FROM CAIRO TO THE ATBARA 21

period of transition sanitation was in a state of chaos. Which things are an allegory! In consequence probably of the escape of sewage

into water- pipes, enteric fever and diphtheria

were far from infrequent, and quite recently two young officers of the 21st Lancers had succumbed to these fatal diseases.

When we arrived at the railway station in the evening ex route for the South, we found

our servants already there. But how trans- formed! Ali and the sas had exchanged their

native cotton garments for bran new suits of yellow kharki, purchased at my _ expense. From some association of ideas in connection with the forthcoming campaign, they were “got up” in a pseudo-military fashion, with brass

buttons and shoulder straps. As Ali the cook stood before us in his ill-fitting garments, with

an enormous crusading sword in one hand and

a kitchen colander and soup ladle in the other, _—a kind of walking allegory of Peace and War,

—we laughed so much that we could scarcely ask for our tickets. At the last momenta native rushed into the station closely pursued by his

wife. The man was evidently bent on secur-

ing a seat in the train, but his better half