scarcity of grain. When the order for the advance
was issued, the frontier grain stores were nearly exhausted. The new
crops could not be garnered until the end of April. Thus while the world
regarded Egypt as a vast granary, her soldiers were obliged to purchase
4,000 tons of doura and 1,000 tons of barley from India and Russia on
which to begin the campaign.

The chief item of a soldier's diet in most armies is bread. In several
of our wars the health, and consequently the efficiency, of the troops
has been impaired by bad bread or by the too frequent substitution of
hard biscuit. For more than a year the army up the river ate 20 tons
of flour daily, and it is easy to imagine how bitter amid ordinary
circumstances would have been the battle between the commissariat
officers, whose duty it was to insist on proper quality, and the
contractors--often, I fear, meriting the epithet 'rascally'--intent
only upon profit. But in the well-managed Egyptian Service no such
difficulties arose. The War Department had in 1892 converted one of
Ismail Pasha's gun factories near Cairo into a victualling-yard.
Here were set up their own mills for grinding flour, machinery for
manufacturing biscuit to the extent of 60,000 rations daily, and
even for making soap. Three great advantages sprang from this wise
arrangement. Firstly, the good quality of the supply was assured.
Complaints about bread and biscuit were practically unknown, and the
soap--since the soldier, in contrast to the mixture of rubble and grease
with which the contractors had formerly furnished him, could actually
wash himself and his clothes with it--was greatly prized. Secondly, all
risk of contractors failing to deliver in time was avoided. Lastly,
the funds resulting from the economy had been utilised to form a useful
corps of 150 bakers. And thus, although the purchase of foreign grain
added to the expense, the beginning of the war found the commissariat of
the Egyptian Army in a thoroughly efficient state.

Vast reserves of stores were quickly accumulated at Assuan. From these
not an ounce of food was issued without the Sirdar's direct sanction. At
the subsidiary depot, formed at Wady Halfa, the same rule prevailed. The
man who was responsible to no one took all the responsibility; and
the system whereby a Chief of the Staff is subjected to the continual
bombardment of heads of departments was happily avoided. Sufficient
supplies having been accumulated at Akasha to