Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1903-03-26


I'LL a few thousand of them scat
tered among these rocks. They
wouldn't be in such a hurry to get at
their morning papers then. Can't you
imagine the regulation householder :
Lover of Justice, Constant Reader, Pa
terfamilias and all that lot-frizzling
on hot grayel?
with blue veil over his head and
his clothes in strips. Has any man
here needle? I've got piece of sug-
ar sack"
''I'll lend you packing needle for
six square inches of 1t, then. Both my
knees are worn through"
''Why not six square acres while
you're about it? But lend me the nee
die, and I'll see what 1 can do with
the selvage. / don't think there's
enough to protect my royal body from
the cold blast as it is. What are you
doing with that everlasting sketchbook
of yours, Dick?'
"Study of our special correspondent
repairing his wardrobe" said Dick
| gravely as the other man kicked off a
pair of sorely worn riding breeches and
began to fit square Of coarse canvas
over the most obvious open space. He
grunted disconsolately as the vastness
OF the void developed itself.
Sugar bags, indeed! Hi, you pilot
man there! Lend me all the sails of
that whaleboat."
A fez crowned head bobbed up in the
stern sheets, divided itself into exact
halves with one flashing grin and bob
bed down again. The man of the bat
tered breeches, clad only in Norfolk
jacket and gray flannel shirt, went
on with his clumsy sewing, while Dick
chuckled over his sketch.
Some twenty whaleboats were nuz-
zling a sand bank which was dotted
with English soldiery of half dozen
corps, bathing or washing their clothes.
A heap of boat rollers, commissariat
boxes, sugar bags and flour and small
arm ammunition cases showed where
one of the whaleboats had been COM
PEELED to unload hastily, and a regi-
mental carpenter was swearing aloud
as he tried on a wholly insufficient al
lowance of white lead to plaster up the
sun parched gaping seams of the boat
| herself.
"First the bloomin' rudder snaps" "
said he to the world in general; "then
the mast goes, an then, s. 'elp me,
when she can't do nothin' else she
opens 'erself out like cock eyed Chi
nese lotus"
Exactly the case with my breeches,
whoever you are," said the tailor, with
out looking up. ''Dick, wonder when
I shall see a decent shop again"
There was no answer save the inces-
SAINT angry murmur of the Nile as it
raced round basalt walled bend and
| foamed across a rock ridge half a mile
up stream. 1t was as though the
| brown weight of the river would drive
the white men back to their own cOun-
| try. The indescribable weight of the
Nile mud in the air told that the stream
was falling and that the next few miles
would be no light thing for the whale
boats to overpass.
The desert ran down almost to the
banks, where among gray, red and
black hillocks camel corps was en-
camped. No man dared, even for a
day, lose touch of the slow moving
boats. There had been no fighting for
weeks past, and throughout all that
| time the Nile had never spared them.
Rapid had followed rapid, rock rock
and island group island group, till the
rank and file had long since lost all
count of direction and very nearly of
time. They were moving somewhere,
they did not know why, to do some
thing, they did not know what. Before
them lay the Nile, and at the other end
of it was one Gordon, fighting for dear
| life, in a town called Khartum.
| There were columns of British troops
| in the desert, or in one of the many
deserts; there were columns on the riv-
er; there were yet more columns wait
ing to embark on the river; there were
fresh drafts waiting at Assiut and AS
souan; there were lies and rumors run
ming over the face of the hopeless land
| from Suakim to the Sixth cataract, and
| men supposed generally that there must
be some one in authority to direct the
general scheme of the many move
ments. The duty of that particular
river column was to keep the whale
boats afioat in the water, to avoid
trampling on the villagers crops when
the gangs tracked the boats with
lines thrown from midstream, to get
as much sleep and food as was possible
and, above all, to press on without de-
lay in the teeth of the churning Nile.
With the soldiers sweated and toiIed
the correspondents of the newspapers
and they were almost as ignorant as
their companions. But it was above
all things necessary that England al
breakfast should be amused and thrill
ed and interested, whether Gordon
lived or died or half the British army
i went to pieces in the sands. The Su
dan campaign was a picturesque one
and lent itself to vivid word painting.
Now and again Special" managed
to get slain-which was not altogether
a disadvantage to the paper that en-
ployed him-and more often the hand
to hand nature of the fighting allowed
Of miraculous escapes which wer
worth telegraphing home at Is penc
the word There were many CORE
spondents with many corps and col
umns, from the veterans who had fol
lowed on the heels of the cavalry tha
occupied Cairo in 1882, what time Arab
Pasha called himself king, who hat
seen the first miserable work rount
Suakim when the sentries we're cut VI
nightly and the scrub swarmed witt
i spears, to youngsters jerked into tn
business at the end Of telegraph wir
to take the place of their betters kille'
or invalided.
Among the seniors those who knew
every shift and change in the perplex
ing postal arrangements, the value o
the seediest, weediest Egyptian garroI
offered for sale in Cairo or Alexandria
who could talk telegraph clerk int
amiability and soothe the ruffied van
| ity of a newly appointed staff Office
| when press regulations became burden
some was the man in the flannel s.li'
| the black broWed Torpenhow. He