344 The British Empire in Danger [1900 



feet above the plain overlooking the Bitter Lake. From this point 

 we marched north north-west to the Sand-hills and the Wady Tumey- 

 lat. The following day, the 9th January, Anne and I made a long 

 camel trot of six hours across the gravel plain, crossing Wady Jaffra 

 to another conspicuous rock south of Belbeis, and so on the 10th back 

 to Sheykh Obeyd. It was a pleasant excursion, but contains little worth 

 recording. 



" \oth Jan. — Mohammed Abdu was here to-day, and confirms to the 

 full the accounts of Kitchener's dealings with the Mahdi's head as I 

 gave it last summer in the ' Daily News,' especially as to Cromer's dis- 

 approval of it and his dislike of Kitchener. We agreed that at last 

 God's Providence was moved to anger against these abominations, and 

 that England's Empire would go the way of all the rest. 



" There is a letter in the ' Times ' just come which I think caps every- 

 thing yet written for absurd bombast. Its author is old Reid, the naval 

 constructor, a former Gladstonian Radical, and still M.P. It shows to 

 what a pass of self-glorification we English have come, for the Radicals 

 are worse now than the extremest Tories, and I have had to write home 

 to tell them to cease sending me the ' Daily Chronicle ' and the ' Man- 

 chester Guardian,' and replace them with the ' Daily Mail ' and ' Morn- 

 ing Post.' The only London paper that speaks a word of sense is the 

 ' Westminster Gazette.' Here is the concluding paragraph : 



" ' May I add, Sir, that my thoughts search history in vain for any 

 spectacle of national heroism greater than, or equal to, that which Great 

 Britain and her truly noble colonies are presenting to the world at this 

 moment. The crafty and foreigner-aided enemy lies in our territory 

 and across our path, with shell guns on every available hill, and trenches 

 dug between ; with barbed wire stretched to protect their cunningly de- 

 vised lairs, and cover spread to conceal their more or less rebellious 

 persons. Their power to deal out death and mutilation is their delight ; 

 their skill in doing so is their pride ; and it is known that the flag which 

 they most hate is the Union Jack, the very symbol of freedom and 

 equality throughout the world. They have done their level and their 

 unlevel best to slay our men and lower our flag on our own soil. They 

 are difficult to tackle, for they fight lurking, and fly alike from cold 

 steel and the open field. All that human heroism combined with ani- 

 mal cunning can perform they will do against us, and they will add to 

 these such prayers as even ignoble lips oft dare to address to the God of 

 battles. But have they alarmed us? Have they " frightened the isle 

 from its propriety ? " Have they detached one colony from the mother- 

 land? Have they caused young or old, citizen or noble, poor or rich, 

 small or great, worldling or worshipful, in any part of this Imperial 

 Realm to shrink or hold back from the encounters, however deadly, to 

 which they have challenged us? No, Sir, there has sprung from every 



