a decent modicum of conscience. But your proper Hadendowa is
not a Baggara.

"Three removals are worse than a fire," and it is much the same in
campaigning. Constant trudging to and fro, making and breaking camps
with the hardships of marches and raw ground for bivouacs, furnish a
bigger mortality bill than an ordinary battle. One of the smart things
done by the Sirdar, which served to show that he had closely knit all
the ends of the new frontier lines together, was to bring troops up
from the Dongola province and the Red Sea Littoral, to swell the
strength of his army in the field. The 5th Egyptian battalion under
Colonel Abd El Borham marched across from Suakin to Berber in eighteen
days. It was not by any means sought to make it a forced march. The
Fifth was accompanied by a company, 100 men and animals, of the Camel
Corps and had 40 baggage camels for ordinary transport. Leisurely, day
by day, they tramped along over the 250 odd miles of rock and sand
that intervene betwixt the Nile and the sea. Hadendowa and Bishaim
tribesmen were friendly, and scouts led them in the best tracks
whether they tramped by night or by day. At one place they had to make
a long forced march as the water in the wells had been exhausted by a
previous caravan. In time to come, with a little outlay, new wells
will be dug and an abundant supply of water provided along the whole
route. Later on, the 5th Egyptian battalion marched up from Berber to
Dakhala camp. The men were tall, muscular fellaheen. They were, as has
become the custom in Egypt since the army has been officered by the
Queen's soldiers, played into quarters on this occasion by a native
Soudanese band to the swinging tune of "O, dem Golden Slippers."

It is warm enough in Lower Egypt in July to be uncomfortable, and to
turn the most obdurate into a melting mood. Assouan has the deserved
reputation of being hotter in that month than Aden, the Persian Gulf,
or--well, any other hot place. So, as I have said before, the British
troops were not required to do more than the minimum of duty at that
period. Decidedly "circumstances alter cases," even in matters
military. I hope I may be pardoned for these recurring quotations and
saws. The intolerably fervent solar heat of the Soudan at that season
did not admit of much originality in thought, expression, or act. One
of my companions was a veritable modern Sancho Panza, and in one's
limp, mental, noontide condition his sapient "instan