. By Various Writers. Edited by H. D. Traill, D. C. L. Vol. VI, "From the Battle of Waterloo to the General Election of 1885." Cassell, Publisher.

Spanish Protestants in the Sixteenth Century. Compiled from the German of C. A. Wilkins, D. D., Ph. D., by Rachel Challice. Wm. Heinemann, Publisher.

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