AFTER THE BATTLE 249 of hospital in order to be present at the battle. But while his natural vivacity and vigour were to some extent impaired by physical debility, he was always unselfish in the ‘“‘give and take” of camp life, and bore uncomplainingly the many discomforts which are necessarily experienced by the sick during ‘the advance of an army. Still side by side with his courageous endurance of physical suffering, and the coolnéss which he showed when under fire for the first time, the central thought which occupied Cross’s mind was that of returning to his beloved work at Bedford.

“His was a soul whose master-bias leans To homefelt pleasures and to gentle scenes— More brave for this, that he had much to love !”

The Sudan campaign, which, thanks to the Sirdar’s wonderful genius for organisation, has been so thoroughly successful, cannot be regarded as in any sense final. Unless our recovery of the Nile banks as far as Omdurman is followed by the possession of the Bahr-el-Ghazal, we may almost be said to have laboured in vain.

If we stayed our hand at Khartum, or even Fashoda, the same remark which Lord Salisbury passed on the French possessions in the