CAMERON S LAST LETTER. 53 bound on a similar errand to ours, and had they not all perished to a man? But what the natives did not realize, although some among them were beginning to have a glimmering of the fact, was that these great white soldiers, although they did not bully and kick and tyrannize over them, were still a very different kind of fighting material to the white-livered, despicable Egyptian and murdering Bashi-Bazouk, to whom they had hitherto been accustomed. Only Greeks, Copts, and blacks—chiefly runaway slaves would accompany us as servants; and here I may refer once more to the wonderful care and forethougfht that has characterized the preparations for this expedition. In sending for Somaulies to Aden to act as camel-drivers. Lord Wolseley must be given credit for wonderful prescience. Had he depended upon Egyptians or Dongalese, we should now be in serious difificulty, for not even the courbash, did we care to use it, would induce these people to go on. True, a detachment of Egyptian soldiers are doing convoy work as camel-drivers; but these for some time have been under English officers, and even they have not behaved well when thirst and fatigue has had to be endured. The private individual who may essay to accompany our army while campaigning in the East must be prepared to face many crushing disasters and heartbreaking disappointments so far as his personal transport and commissariat arrangements are concerned. Troops depend for these matters on their regimental organization, and so are able without anxiety to devote to their proper duties their entire energies. Not so the press correspondent; and thus, when five miles out in the desert we overtook the column, our horror and dismay may be referred to, but cannot be imagined, at discovering that our baeeaee and water camels were not with the others, as they ought to have been. There was nothing for it but to canter back, search for and find the missing men and animals, and endeavour to overtake the column again at its encampment for the night. We should have lost our way had not the camp-fires that the men lit after dark served as beacons to guide us over the plain. In the desert, water is the great thing. Food we can do without for a period, and not suffer much, but never water.