Connecticut western news., 1903-04-30

 M not angry with the British
 public, but I do wish we had
 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 tine regulation Householder - Lover of Justice. Constant Reader. Pa terfamiiias and all that lot-frizzling Oil hot gravel:'
 With a blue veil over his head and his clothes in strips. Has any man here Il needle? I've got piece of sug- ar sack"
 .1'll lend you a packing needle for six square inches of it. then. Both my knees gre worn through"
 ''Wly not six square acres while you're about it? But lend me the nee dle. and I'll see what I can do with = the selyGGc- I 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 pair of sorely worn riding brooches and began to fit a square of coarse canvas over the most obvious open space. He grunted disconsolately as the vastness of tie 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 brooches. 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 soIdiery 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 peiled to unload hastily. and n regi- mental carpenter was swearing aloud as he tried on wholly insufficient al- lowarce 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 a cock eyed Chi nese lotus"
 Exactly the case with my brooches, whoever you are" said the tailor. with out looking up. Dick. 1 wonder when shali see decent shop again"
 There was no answer save the inces- sant angry murmur of the Nile as 1t raced round basalt walled bend and foamcd across Il rock ridge half q mile up stream. It 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 d 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- CT: 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 OL tue 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 toiled the correspondents of the newspapers, and they were almost as ignorant as their companions. But 1t was above all things necessary that England at breakfast should be amused and thrill ed and interested, whether Gordon lived or died or half the British army 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 10 get sIain-which was not altogether a disadvantage to the paper that em- ployed him-and more often the hand to hand nature of the fighting allowed