e Red Sea in the _Enterprise_. One group, under Captain R.V.
Rylands (afterwards killed on Gallipoli), guarded the railway works at
Atbara. Another under Captain B. Norbury occupied the hill station of
Sinkat. Important censorship work at Wadi Halfa was entrusted to Captain
J.H. Thorpe, and, when he was invalided, to Lieutenant L. Dudley, who
fell later in action on Gallipoli. At Khartum a half company, under
Captain C. Norbury, was on arrival transformed immediately into the
British Camel Corps.

For some little time after our coming the normal social and sporting
life of the small British colony at Khartum was hardly ruffled by the
storm raging in Europe, and we gratefully enjoyed its warm-hearted
hospitality. At the beginning of November war broke out between Great
Britain and Turkey, and the loyalty of the Sudanese was put to the test.
The Germans built upon the probability of a Jihad or Holy War, and never
dreamed that the handful of young Englishmen who administered the
country under the Sirdar's guidance could have won its loyalty against
all comers. When the Sirdar announced in English and Arabic the news of
the Porte's entry into the War one shining Sunday morning in early
November, to a large gathering of Egyptian and Sudanese officers and
dignitaries at the Palace, their zealous unanimity was impressive.
Hundreds of native notables contributed generously to British Red Cross
funds. Sheikhs of the Red Sea Province, who had once been dervish
partisans, showed me with glowing pride when at Port Sudan silver
medallions with King George's likeness, given by him to them on his
visit to Sinkat.

Few pages of history are more wonderful than that which records the
conversion of the chaotic and down-trodden Sudan of 1898 into the
peaceful and prosperous Sudan of to-day. Scepticism as to the uses of
Empire, which too often beset the Manchester man at home before the War,
was dissipated by seeing what Anglo-Egyptian sovereignty and British
character and industry have achieved in a land so long tormented by
slave-traders and despots. The happy black boys of Gordon College go to
school with books under their arms, and play football, coached by Old
Blues and cheered by enthusiastic comrades. On the 30th October (Kurban
Bairam day) the Manchesters saw the Sirdar bestow gaily coloured robes
of honour on deserving chiefs. Everywhere were signs of economic
progress. The cotton-growing plantations on the Gezira Plain, the
ginn