oup 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