20 KHARTOUM CAMPAIGN.

rapidity with which the Wady Halfa Abu Hamid por-

tion of the desert railroad was laid, smarter work still was done carrying the line through to the Atbara. The utmost energy was put forth, after the defeat of Mah- moud, by the Director of Railways, Major Girouard,

R.E., to get the track completed to Dakhala, the junction of the Atbara with the Nile. Not only the railroad battalion, which was nearly 3000 strong, but every available Khedivial soldier, laboured in some way or other at the task. They put their hearts and thews

to the toil, for it was recognised that its completion not only solved the transport problem, but was a swift and sure means of return to Egypt. The railroad battalion worked wonders in grading and laying. Fellaheen and negro, they showed a vim and intelligence in track-making that Europeans could not surpass.

Native lads, some in their early teens, clothed with

little beyond a sense of their own importance and “ army ammunition boots,” many sizes too big for their feet, adjusted the fish-plates and put on the screw nuts.

Then, for those who bore the heavy burden of rails and sleepers and carried material for the road bed, there

were licensed fools, mummers, and droll mimics, who by their antics revived the lagging spirits of the gangs. There is an unsuspected capacity for mimicry in what are called savage men. I have seen Red Indians give excellent pantomimic entertainments, and aborigines in other lands exhibit high mumming talent. In the railroad battalion there was an eccentric negro who was a very king of jesters. From the Sirdar and the Khalifa downwards—for he was an ex-dervish