The British Campaign in the Soudan. 193 3,500 camels for 2,500 men in the hghtest possible marching order, for his rations-gave out on the road.

This vital necessity of a certain and abundant supply of water makes it self-evident that no British army, even if no larger than 4,000 or 5,000 men, can operate in the Soudan except along the Nile, which is the on/y unfailing supply.

Had this fact been recognized in time, four months would not have been wasted in vacillating about the route, and these four months gained would have saved Gordon.

I make the charge without reserve or hesitation, that the failure of Wolseley’s relief expedition was due to no other cause than the inconceivable and inexcusable ignorance of the British civil and military authorities in Egypt concerning the country which they had virtually occupied for more than six years; surely time enough to have learned all about it. More than this, no greater mistake could be made than to suppose that the Soudan was a terra incognita. So far from it, every route from Cairo to the White Nile has been an avenue of trade and travel for a thousand years, and is as well known as was the old national stage road between Baltimore and Wheeling before the days of railroads.

Furthermore, at the War Department in the citadel of Cairo, occupied as head-quarters by the British staff, there is any number of the most accurate and complete maps and reports of that region, made by French, English, Italian, and American engineers, officers, and explorers— some as recent as 1878, and containing the most minute information. Most of these documents are to be found also in the principal libraries of Europe and America. So