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of every movement, in the pride of every private's bearing, what a wonderful difference! This was quite a new kind of black-every man a warrior from his youth up. "Lu-u-u, lu-u-u," piped the women; the men held up their heads and made no sound, but you could see the answer to that appeal quivering all down the column. For "we," they say, "are like the English; we are not afraid."

And is it not good to think, ladies and gentlemen, as you walk in Piccadilly or the Mile End Road, that every one of these niggers honestly believes that to be English and to know fear are two things never heard of together? Utterly fearless themselves, savages brought up to think death in battle the natural lot of man, far preferable to defeat or disgrace, they have lived with English officers and English sergeants, through years of war and pestilence, and never seen any sign that these are not as contemptuous of death as themselves. They have seen many Englishmen die they have never seen an Englishman show fear.

XI.

THE CONCENTRATION.

At the time I was disposed to blame the Mess President, but on calm reflection I see that the fault lay with the nature of the Arab. We knew that the Sirdar was to start early on the 15th on the eighteenmile ride to Kenur, and it was our purpose to travel shortly behind him. The only restrictions, I may say at once, laid upon correspondents during this campaign were that they were not to go out on reconnaissances, and especially not to go near the Sirdar. They were advised not to stand in front of the firing line during general actions, but even this was not insisted upon. It did indeed require a fair deal of tact and agility to keep out of the Sirdar's eye, since his Excellency had a wearing habit of always appearing at any point where there was anything of interest going on. But practice soon brought proficiency, and for the rest the correspondent, except when he had to work, enjoyed by far the most enviable position in the army.

Therefore we had planned to start as soon as the

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Sirdar was out of sight, and arrive just after he had disappeared into his quarters. We rose up at five and gloomily began to dismantle our home. We carted the tables and the chairs into the yard; we tore down the very shelves: who could tell when they would not be useful? By seven breakfast was over; the horses and camels were grouped around our door in the High Street; the bags and cases were fastened up and lying each on the right side of its right camel. There was nothing left but the chairs and the tables and the shelves and a bucket, and the breakfast things and a case to put them in. At eight I went out to see how things were looking; they were looking exactly the same, a question of precedence having arisen as to whose duty it was to wash up. At nine they were still the same, and we expostulated with the men: they said they were just ready. At ten the chairs and tables and breakfast things and camels were still lying about, and the men had disappeared. At eleven they had not returned. At twelve they condescended to return, and, adjourning the question of washing up, began packing the breakfast things dirty. At this point each man separately was called a dog, fined a pound, and promised fifty lashes. They received the judgment with surprised and wounded but respectful expostulation: what had they done? They had merely been in the bazaar a very little while, O thou Excellency, to buy food. By this time we were getting hungry; so, rather than delay the loading up, we went

to a Greek café and lunched on ptomained sardines and vinegar out of a Graves bottle. When we got back things were exactly as we had left them: the men suavely explained that they had been lunching too. At last at half-past one every camel had been loaded and stood up; and then it was discovered that all the chairs were being left behind. It became necessary to catch camels one by one, climb up them, and, standing on neck or hump, to tie two chairs apiece on to them. While the second was being done, the first walked away and rubbed himself against a wall, and knocked his chairs off again. Every one of the men rushed at him with furious yells; the second camel, left to himself, waddled up to the wall with an absent-minded air, and rubbed off his chairs.

At this point-about two in the afternoon, six hours after the contemplated start-human nature could bear it no longer. With curses and blows we told them to follow immediately if they valued their lives, and rode on. That was all they wanted. Looking back after a hundred yards we saw every camel loaded up and starting. If we had stayed behind we should never have got off that night. If we had ridden on six hours before we should not have been delayed. One time is as good as another to the Arab as long as he feels that he is wasting it. Give him half an hour and he will take an hour; allow him six hours and he will require twelve.

But of course by this time it was hopeless to expect

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that the baggage would make eighteen miles by dark. At Essillem, a dozen miles out, we found Colonel Maxwell's brigade with all its baggage packed, waiting only camels to move on too. At Darmali we found exactly the same state of things. General Gatacre's never-failing hospitality produced dinner, after which we fell in with the disposition of the rest of the army, and waited for camels too. At ten, just as we were going to sleep in the sand in the middle of the main street of the village, they loafed up, very cheerful, and feeling quite sure that they would be neither fined nor flogged. Had they not covered thirteen miles in a trifle under eight hours?

Then suddenly I was awake again, at the shy meeting of a quarter-moon and dawn. The beginning of what I knew, after my boy came to my chilly bedchamber under a wall and said reveille was about to sound, was a monstrous confusion of camels. You could see that the ground was strewn with vague, shapeless, swaying lumps, with smaller, more agile shadows crawling over them. What they were was very plain from the noises: the camels had arrived. The camel, when it is a question of either working or leaving off work - so magnificently impartial is his stupidity-can protest in any voice from a wolf's snarl to the wail of an uncomforted child. As each camel was loaded it jerked up its towering height and towering load-one of ours this time, I blush to say, was two sacks of barley, a deal table, and all the eight