690 
THE SUDAN PAST AND PRESENT. 
village at the end of eleven years* service. Once in the army he is 
well-clothed, well-fed, and well-housed : his pay is small, but sufficient 
for his wants, and, above all things, he is justly commended or punished 
according to his conduct. The belief in his Commanding Officer has 
given birth to a feeling of confidence which may scarcely be said to 
have previously existed, except in a few stray cases where a good 
native Commanding Officer was capable of inspiring it. It is, how¬ 
ever, only just to pay this tribute to the long and dogged resistance 
made by some of the garrisons in the Sudan ; notably those of El 
Obeid, Khartum, Sinkat, Sennar, and Kassala. “ Initiative the Egyp¬ 
tian has not, decision he has not; but placed in a position in which he 
must quickly commit himself on a question of life and death, he, with 
confidence in his commander, will endure with fortitude.** Nay, more 
—if carefully trained and well treated, as he has been for the last ten 
years, it has been proved that he is a reliable fighting man—not only 
behind walls, but also in face of that same enemy who has been des¬ 
cribed as “ almost the equal ** of the British soldier in bravery. It 
should, however, be remembered that the Egyptian Army is not a 
purely Fellahin Army : enrolled in its ranks are five Sudanese bat¬ 
talions, recruited for the most part from the great fighting tribes—the 
Dinka and Shilluk—and there are also men in these battalions from 
Bornu, Borgu, Wadai, Darfur, and Equatoria ; men whose bravery and 
dash it would be difficult to match anywhere, whose main idea when 
an enemy appears is to be “up and at them,** and the British officers 
who command these sturdy negroes find their duty in action lies prin¬ 
cipally in endeavouring to restrain their impetuosity. 
Different, indeed, are the characteristics of the two races, but it has 
been shown, on more than one occasion, that they form a valuable 
fighting combination. 
The Egyptian Army, as at present organised, is under the Sirdar¬ 
ship of Brigadier-General Kitchener, and consists of eight battalions 
of Egyptians and five of Sudanese. There are six batteries of artillery, 
until recently commanded by Lieut.-Colonel Rundle, R.A., but on the 
latter becoming Adjutant-General, he has been succeeded by Major 
Parsons, R.A. There are ten troops of cavalry, besides various staff 
and departmental details, which go to make up the present strength of 
582 officers (of whom 75 are English) and 12,320 men. 
But to return to events in the Sudan. The cessation of hostilities 
with Abyssinia and Darfur enabled the Khalifa to push forward the 
force intended for the conquest of Egypt. 
The detail of events connected with Nejumi*s wild project are too 
well-known to need repetition here. At the head of some 14,000 
souls, of whom more than 50 per cent, were merely camp followers, he 
swept into Egypt, to meet first a severe reverse at the hands of Colonel 
Wodehouse just across the border, and then to suffer terrible losses by 
hunger, thirst, and desertion, whilst penetrating some 60 miles of 
waterless desert into Egyptian territory, and finally to suffer almost 
complete annihilation at the hands of General Sir Francis Grenfell, 
Sirdar, at Toski, on 3rd August, 1889. 
In this action fell Nejumi himself—probably the greatest of all the 
