Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 | Page 3

think, in spite of this little drawback, there is enough in the vicissitudes of my colleagues and myself during the recent advance of the Egyptian troops up the Nile to warrant me addressing you this afternoon. Especially as toward the end of the campaign the Sirdar, or Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian army, Sir Herbert Kitchener, became more sympathetic with our endeavors to get good copy for our journals, and allowed us to return home by the old trade route of the Eastern Soudan, over which no European had passed since the revolt of the Eastern tribes in 1883. Unfortunately, the period for campaigning in the Soudan is in the hottest months in the year, on the rising of the Nile at the end of July, when the cataracts begin to be practicable for navigation. At the same time, in spite of the heat, it is the healthiest period, for the water, in its brown, muddy, pea soup state, is wholesomer to drink, and the banks of the river, which, when exposed at low Nile, give off unhealthy exhalations, are protected from spreading fever germs by the flood. To show you how much the people of Egypt depend for their very existence on this extraordinary river, the average difference between high and low Nile, giving favorable results, is 26 feet. Twenty-eight feet would cause serious damage by inundation, and the Nile as low as 20 feet would create a famine. The flood of the river depends entirely on the equatorial rains which cause the Upper White Nile to rise in April and the Blue Nile early in June. The muddy Atbara, joining her two sisters about the same time, sends the flood down to Lower Egypt toward the end of August at the rate of 100 miles a day. The Blue Nile in the middle of September falls rapidly away, while the Atbara leaves the trio in October. The White Nile is then left by herself to recede slowly and steadily from a current of four knots an hour to a sluggish and, in many parts, an unwholesome stream. Flies and mosquitoes increase, and fever is rife.
I arrived in Cairo on a sweltering day in July, and found four colleagues, who had been waiting for a week the Sirdar's permission to proceed to the front, still waiting. Luckily, the day after my arrival a telegram came from headquarters, saying that "we might proceed as far as Assouan and their await further orders." This, anyhow, was a move in the right direction; so we at once started. It was rather a bustle for me to get things ready, for Sunday blocked the way and little could be done, even on that day, in Cairo. I procured a servant, a horse and two cases of stores, for the cry was "nothing to be had up country in the shape of food; hardly sufficient sustenance to keep the flies alive." My colleagues, who had the start of me, were able to procure many luxuries--a case of cloudy ammonia for their toilet, and one of chartreuse, komel and benedictine to make their after dinner coffee palatable, and some plum pudding, if Christmas should still find them on the warpath, were a few of the many items that made up the trousseau of these up-to-date war correspondents, though at least one of them had been wedded to the life for many years. Unfortunately I had no time to procure these luxuries, and I had to proceed ammonialess and puddingless to the seat of war. My comrades were quite right. Why not do yourself well if you can? One of them even went in for the luxury of having three shooting irons, two revolvers and a double-barrel slug pistol, so that when either of the weapons got hot while he was holding Baggara horsemen at bay, there was always one cooling, ready to hand. He also, which I believe is a phenomenal record with any campaigner, took with him thirteen pairs of riding breeches, a half dozen razors and an ice machine. Even our commander-in-chief, when campaigning, denies himself more than two shirts and never travels with ice machines. But the thirteen pairs impressed me considerably. Why thirteen, more than fifteen, or any other number? I came to the conclusion that my colleague must certainly be a member of that mystic body the "Thirteen Club," and as he had to bring in the odd number somewhere to keep the club fresh in his memory, he occasionally sat upon it.
I found, after all, there was some wisdom in his eccentricity, for, when riding the camel, mounted on the rough saddle of the country, I often wished that I had my friend's forethought, and I should have been glad to have supplemented mine with his odd number. No doubt