The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, January 30, 1898, Page 17

SAN FRANCISCO, SUNDAY, JANUARY 30, 1898. “WE RUSHED UP THE HILL AND INTO THE FORT.” | HE I'rench have suddenly evinced a desire for conquest in the Soudan, and, if report be correct, have advanced across the African continent, regard- less of the treaty rights of other powers, until they are pretty close to Khartoum itself. If they occupy Khar- toum, the trouble will begin, for Great Britain is not likely to submit tamely to the capture by a foreign power of this most important strategical post. Khartoum is the key of the Soudan, the nation holding it controls the Nile, along which all the traffic from the im- mensely rich regions of the Equatorial Soudan must pass. Millions of mon and thousands of lives have been lav- | ished on this oasis of the desert. Egypt, | to whom the territory nominally be- Jongs, has proved herself, even with the aid of Great Britain, unable to hold the land aga > forces of fanaticism controlled by the Mahdi, and since the ilation of Hicks Pasha’s army in the whole district has been aban- doned to all the horrors of barbaric Mohammedan rule. To-day, just there is some pros- pect of the Egyptian expeditionary force, now on the Nile, breaking down the already weakened power of the Mahdi, the French appear on the scene to complicate matters. No one can fore- see the outcome of this international embroglio, but it is probable that the difficulty will be settled in the diplo- matic courts of Europe, rather than on the burning ds of Egypt. Two great nations,suchas France and England, are not likely to fight over the Soudan, and even if they did, the scene of war would promptly be shifted nearer home. Great Britain would meet France, not by sending troops to the East, but by pre- venting the French from doing so. The first Napoleon’'s designs upon the British possessions in India were frustrated by the vigor with which Nelson’s fleet swept the Mediterranean, his expedi- tion to Egypt was converted into a dis- astrous faflure, and the battle of the Nile left the great general helplessly stranded on a foreign shore. The same plan of campaign would certainly be adopted by Great Britain to-day. Meanwhile the little French exped!- tionary force in the Soudan is likely to have enough of desert campaigning be- | fore it has finished. One experience of this kind is sufficlent to satisfy even the most ardent military enthusiast. The difficulties attendant upon moving large bodies of men in this arid climate are almost insuperable, the water ques- tion constantly presents itself in new and trying phases and the problem of transport has never been satisfactorily solyed. It fell to my lot, by oné of those ac- cidents which occur now and again in every man’s life, to play a humble part in one of these African campaigns. The expedition was not long, nor was it particularly bloodthirsty, and conse- quently the world, by this time, has forgotten all about it. T happened to be in Australia in the early part of 1885, when the news of Khartoum’s fall and the tragic death of “Chinese” Gordon sent a thrill through the civilized world. One of the best and brightest of British soldiers was gone, nd his loss was distinctly traceable to the fatal policy of pro- crastination characteristic of Glad- stone’s administration. Gordon might have been saved had the Nile expedi- tion, then almost within reach of Khar- toum, started on its long and perilous Journey but a week or two earlier. As it was, Sir C. Wilson with a small force | reached Khartoum by steamer but two | days after the fall of the town, only | | to find that the place was in the hands of the Mahdists and that nothing could be done to remedy the fatal error made by the English ‘Government. | It is no wonder that the British peo- ple were indignant; a wave of warlike | enthusiasm passed over the land, and no cry was heard but that of revenge for the untimely death of *“Chinese” | Gordon. The manner of his life, its | austere virtue 1 strange military plety, had always placed Gordon on a different plane from other soldiers of the crown. The manner of his death, after holding to the st with unflinch- | ing courage a famine-stricken and be- | leaguered town, raised him almost to | the heights of martyrdom. At least that was the popular feeling of the day, and it is no wonder that the sentiment spread to the colonies beyond sea. Australia caught the con- tagion pretty badly, and the Govern- ment of the colony of New South | Wa to show in a practical manner | its loyalty to the crown, volunteered to dispatch at its own expense a con- tingent to aid the British forces in wiping out the disgrace of Gordon's | | death. There was a good deal of humor in the proposal, for New South Wales, though owning a large and wealth- | producing territory, had but little over & million inhabitants. Great Britain, with ‘her huge Indian army to draw upon, had obviously no need for aid from such a Liliputian source. Still, | for some unaccountable reason, the suggestion struck the fancy of the En- glish Cabinet. Perhaps it was to give | the world an object lesson as to the | solidity of the British Empire; perhaps merely to gratify the vanity of a valu- | able colony. But whatever the cause, | the British Government accepted the offer. | No one was more surprised than the | Colonials. Such a thing had never | been heard of before. It had become quite fashionable, whenever the Eng- | lish nation was engaged in a little war, for the colonies to offer a portion of their diminutive armies for service at the front. The thing did no harm and helped to advertise the colony, to keep the world aware of its existence. There was hurrying and scurrying | and unbounded patriotic enthusiasm when the news reached Sydney. The | | worst Russian scare which had ever afflicted the colony was nothing to it. New South Wales was pledged to dis- patch within a fortnight a fully | equipped regiment of five