IV PREFACE.

containing a good deal of information on subjects that required

to be relieved by a considerable variety of striking colour.

To write a complete story of the war in Egypt and the Soudan

with such descriptive accounts, sketches of persons and scenes,

explanations of financial and administrative changes, and narratives

of successive events as would make a comprehensive and trust-

worthy as well as a popular history, was not rendered difficult

because of the lack of sources of information. The real difficulty

was in the profusion of material, which had to be examined,

assorted, compared, selected, and wrought into suitable form.

It is not for the writer to say that he has succeeded in the

endeavour to make the following pages contain accurate and

complete information, and to be at the same time easy and

interesting to the reader. He has not spared effort, and he has

already the happiness of knowing that, when three out of the four

volumes were issued, they were well received and spoken of by

competent critics and reviewers in terms which should suffice to make him grateful, and to sustain the hope (already largely

realized) for an equally favourable and friendly greeting from

thousands of readers, not only in this country, but in those great

Colonies which are so closely and inseparably a portion of the

British Empire, that the instant the call to arms was heard within

their townships or on their remoter borders efficient contingents of

trained and trusty men were ready and eager to share the hard-

ships and the perils of the camjaaign.

London, February, i88y.