hills. That night we saw half a
dozen immense bon-fires on the hilltops, and the impression we got was
that our comrades were being burned alive. There were half a dozen
brushes or skirmishes with the natives during my stay in the desert,
but I did not experience what might be called a decisive battle. There
had been decisive battles of one sort or another, but I was not
present. They were before my time.

They began the laying of a railway from Suakim to Berber, but
afterward they pulled the rails up. The soldiers cursed Gladstone for
the laxity of his foreign policy. Gordon, we knew, was in Khartoum,
and hard pressed, and outside were the Mahdi and his multitude; and
why the Government should hold us back, we could not understand. The
desert life was so deadening that any kind of a change would have been
welcome. Every man would have been glad of even a repetition of the
charge at Balaklava, though only few men would come out. Anything was
preferable to rotting in the desert!

The sun was striking dead one out of every two men. I thought my time
had come when I had a sunstroke. Being the only man on the General's
staff stricken, I was well looked after. The General had ice, and I
was privileged to have the luxury of it. I was also given a glass of
the finest French brandy. I asked the attendant to put it by my side,
and when he disappeared out of my tent--my tent was so small that it
barely covered my body--I went through a fierce battle with my
prejudices. I was a fanatic on the drink question. I had sworn eternal
hostility to it, and with good reason. The use of it was partly
responsible for my lack of early schooling. It had robbed me of a
great deal of the life of my kind-hearted old mother, and I had
determined to put up a tremendous fight against it. Here the thing was
in my hands, ordered by the doctor; but I tipped it into the sand and
made them believe that I had drunk it. I had seen so many stricken men
with sunstroke die during the same day, that I had little hope of my
own recovery; but inside of twelve hours, I was on my feet again, and,
though weak, at work.

It was recorded that we lost fifty per cent. of our strength by
sunstroke and enteric fever. It was very noticeable that the men of
intemperate habits were the first to go. They dropped like sheep in
the heat of the day, and by sundown they lay beneath a winding sheet
of desert sand. The actual conflict of civilized with savage forces
was respon