viii INTRODUCTION

over and above a captain's (British) pay, besides

private means, is no hardship. One patronises balls

and other gaieties, polo of the best, golf, rackets, &c.

But who has not heard of the Khedival Sporting

Club ? The season over, one endures for a couple of

months, with an occasional (is it weekly?) week-end at

San Stephano, and then—the three months' leave that

follows the nine of work. The second is life at Khartum. For the majority

this is official life pure and simple. The hours, from

9 A.M. to 2 P.M., are not appalling except for those to whom continuous ofBce work is anathema maranatha.

There, too, are polo and all the sports afforded by a

well-run club. The society of the gentler sex is as

yet limited. Home leave, as in Cairo, is as regular in coming round as the hour-hand. Running in the same heat I place the stations on the Nile north of

Khartum. The third I again divide into two. There

are those who live on the Nile south of Khartum. They have their weekly or fortnightly mail-boat. They see every one, official or tourist, who passes up

or down. Their houses are comfortable bungalows.

If a servant falls sick, the next boat brings a new one.

If master does likewise, a wire will bring a steamer to

whisk him to hospital. A wire brings anything in the way of food or drink (including soda water) by return. The drawback is the mosquito. It is a drawback to

be written in capital letters. Mosquitoes in tens by

day, in hundreds of thousands of millions by night. Any one who has dinner in the open after dark in