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There are probably times in the experiences of most of us when we seem to awake out of a long dream and begin to appreciate fully that the circumstances in which we are placed are stern realities after all. Such a time of awakening came to our hero when he and his comrades each received fifty rounds of ball-cartridge, and stood ready to repel assault on the defences of Suakim.

"I don't suppose you were a bit more hurt than you would be in a good close rally at football. It is a thousand times better after all than mooning about Windsor, or being mewed on board a ship at Suakim. However, I shall be precious glad when the others arrive, and we have done with this fatigue work.

I should say you had better write to my father, for the interview might be an unpleasant one; but if you have to appeal to Geoffrey, you had better call upon him and show him this letter. I feel sure that he will do what he can. "Gregory." A month later, a messenger came up from Suakim with a despatch, dated October 3rd. The force was then within a few days' march of El Obeid.

Captive balloons for reconnoitring purposes were used by the British army for the first time at Suakim in 1885, and the section established its value very convincingly. The French military balloon department gained its first experience in this field in the previous year, a balloon detachment having been dispatched to Tonkin in 1884.

They had lost, too, a great many of their best fighting men in the battles with the Kaffirs, but no doubt when Osman Digma announced that the favourable time had arrived, all would again join him in order to have their share of the plunder of Suakim.

It was about four o'clock on an uncommonly hot morning that the bugle sounded in Suakim, and soon the place was alive with men of all arms, devouring a hasty breakfast and mustering eagerly, for they were elated at the near prospect of having "another slap at Osman!" Strange, the unaccountably exultant joy which so many men experience at the prospect of killing each other!

The first Soudanese battalion was recruited and mustered-in at Suakim. It got the next numeral in regimental order, and so became known as the "Ninth." Many of the blacks who enlisted in the Ninth Dinkas, Shilluks, Gallas, and what not were deserters from the Mahdi's banner, or dervishes who had been taken prisoners at El Teb and Tamai.

The first step of Admiral Hewett and General Graham on their arrival at Suakim was to issue a proclamation calling upon all the tribesmen to leave Osman Digma and to come in and make their submission, promising protection and pardon to all who surrendered. This proclamation was backed by a letter by the Sheik Morghani, who was held in the highest estimation for his holiness.

The fact is, the fault was not due to either party as such, but to the party form of government that unfortunately prevails in this country. The opposite party might have fallen into the same mistake, had they been in the same position. The Government was afraid to split up its supporters by engaging in another war so soon after the Egyptian and Suakim campaigns.

While Englishmen and Americans have been alike interested in the late project for forcing water by a pipe line over the mountainous region lying between Suakim and Berber in the far-off Soudan, few men of either nation have any proper conception of the vast expenditure of capital, natural and engineering difficulties overcome, and the bold and successful enterprise which has brought into existence far greater pipe lines in our own Atlantic States.