FROM CAIRO TO THE ATBARA I

incessant despatch of troops to the front. Every afternoon detachments of infantry and cavalry marched briskly through the streets

towards the station with drums and fifes, and

“Auld Lang Syne” was played as the train steamed away. It was curious to notice how

infinitesimal was the interest which seemed to be aroused in the passers-by. The Egyptian Natives scarcely took the trouble to glance at the columns as they marched past in full war

kit and brown kharki uniforms. A little knot of Europeans, whose smallness served to emphasise the emptiness of the hotel, would step out upon the verandah—where, by the

way, the temperature was nearly 100° in the shade—and follow with their eyes the passing battalions ; but otherwise no interest whatever seemed to be aroused by their departure.

The fact is, that it never occurs to Egyptians of the lower classes that they have any share

or lot in what is perpetrated by the powers

that be. They are, as Aristotle expressed it, “slaves by nature,” and centuries may roll by before any other political sentiment is instilled

into this most conservative of nations than

that of fear and acquiescence. At the same