CAMERON S CAREER. 57 broken loose and fighting desperately with their human masters for a place. Yesterday at noon we reached Gakdul, and until to-day have been busy watering our exhausted animals and preparing ourselves for the march to Metammeh, which begins to-morrow. What the result of that march may be the wires will have told ere this letter reaches England. At present we know not whether our road is to be barred by thousands, or whether we shall reach the Nile without firing a shot. In camp parlance it is ' even betting' on either contingency. We only know that if we fight at all it will not be for victory, but for very e.xistence; for behind us there will be no retreat."

Mr. Cameron, though he possessed in a pre-eminent degree the qualifications necessary for a war correspondent, and was admired and respected not only by his literary colleagues but by the officers and men of the service, had not received any special training as a journalist. He had a remarkable faculty for condensed and yet picturesque description; and though he did not appear to be exceptionally powerful of physique, his tireless energy and fearless daring, united to a quiet and almost self-depreciatory manner, and a constant determination that the paper which he represented should receive all the intelligence that could possibly be forwarded from the scene of action, gave him considerable influence, and on several occasions had enabled him to get information " through," when some other correspondents were less fortunate either because of obstacles at head-quarters or difficulties of transport which required unusual exertion, courage, and address. He had been engaged during six years in the service of the Standard in various parts of the world, and had performed feats of daring which made him famous among his companions, who regarded him no less for his cheery courage than for his geniality and kindness. Mr. Cameron had gone out to India at a comparatively early age and was there engaged in mercantile business, which he relinquished on the outbreak of the Afghan war, when he obtained the post of special correspondent for the Bombay Gazette. The excellence of his descriptive letters soon attracted so much attention that in the following year, when the advance of Ayoub Khan and the British