at Kosheh, whence all possible precautions to exclude it had proved
vain. The epidemic was at first of a virulent form. As is usual, when
it had expended its destructive energy, the recoveries became more
frequent. But of the first thousand cases between Assuan and Suarda
nearly eight hundred proved fatal. Nor were the lives thus lost to be
altogether measured by the number. [The attacks and deaths from cholera
in the Dongola Expeditionary Force were as follow: British troops--24
attacks, 19 deaths; Native troops--406 attacks, 260 deaths;
Followers--788 attacks, 640 deaths.] To all, the time was one of trial,
almost of terror. The violence of the battle may be cheaply braved,
but the insidious attacks of disease appal the boldest. Death moved
continually about the ranks of the army--not the death they had been
trained to meet unflinchingly, the death in high enthusiasm and the
pride of life, with all the world to weep or cheer; but a silent,
unnoticed, almost ignominious summons, scarcely less sudden and far more
painful than the bullet or the sword-cut. The Egyptians, in spite of
their fatalistic creed, manifested profound depression. The English
soldiers were moody and ill-tempered. Even the light-hearted Soudanese
lost their spirits; their merry grins were seen no longer; their
laughter and their drums were stilled. Only the British officers
preserved a stony cheerfulness, and ceaselessly endeavoured by energy
and example to sustain the courage of their men. Yet they suffered
most of all. Their education had developed their imaginations; and
imagination, elsewhere a priceless gift, is amid such circumstances a
dangerous burden.

It was, indeed, a time of sore trouble. To find the servant dead in the
camp kitchen; to catch a hurried glimpse of blanketed shapes hustled
quickly to the desert on a stretcher; to hold the lantern over the grave
into which a friend or comrade--alive and well six hours before--was
hastily lowered, even though it was still night; and through it all to
work incessantly at pressure in the solid, roaring heat, with a mind
ever on the watch for the earliest of the fatal symptoms and a thirst
that could only be quenched by drinking of the deadly and contaminated
Nile: all these things combined to produce an experience which those who
endured are unwilling to remember, but unlikely to forget. One by one
some of the best of the field army and the communication Staff were
stricken down. Gallant Fenw