horrify a
self-respecting operative, he will see perhaps some dozen white men in a
year, and will certainly pick up two sorts of fever. He had been moved
to work very hard for this billet by the representations of a friend in
the same service, who said that it was a 'rather decent sort of
service,' and he was all of a heat to reach Khartum, report for duty,
and fall to. If he is lucky, he may get a district where the people are
so virtuous that they do not know how to wear any clothes at all, and so
ignorant that they have never yet come across strong drink.

The train that took us to Cairo was own sister in looks and fittings to
any South African train--for which I loved her--but she was a trial to
some citizens of the United States, who, being used to the Pullman, did
not understand the side-corridored, solid-compartment idea. The trouble
with a standardised democracy seems to be that, once they break loose
from their standards, they have no props. People are _not_ left behind
and luggage is rarely mislaid on the railroads of the older world. There
is an ordained ritual for the handling of all things, to which if a man
will only conform and keep quiet, he and his will be attended to with
the rest. The people that I watched would not believe this. They charged
about futilely and wasted themselves in trying to get ahead of their
neighbours.

Here is a fragment from the restaurant-car: 'Look at here! Me and some
friends of mine are going to dine at this table. We don't want to be
separated and--'

'You 'ave your number for the service, sar?' 'Number? What number? We
want to dine _here_, I tell you.'

'You shall get your number, sar, for the first service?'

'Haow's that? Where in thunder do we _get_ the numbers, anyway?'

'I will give you the number, sar, at the time--for places at the first
service.'

'Yes, but we want to dine together here--right _now._'

'The service is not yet ready, sar.'

And so on--and so on; with marchings and counter-marchings, and every
word nervously italicised. In the end they dined precisely where there
was room for them in that new world which they had strayed into.

On one side our windows looked out on darkness of the waste; on the
other at the black Canal, all spaced with monstrous headlights of the
night-running steamers. Then came towns, lighted with electricity,
governed by mixed commissions, and dealing in cotton. Such a town, for
instance, as Zagazig, last seen by a ver