hundred in- fantry and two hundred and fifty field artillery, guns and all. To the credit | of the colony, the promise was faith- | fully fulfilled. | There was no difficulty about the ar- | | tillery. A permanent force of some five hundred men is always maintain- { ed to garrison the harbor defense bat- | teries which make Sydney one of the best protected ports in the world. Al that was necessary was to call for | volunteers, and the whole force at once | signified its willingness to go. | With the infantry it was different. There was no standing army to draw from, only a couple of thousand par- tially paid volunteers, or militia men. | And when it came to leaving their | homes and families for the desert wilds of the Soudan these men were not es- | pecially anxious to go. Some three | | hundred or so volunteered, but of course a new regiment had to be form- ed, and material was drawn from all quarters. There was no trouble in obtaining | recruits, civilians of all ciasses were | only too willing to join. Bank clerks and civil servants, old soldiers and sailors, policemen and wharf laborers, men of every occupation and charac- | whe | like surroundings. | British Government, with characteris- | he can sneak through a line of the ter, all flocked to the recruiting office, | and, providing they could pass the medical examination, were enrolled. Some of these men had never had a rifle in their hands before, did not even know the rudiments of the goose step, but the old stagers pulled them through, and in ten days they sent forth, clad in the traditic Jacket of the British army, to fight the mother country’'s battles in Egypt. H But despite its heterogeneous char- acter the regiment soon proved its pacity. Three weeks on board the troopship, with constant drilling and stric t of discipline, brought it into a compact and ser able form, and e landed at Suakim the British offic knowing nothing of the hap- hazard origin of the contingent, were rised at the character of the troops Australia was able to turn out. So was Tommy Atkins, who was| soon on the friendl possible terms | with his brother from across the sea. For oneé thing the Australian youth had a proficlency in swearing which | was the envy the PBritishers, and | when the English regirments returned | home they took many new and forcible cuss words with them, which, aven at the present day, impart a strangely Australian flavor to many an imperial barrack yard. | Suakim, when the Australians land- | ed, was one of the busiest ports. The shores of the little lagoon were fairly encircled with great ocean steamers. Men-of-war were dotted here and | there, their guns commanding the far- | away ranges behind the camp whers | the rebels clustered: a magnificent P. | and O. liner, with wide, open ports and clean, well ventilated decks, proved the care and attention which awaited the sick and wounded. The town, which is on an island and can be reached only by a well-guarded causeway, fairly hummed with military life. Every- where there was the orderly bustle of a well-regulated camp, and strangest | of all there was the British navy, with his vast bulk of beef-fed flesh. | The navvy, who, except when drunk, | is generally ' a man of peace, seemed strangely out of place amid such war- | But he was there | strictly on business. He was to build a railway after the soldiers had paci- fled the hostile tribes with rifles and | machine guns. And at the time we all fondly believed that our mission was | to take that raillway right across 200 miles of desert until it struck the great river at Berber. Thus, though it was too late to save Gordon, we were to solve the Central African problem and insure the pacification of the Upper Nile region. The railway would have been made right enough, though at what cost of menand money I know not, had not the tic vacillation, withdrawn from the en« terprise before it was well begun. All the material for the railway, even to the depots and name boards, was on the spot; dozens of steamers freighted with rails and construction plant were in the harbor, waiting to discharge, and | had the line gone through the map of Africa might have been colored in a very different way. At any rate, Cen- tral Africa would have been opened to European trade and the fanatical fol- lowers of the Mahdi would have found sudden reason to mend their ways. The flat, sandy shore of Suakim Bay was one vast camp. The soldiers were not quartered in the town; the place was much too small, but were camped on the plain, protected only by a slight trench and a thin line of sen- tries from the attacks of the hostile Soudanese. And Fuzzy-Wuzzy, as Kipling has christened him, is a terri- bly treacherous enemy, especially on a dark night. His tricks are endless, most vigilant sentries, and at one time his nightly visits used to cause great alarm in the British camp. The soldiers slept in large tents of the Indian pattern, each holding forty or fifty men. And at night-time, when all were quietly sleeping, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, 1 {having in some miraculous passed the line of sentries, would sneak into a tent. The light would go out, there would be a shriek, and before the suddenly awakened soldiers could | seize their arms and grope their way out of the tent the assailant would be gone. And all that would be left to Indicate the visit would be a dead sol- dier, a spear through his heart, stricken down in the midst of his comrades. This practice was so greatly feared i that when we moved.out of Suakin started railway-making in the 's camp, the troops were actually forbidden to sleep in the tents at night. In the daytime they were used as a shelter from the sun, but at night no man was safe within a tangle of cordage and canvas. The Australian contingent saw the tail end of one of the biggest engage- ments which have occurred near Sua kim, but fortunately for themselves, they arrived just two days t late for the heavy fighting. ' The affair at To- frik, when the Soudane: a de- termined attack on Mac very nearly ended in a Osman Digna, who commanded Mahdi’'s troops in this region, sud- denly concentrated a large force on the British squares, but though one of the Indian regimen: gave way for a time, the attack w: eventually re- pulsed. The loss, however, was very heavy, a large portion of the transport was cut to pleces by the enemy, and when we marched over the spot a week later, we had good reason to know that a battle had been fought there. 