glo-Saxon persistence the Sirdar had achieved a unique
position in African conquest. He had got together an armed force "fit
to go anywhere and to do anything." The heart of Africa was his, to
loose or to bind. Of all the terrible railway rides in the world, for
dirt and discomfort, none compares with the trip from Cairo to Luxor
and Assouan. The carriages are stuffy and unclean, and during the
whole journey one stifles in an opaque atmosphere of grit mixed with
the sweepings of the ages. The calcined earths quickly cushion the
seats, powder you from head to foot, and fill your pockets and every
other receptacle with soil enough to make you feel like a landed
proprietor--or, at any rate, rich enough in loam to lay out a suburban
garden. With all the accessories at hand for the creation of an acrid
and measureless thirst, neither the railway authorities nor private
enterprise have had the wit as yet to provide travellers with the
means of mitigating their sufferings. It is little short of a horror
to think of that journey of over forty hours' duration, which had to
be endured without the succour to be found in a refreshment-room
where, for a consideration, could be got a sparkling cool drink or a
mouthful of passable victuals. Were it to take me a month to travel
the distance by river, if time permitted I had rather adventure next
time upon the Nile than ever go by train over that line again. I
confess I have made the journey by rail frequently but it becomes
really more unendurable each trip. Of course I laid in stores of
liquids and solids for the voyage. I ought to have known better, but
one thinks nothing of the toothache when it is past. The mineral
waters became too hot to drink, and not quite near enough the
boiling-point to make good tea of, whilst, as for the provisions, such
as got not too high, were so swathed in layers of questionable dust
and grit as to be repulsive. Keeping even passably tidy was
impossible, and in personal cleanliness a London scavenger could give
a traveller by rail from Cairo to Assouan many points. It was at Wady
Halfa that I got booked in the way-bill for Dakhala, or Atbara Camp,
390 miles away. The construction of the Halfa-Atbara line was, as I
have said before, a masterpiece of military strategy, the credit for
which is due to the Sirdar. By-and-by a railway bridge will span the
Atbara at Dakhala, and the iron way will be laid into Khartoum. The
170 miles betwixt the Atbara and Khart