68 SERVICE AND SPORT IN THE SUDAN 



The native officer will always scrupulously carry out 

 any instructions which he believes the giver will ask 

 about later, but here the want of continuity and its ill- 

 effects becomes apparent. I can show it best by an 

 example which came under my notice. One officer 

 gave the order that the grass round a station should 

 be cleared, as it bred mosquitoes. His successor main- 

 tained that without a quantity of grass about the 

 noxious vapours exuded by mankind were not ab- 

 sorbed, and so bred disease, and clearing the grass 

 showed want of common sense on the part of the 

 officer who did so. Naturally to sit tight on the 

 order was the best policy. If No. i came round, 

 man, woman, and child turned out to weed. A 

 monthly item, " To clearing grass so much " in the 

 accounts satisfied him that his order was being carried 

 out — but that money had to be absorbed somehow. 

 In this case quite honestly. 



Now is it altogether fair to give the show away like 

 this ? Thirty years ago the man who did not make 

 hay along the Nile while the sun shone was altogether 

 out of it. In England loo years ago what was our 

 army like ? Is it not a relic of the dishonesty of those 

 days that till lately the CO. of a unit had not the 

 control of a penny of public money, and that even a 

 general should ask twenty permissions before he could 

 sanction the expenditure of a shilling ? It is a wonder, 

 considering the class most of the native officers are 

 drawn from, and the necessarily slight supervision they 

 are subjected to, that they are so upright. 



To conclude. As a rule the Egyptian officer is 



