CAIRO TO KISUMU

CHAPTER I

JUST A WORD BEFORE WE START THIS volume on Egypt, Nubia, the Sudan, and

Kenya Colony is based upon notes made during my several trips to this part of the world. At times the notes are published just as they came hot from my pen, taking you back, as it were, to the oc¬ casion on which they were written. Again they are modi¬ fied somewhat to accord with present conditions.

For instance, I made my first visit to Egypt as a boy, when Arabi Pasha was fomenting the rebellion that re¬ sulted in that country's being taken over by the British.

I narrowly escaped being in the bombardment of Alex¬ andria and having a part in the wars of the Mahdi, which came a short time thereafter. Again, I was in Egypt when the British had brought order out of chaos, and put Tew- fik Pasha on the throne as Khedive. I had then the talk with Tewfik, which I give from the notes I made when I returned from the palace, and I follow it with a description of my audience with his son and successor, Abbas Hilmi, sixteen years later. Now the British have given Egypt a nominal independence, and the Khedive has the title of

King.

In the Sudan I learned much of the Mahdi through

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