2 20 EGYPT AND THE SOUDAN.

were the rapidity with which news travelled from England back to Egypt, or the probabilities of messages being communicated to Arabi or other hostile chiefs, who might thus have been enabled to frustrate the operations of the expedition either by counter-arrangements or by intrigue.

Some complaints and even a few innuendos were made at that time, but many of the leading chroniclers of the events of the Egyptian campaign afterwards conceded that the general might have had sufficient reasons for the restrictions which he adopted, especially as it was found that accounts of the various operations which did not reveal the probable future movement of the troops were allowed to be despatched unaltered. Into the questions discussed in relation to the presence of special correspondence we need not enter, as it is far from the scope of these pages; but it may be mentioned that a distinct notice was given at Cairo that no newspaper correspondents or representatives of the press would be permitted to join the force in the journey up the Nile. The notification went farther than this, and in a direction which tended to show that the prohibition was chiefly occasioned by the determination to confine the arrangements within military limits, and to include no one who would not be entitled to share in the rations and provisions calculated to be sufficient for the use of the expedition on the Nile journey. It was announced that no private gentleman would be permitted to accompany the force, and that no employment would be found for gentlemen seeking to join it and willing to render service. This, of course, seemed to preclude anyone but those officially appointed to the expedition from taking any part in it even as spectators, and though there does not seem to have subsequently been any serious opposition to the presence of special correspondents and artists at the camp at Korti or with Sir Herbert Stewart's column, it was supposed the notice given at Cairo was in a great measure prohibitory. The " war correspondent," however, has attained to a position which cannot be ignored, and the representatives of leading newspapers are frequently hardy and adventurous explorers or campaigners who have held rank or are quite capable of holding rank in the army,