gent, industrious, and harmless creature. On the contrary, you find it admirable that Egypt's ruffians are doing Egypt's work.

Halfa clangs from morning till night with rails lassoed and drawn up a sloping pair of their fellows by many convicts on to trucks; it thuds with sleepers and boxes of bully-beef dumped on to the shore. As you come home from dinner you stumble over strange rails, and sudden engine-lamps flash in your face, and warning whistles scream in your ears. As you lie at night you hear the plug-plug of the goods engine, nearer and nearer, till it sounds as if it must be walking in at your tent door. From the shops of Halfa the untamed Sudan is being tamed at last. It is the new system, the modern system-mind and mechanics beating muscle and shovel-head spear. It takes up and digests all the past: the bits of Ismail's railway came into the Dongola line; the engine of Wolseley's time has been rebuilt, and is running again; the artillery barracks are a store for all things pertaining to engines. They came together for the fourth act-the annihilating surprise of Ferkeh, the masterly passage of Hafir, the occupation of Dongola and Merawi, the swift march and sharp storm of Abu Hamed, the swoop on Berber. They were all coming together now for the victorious end, ready to enter for the fifth act and the final curtain on Khartum.

But that is not all Halfa, and it is not all the Sudan. Looking at it hence from its threshold, the

Sudan seems like a strong and swift wild beast, which many hunters have pursued, none subdued. The Sudan is a man-eater-red-gorged, but still insatiable. Turn your pony's head and canter out a mile; we are at the cemetery. No need to dismount, or even to read the names-see merely how full it is. Each white cross is an Englishman devoured by the Sudan. Go and hear the old inhabitants talk-the men who have contrived to live year in, year out, in the Sudan, in splitting sun and redhot sand. You will notice it best with the men who are less trained to take a pull on their sentiment than are British officers-with the engineer corporals and the foreman mechanics, and all the other plain, efficient Englishmen who are at work on Halfa. Their talk is half of the chances of action, and the other half of their friends that have died.

"Poor Bill, 'e died in the desert surveying to Habu 'Amed. Yes, 'e's 'ere in the cemetery. No; there wasn't any white man there at the time."

“Ah, yes; he was a good fellow, and so was poor Captain Blank; a real nice man, he was now; no better in all the Egyptian army, sir, and I tell you that's saying a good deal, that is. Fought, too,

against it; he was engaged to a girl at home, you know, sir, and he wouldn't give up. I nursed him till the doctor come, and then till the end. Didn't you see him when you was out at the cemetery; he's next to poor Dash?"

"Ah, yes," says the third; "don't you remember that night out at Murat-poor Blank, and poor Dash, and poor Tertius, and you, and me. Five we were, and now there's only us two left. Dear, yes; and I slept in Tertius's bed the night before he took it; he was gone and buried forty-eight-no, thirty-six, it was-thirty-six hours later. Ah, yes; he was a good fellow, too. The way those niggers cried!"

Yes; it is a murderous devil, the Sudan, and we have watered it with more of our blood than it will ever yield to pay for. The man-eater is very grim, and he is not sated yet. Only this time he was to be conquered at last.

II.

THE EGYPTIAN ARMY.

THE Anglo-Egyptian army is not quite sixteen years old. The old Turco-Egyptian army was knocked to pieces by Lord Wolseley at Tel-el-Kebir, and the Mahdi ground the fragments to powder. Out of the nothing which remained sixteen years of British leadership have sufficed to build up an army capable of fighting foot for foot with the victors of Tel-elKebir, and accustomed to see the backs of the conquerors of Hicks and Baker and Gordon.

Sixteen years of active service have seen a great increase on the eight battalions which were Sir Evelyn Wood's original command. To-day the Egyptian army numbers nineteen battalions of infantry, ten squadrons of cavalry, one horse and four field batteries, and Maxims, a camel corps of eight companies, and the usual non-combatant services. Lord Dufferin limited the original army to 6000 men, with 25 white officers; to-day it counts three times that number with over 140.

The army is of course raised by conscription. But probably the conscription sits less heavily on Egypt than on any country in the world. Out of ten millions it takes-counting the railway battalionsunder 20,000 men,-that is to say, one out of every 500 of population; whereas Germany takes 1 in 89, and France 1 in 66. That is only on the peace-footing, moreover; Egypt has been at war ever since the birth of the new army; no conscriptive nation ever carried war so lightly. On the other hand, the Egyptian soldier is called on to serve six years with the colours and nine in the reserve or the police. The small proportion of men taken enables the War Office to pick and choose; so that in point of physique also the Egyptian army could probably give weight to any in the world. And not only is it the smallest of conscriptive armies—it is also the best paid. The fellah receives a piastre (21d.) a-day-a magnificent salary, equal to what he would usually be making in full work in his native village.

Even these figures do not do justice to the easy conditions on which Egypt supports her army. For of the eighteen battalions of infantry, six-9th to 14thare Sudanese blacks. The material of these is not drawn from Egypt proper, nor, properly speaking, by conscription. The black is liable to be enlisted wherever he is found, as such, in virtue of his race; and he is enlisted for life. Such a law would be a terrible tyranny for the fellah: in the estimation of the black