San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1888-05-31
Che Daily Eight.
THURSDAY, MAY, 80, 1883.
AN INTERESTING EXTRACT.

There are not few among the read
ers OF the LIGHT who have taken q
deep interest in the operations of the
English amry in Egypt. For their
pleasure and instruction, as well. doubt
less, as for that Of many others the
LIGHT takes great satisfaction in pre-
senting to its readers the following ex-
tract from tho pen of a young English
officer on duty with the army In Egypt.
The letter was written to an English
gentleman In this city, through whose
courtesy the LIGHT has been permitted
to make the following extracts. They
show the situation from the stand point
OF q personal observation as 1t existed
at the close of 1887. After some per-
sonal matter the letter. which is dated
at Wady Halfa, proceeds
All your advice about the slaughter OF
Dervishes of no avail as the beggars
won't come and fight us. and we are
forbidden from Cairo to 60 and have a
turu at them. So we did second
march across the desert with an I'M
necessary amount Of energy. Left the
Assouan and came on here to the front
to join the LIST, an Egyptian battalion.
If there ia a fight there won't be any
Tommy Adkins" only the Egyptian
army, and they are good enough for most
people. Three black regiments
and six hundred OF poor old
Bakers black police, every man of whom
looks Oh fighting as the greatest sport
going. would go anywhere and try to
take any position with blacks. The
Gyppiri, of course are not 80 utterly full
Of pluck and deyilsry, but we nave made
a fair army out of them, and led by Eng |
lishmen they will do all right. That's |
where the rub comes in; they don't give |
us enough English officers in war time, |
seldom more than two, and never more |
than three to a battalion; one wants one |
company to make an attack certainty. |
AT present | Rm out alone at the ad- |
vanced outpost, place called Kher- |
mouna, one regiment and some irregu- |
lars, they say an English OftiCar is nee |
essary in case Of 40 attack. By God, |
what chance if they should attack
Their outposts are about or 10 miles TO |
the south, and the main BODY at Sanar,
about % miles from here. Went up the
cataract yesterday TO try and slay the |
crocodile of the period. but they refused |
TO show. Il is a glorious sight, this |
same cataract; in fact the whole river,
at least the 800 miles have seen, is very |
wonderful. The temples all along, from !
1000 to 1900 years old, still with large !
pillars, vast halls, and wonderful mono |
liths, more or less intact. The paint |
ings, too, IN the tombs, dug Que OF hill |
in casual sort of way, remain in all |
their original brilliancy OF COlOring. |
Birds and animals quite true to nature,
war scenes. triumphal marches, and no !
end Of other subiecrs all nearly perfect. |
no hfu oil pF in "a
is too vast and aWesOme; almost one !
shrinks, as it were, into utter iEsigniti- |
oanGe at these monuments Of labor 2O0O |
years older shan the conquest.
You are quite 0. X. about the geOgra-
ply of Halfa; 1t is about 2l0 miles south |
of AssouRn. | don't know what You |
think about the last four years in Egypt |
and the SOudan, but do know what ]
should think If [ were one of the NAH
dite bones. We've list, all Egyptian
garrisons massacred in eastern Soudan,
Hicks and $4,000 killed in Kordofan,
Baker cut up and most of his force killed
at Teb, Gordon lost in Khartoum, the
Nile expedition a failure, at q cost OF
millions of money and thousands of men,
Suakin and Berber forces retire after
three months in the country, finally all
troops with drawn to Hslfa, giving up to
the rebels all the county, 1000 miles or
so, from here to Khartoum, q large
force kept here on war footing on the
frontier, and the Khedlves' dominion re-
duced by about ons-hslf, all trade
stopped except Illicit commerce in
slaves, etc. VINO, my worthy sage, Is
the winner? Egypt backed up by the
richest country and best pluoked army
in the world, or the gentle yet rather
rough-when-roused dervish Of the desert.
VERB. SAP.