THE EGYPTIAN SUDAN gaudily coloured stuffs. A little beyond this market were some rows of straw huts, wherein the wives of some of the Sudani soldiers lived.

The day began in the camp at Sanam Abu Dom with a bugle-call by the bugler of each battalion about one hour before dawn, and I have often noticed that the call sounded about the time when the wind which Arab writers call the "breath of dawn" began to blow On hearing the call, pious Muhammadan soldiers rose and said the dawn prayer, and then prepared for the work of the day. With the dawn the whole camp was astir, and every one rejoiced in the prospect of the hour or so of comparative coolness which comes with the sunrise. The British officers made their appearance on the river bank, where they drank their early tea, and in a very few minutes each was off to his duties, and was not seen again till his return from the march, or parade, or gun practice, or whatever his work might be. On certain days the black battalions started at dawn, marched to Tankasi, a distance of seven miles, and having performed what seemed to me to be marvellous evolutions for two hours, marched back again to the camp, which they reached by about 10.30. It was a fine sight to see those magnificent " blacks " striding along in the desert in open formation, with a " go '' and vigour about their every movement which showed that the love of fighting was to them as the breath of their nostrils. They often came back singing, and seemed to treat the fourteen miles' march and their work at Tankasi as a rather pleasant morning's occupation.

Small wonder is it that the " black battalions " and their British ' The poets, especially Persian poets, love to describe this wind.

186 GHANIM, SIR REGINALD WINGATE's SERVANT.