FROM CAIRO TO THE ATBARA 7

did their best, although some of their heaviest guns were not fired, from ignorance of their

mechanism; nor was the assistance rendered them by a host of men, women, and even children, of much practical utility. My friend

told me he saw one of these amateur gunners endeavouring to load a breech-loading Krupp by shoving a shell wrong way about down the mouth of the gun! The shell, of course, stuck fast, and its base projected from the muzzle.

We reached Alexandria by August 2nd, on which day was fought, exactly one hundred

years before, the Battle of the Nile. The words which were used to describe this achievement, “It was not a victory, it was a conquest,” might, exactly two months after-

wards, have been well used of another British triumph before the walls of Omdurman! But whereas the Mahdist enemy has vanished never to reappear, our ancient adversaries, the

French, are still in Egypt with all their tradi-

tional eagerness to thwart and injure us—an eagerness which seems to be increased, it

possible, by their realisation of the fact that

their power in Egypt is gradually waning. I