The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-08-02

all night and guard the menaced con- Voy; he slept one hour at dawn, and now returns in the sun. He is quite fresh and active. This is his usual work; but he is not happy because this. also is his usual luck. Only the Egyp- tian army would have found it very difficult to do without him and his des- ert cavalry in the past, and even now, with all the desert roads except the Bayuda behind 1t, finds plenty of work for the camel corps still. And one day they say, Take out twenty camels," and the next day Take out the rest" The next day Those twenty that weren't out yesterday can't possibly be tired''-but the Bimbashi goes out eve ry day, The skin Is sealed off his nose with sun, and his eyes are bloodshot with sand, and the hairs of his mus tache have snapped off short with drouth, and his hair Is bleaching to white. All that Is the hallmark of the 1 Soudan.
 Getting into the saddle has been like sitting down suddenly in a too hot bath by this time you could not bear your hand upon 1t. Out in the desert gleamed the steel-blue water and black reflected trees of the mirage; even in mirage there is no green in the midday sun of the Soudan. What should be green Is black; all else is sun-colored. It is torment to face the gaudy glare that stabs your eyes. If you lift them to the sky it is not very blue; I have seen far deeper in England; but it is alive all over with quivering, passion ate heat. Beating from above and burning from below, the sun strikes at you heavily. There is no way out of it except through the hours into evening. | No sound but boot clinking on camel
 stirrup; you hear it through a haze.
 You ride along at walk, half dead.
 You neither feel nor think, you hardly even know that it is hot. You just | have consciousness of a heavy load
 hardly to be borne. pressing, pressing
 down on you, crushing you under the
 dead weight of sun.
 We met the usual people-a Greek
 with four eamels, a bare-legged boy on
 a donkey, breasted woman un-
 der a bundle-the second and third
 class passengers of the desert We
 questioned them with alternate tri-
 umph and despair, as they answered al ternately after their kind. One said 1t
 was two squadrons, battery and a
 battalion fighting in our old camp at
 Ras Hudi; another said Mahmud had
 come down to Abadar and had fought | the Sirdar for four hours; another said
 Mahmud had gone right away and that
 the whole Anglo Egyptian army had gone after him. Every story was who'll
 ly false, begotten only of wish to
 please; whence you perceive the advan-
 tages enjoyed by him who would col
 lect intelligence in the Soudan.
 Slowly the minutes crawled on; the
 camels crawled slower. On days like
 this you feel yourself growing older; it
 seems months since we heard the guns
 from the parapet; it would have hardly
 seemed wonderful If we had heard that
 the campaign had been finished while !, we were away. We had ridden awhile with the Bimbashi, but conversation
 wilted in the sun; now we had ambled , ahead till even the advanced guard
 had dropped out of sight behind. One
 servant with us rode tall, fast camel;
 from that watch towel he suddenly dis cerned cases lying open on the sand
 about a hundred yards off the tram
 pied road. Anything for an incident; } we rode listlessly Up and looked. A
 couple of broken packing+cases, tive l tins of sardines, a tin of biscuits, hall
 empty, a small case of empty soda bot
 ties with "Sirdar'' stencilled on 1t, and
 couple of empty whiskey bottles
 Among them lay a cigarette box with g
 needle and a reel of cotton, few but , tons and badge-A. s. C,-such as the
 Army Service Corps wear on theil
 shoulder-strap
 We were on the scene of last even. : ings raid Two camels, we remem
 bered, had been cut off and the load: } lost We found the marks on the sant where the convoy camels had knel down In living zariba to wait for relic from Abadar, seven miles away. ~ } the time 1t took to fetch the came 7 corps the Dervishes must have lurket } In the bush eating biscuits and drink , ing the whlskey of the infidel. Th ) Sirdar's soda water was plainly re turned empties so that they woult
 have found the whiskey strong; tn l sardnes, not knowing the nature o , timed meats, they had thrown away t We waited to report to the Bimbashi. l Presently the convoy crept up, con | fusion of vague necks and serpen 9 heads, waving like tentacles. The Bim ? bashi had given his horse to an orderly t and was sleeping peacefully on hi = camel Now we had found among tn 5 scattered camel loads a wine glass t broken In the stem, but providentiall intact in the bowl Also we had bough 9 for a great price at Fort Atbara fou ] eggs, and had whiskey wherein t e break them. So the Bimbashi slippe :. off his camel all in one piece, and W 0 lunched
 t By now the sun was taking his han 8 off us. We were slipping through hi = fingers; he was low down behind us d and his rays sprawled into larger an f longer shadows. Then he went dow - in a last sullen fusion of gold. Tn k camels, feeling themselves checked . Topped down where they stood; tn }, drivers Topped down beside them an D bobbed their heads in the approximat l direction of Mecca. They might we e give thanks; with sunset the world ha
 come to life again. A slight air spran 5, up, and the gallop famed 1t to a. grate e full breeze. Soon the eastern sky be = came pillar of dust; the horses i e camp were being led to %ater. Tn r great fight was still timed for the da f after tomorrow, and another twelv