brought a thing like that, and having gone up
in it before our eyes, had then come down and demanded that we should
worship and serve them, we would have done so. The English have indeed
great power.' The chief was right. For any nation to which is entrusted
the policing and administration of large tracts of uncivilized country,
an air force, civil and military, is an instrument of great power.

Balloons were used again on active service in the following year, 1885,
in the Soudan. A small detachment, under Major Templer with Lieutenant
R. J. H. L. MacKenzie, of the Royal Engineers, and nine non-commissioned
officers and sappers, accompanied the expeditionary force. The best of
the material had been sent to Bechuanaland, so the equipment was very
imperfect, but ascents made in a balloon of one of the smaller types, at
El Teb and Tamai, and elsewhere, proved useful for reconnaissance.

On the return of these two expeditions no attempt was made to keep up a
regular balloon section. What was done must for the most part be
credited to the energy of those few officers who believed in the future
of balloons. Majors Elsdale and Templer ran the factory for building
balloons and making hydrogen, and a few non-commissioned officers,
trained in balloon work, were held on the strength of depot companies.
Most of the practice, in observation of gunfire and the like, was
carried out with captive balloons; the few trips adventured in free
balloons were undertaken only when the gas had so deteriorated that the
balloon had not lift enough for captive work. Major Elsdale did what he
could to improve equipment, and urged that two or three officers should
be appointed to give their whole time to balloons and to form the
nucleus of a balloon corps. He is himself remembered for his pioneer
experiments in aerial photography; he sent up cameras attached to small
free balloons, with a clockwork apparatus which exposed the plates at
regular intervals and which finally ripped the balloon to bring it to
earth again. Major Templer, for his part, took a house at Lidsing, about
four miles from Chatham and the same distance from Maidstone, and, in
1887, started a small summer training camp for balloon work in one of
the fields adjoining his house. Lieutenants G. E. Phillips and C. F.
Close, of the Royal Engineers, attended this camp, which was held again
in the following years. In 1889 Lieutenants B. R. Ward and H. B. Jones,
also of the Royal Engineer