2 20 EGYPT AND THE SOUDAN.

landers, 2d battalion Essex Regiment, 1st battalion Berkshire Regiment, 1st battalion Royal West Kent, 3d battalion King's Royal Rifle Corps, 1st battalion Gordon Highlanders, and 1st battalion Cameron Highlanders. Besides the above there were drafts from various regiments forming the Camel Corps.

For special service: — Colonel Sir C. W. Wilson, K.C.M.G., R.E., as head of the Intelligence Department; Colonel R. Harrison, C.B., R.E.; Colonel H. Brackenbury, C.B., R.A.; Colonel Sir H. Stewart, K.C.B., 3d Dragoons; Colonel Webber, C.B., R.E.; Colonel Henderson, King's Royal Rifles; Brevet Lieut.-colonel J. F. Maurice, R.A.; Captain Lord Airlie, 10th I lussars.

Had the Soudan railway scheme by the Nile ever been carried out, this expedition might have reached Shendy in time to retake Berber and deliver Khartum, or we may go further and say that the whole aspect of affairs might have been different; in fact the rebellion itself nwht have been barred from extending: to Khartum and Berber. This, however, is only a speculation, and the completion of the line had, as we have seen, been prevented by the refusal of Gordon to have the cost of an undertaking, which had been already half frustrated, thrust upon the finances of the Soudan provinces, which he had to administer during his first governorgeneralship. Fie had refused to be responsible for the completion of this line, and had proposed an alternative scheme for providing tramways by which the Nile traffic might be made comparatively easy, but this had never been completed, and now the line of railway, imperfect, interrupted, and inefficient, ended, as the phrase is, "in the air."1 The southern terminus of this line was to have been at Shendy, the most convenient centre for traffic moving by the Nile, the point at which the camel routes from nearly all the fertile provinces converge, and above which the river is more or less navigable. From Shendy the line was to cross the so-called Bayuda desert, a tract well provided with water and small timber, and to reach the Nile again near Debbch, a convenient commercial centre for Darfiir, Kordofan, and the western provinces.

1 See vol. i. pp. 186, 1S7.