1t there is one smell in this earth which is worse than another it is that of a defunct camel. And when you take not only one but hundreds and hun- dreds of the much deceased beasts, and scatter them along the track, you will realize the awful atmosphere we marched through. Worse still, it was not an uncommon thing to come across a human arm or leg sticking bolt up- right out of the sand. Some poor fel- low was hastily buried here, with but a thin layer of soil above his corpse, a covering too light to secure rest for his remains. Another time, in some out of the way nullah or dry creek bed, we would step over corpses which had never been buried at all, and which would remain until they became as the bones which whitened the .plain all around. These things were not pleasant to look upon, but at the moment, so absorbed were we in our own odcupations, we missed the horror of it all. We were marching through burning sand, the sun like a ball of fire overhead, to at- tack Osman Digna in his stronghold at Tamali, to teach him that these vio- lent assaults upon the British forces could not be made with impunity. manner the i SWEET ticu TR The‘most effective skin purifying and beautify-, ing soap in the world, as well as purest and Scalp and Halr, post free. MOTHERS! HOTHERS! PR a I arsraarararerarararararw s e e B R R R LR LR L LI L L R SR N SRR L L LS RS Al b and free from every blem- ish is the skin, scalp and hair of infants cleansed, purified and beautified by nursery. For distressing facial” S eruptions,pimples, blackheads, red, rough, oilyskin,irrita- tions of the scalp,with dry, thin and falling hair, red, rough hands with shapeless nails, and simple rashes and blem- ishes of infancyit isincomparable. Guaranteedabsolute- ly pure by analytical chemists of the highest standing, whose certificates of analysis accompany each tablet. Sold thronghout the world. POTTER DRUG AND CHEM. OORP., Sole Props., Boston. British depot: . NEWBURY & SONS, 1 King Edward st., London. I Send for our Treatment of Baby's Skin,” a book of G4 pages, fully illustrated, coutaining all that every ibteliigent mother should know abcut the Skin, To know that 2 warm bath with CUTICURA SOAP, and a single anointing with CUTICURA, the great skin cure, will afford instant relief in the most distressing of itching, bumi_rll_g and scaly infantile rashes and irritations of the skin and scalp, and not to use them is to fail in your duty. parent as well as grateful relief and refreshing sleep for child, and is pure, sweet, safe, speedy and economical, | fire. is treatment means comfort and rest for General Graham, who was then in command, had determined to do the thing thoroughly, so he took out near= ly all the troops at Suakim, British, ustralian and Indian. Some ten thou- sand strong we marched in a huge hol- low sq . or rather oblong formation, but, if safe, it was weary work. We had to carry supplies of every Kkind, including water, with us, for the coun- ry would yield nothing, and the cen- of the square was a seething mass of unruly transport animals. Camels, horses and mules, ambulance wagons and water carts, camp followers of every nationality, were crowded to- gether, a ou ate of progress was nece v the rate of progress of the transport. We marched four deep, with fixed bayonets, on each side of the square, and every now and then would come the order to h and face front. It might be a threatened rush by the enemy, who were constantly hovering in the surrounding bush, or it might be only some unfortunate camel which had dropped its load. As it meant sud- den “death- for either man or beast to fall behind the guarding fringe of rie fles, the whole force had to halt until the mischief could' be repaired. Thus it took us all day to reach Tamaii, a distance of fifteen or sixteen miles, and after all there was no bat- tle. Osman Digna, wisely enough, con- strued discretion as the better part of valor and fled before our force could get at him. A few of his bravest war- ver, remained hidden be- at the back of the little town, and as we approached Reming- ton bu fired from some invisible spot, came dropping from the skies among us. It was annoying, because we could see mnothing to fire back at, and we were most anxious to prove our skill in rifle practice. But perhaps the man most annoyed stood right in front of me. One of these mysterious drop- ping bullets punctured a nice, clean hole through his right shoulder. I re- member watching the red stain on his kharkee tunic where the bullet came out, and wondering what caused it. was not until I saw the stain spreading all over his "k that I realized the man was wounded, and then I think he realized the fact himself, for he went off to the rear and provided the ambulance corps with a little occcu- pation. After this we burned some huts and filled up some wells, and the battle was over. I am sure we were all very glad, for we had not the slightest desire to be shot, nor did we wish to face a rush of the fanatical Hadendowas, who are among the finest fighting men in the world and whose charge, as experience has often proved, can only be stopped by overpowering rifle J. F. RO SOLEY. It ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++'I"I-+++++-I-I-+-I"l-+++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++‘++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-l-++++-l-+++++++#+++0++++4‘+++++ FEmmmmrmorsrears s e E R TR L L AL SRS LA SRl bkt i +4++4dbt bttt bbb bbb bbb i