X INTRODUCTION

that that should happen in England. As a set-off they

see big game and shoot it if their eye is straight. They see countries and peoples. They administer

large districts. Very often they wander in those most

fascinating tracts of the world—the blank places of

cartographers—the unexplored. In a word, they make

Empire.

Which of the three would one choose ?

I have often heard those in Cairo and Khartum

jeered at when they were heard to long for life at an

out-station. I never jeer. To my mind there is no

comparison.

To those who wish to join the E.A. it is well to say

that previous experience, however short, in say West

or East Africa, is invaluable. But more so is seniority

as captain.

One's seniority in the British Army (after the first

contract of two years is over) is practically the touch-

stone for promotion to the rank of kaimakam

(lieutenant-colonel). Hence it continually happens

that those who arrive at the eleventh hour, by reason

of their seniority, step into the vacancies to the higher

appointments, passing those junior to them in British

rank who have borne the burden of the day and the

heat thereof. I must, however, hasten to say that this

is not at all a hard-and-fast rule ; it has its exceptions

occasionally. The conditions of service in the Egyp-

tian Army are contained in a contract, the main point

of which is that the pay for a bimbashi (major) is

^540 a year, with ^60 in addition while quartered in