THE EGYPTIAN SUDAN Morocco and other places in north-west Africa, and here the Sftd§,ni and Mugrabi merchants effected the exchange and sale of their wares. Formerly this town was the starting point of travellers who wished to enter the Sudan, for the road to Abu Hamed on the Nile from Korosko via the desert is less than one half of that by river. Sir Samuel Baker performed the journey in seven days, but to do this he had to ride fifteen hours a day, and General Gordon did it in about the same time more than once. A considerable amount of trading by the natives is still done at Korosko, and in recent years a new mosque has been built there, the Government wisely supplying some of the funds required for the purpose. The stripes of brilliant colour with which the walls are painted render it a picturesque and prominent object. Like all other places in the Sudan and Egypt on which the hand of the British has rested, the town is cleaner than formerly, the people are better off, and in the new shops which enterprising natives have opened most of the small necessaries of native life can be bought cheaply. The admirable postal and telegraphic arrangements have brought it into close touch with Egypt, and life and property are as secure there as anywhere. In 1887 it was not an uncommon thing to see a crocodile or two on the river banks, and in that year Masadaglia Bey showed me in tanks in his garden several small ones which he had found lying on the mud, where they had crept from the river, and one of considerable size, for which he had made a little lake. The crocodiles have been driven away from the Nile in northern Nubia by the noise of the paddles of stern-wheelers, which for years ran up and down by day and by night. The "important" war news which the engineer and crew expected at Korosko was not received, and in due course we resumed our journey.

Two or three hours' steaming brought us to Tushki, or Toski, which will be ever memorable as the scene of the defeat of the Dervish Amir, Wad an-Nagumi, by General Grenfell, on August 3rd, 1889. Wad an-Nagumi, or the " star-child," was called by the Dervishes the " Amir of Amirs," or " Prince of princes," and was a brave soldier. In his early days he led the hard, miserable life of the founders of Mahdiism, but subsequently he married many wives and lived so luxuriously that Sherif 76