The recent campaign in the Soudan was a bloodless one to the correspondent with the expedition, or, rather, on the tail of the advance. Yet I think, in spite of this little drawback, there is enough in the vicissitudes of my colleagues and myself during the recent advance of the Egyptian troops up the Nile to warrant me addressing you this afternoon. Especially as toward the end of the campaign the Sirdar, or Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian army, Sir Herbert Kitchener, became more sympathetic with our endeavors to get good copy for our journals, and allowed us to return home by the old trade route of the Eastern Soudan, over which no European had passed since the revolt of the Eastern tribes in 1883. Unfortunately, the period for campaigning in the Soudan is in the hottest months in the year, on the rising of the Nile at the end of July, when the cataracts begin to be practicable for navigation. At the same time, in spite of the heat, it is the healthiest period, for the water, in its brown, muddy, pea soup state, is wholesomer to drink, and the banks of the river, which, when exposed at low Nile, give off unhealthy exhalations, are protected from spreading fever germs by the flood. To show you how much the people of Egypt depend for their very existence on this extraordinary river, the average difference between high and low Nile, giving favorable results, is 26 feet. Twenty-eight feet would cause serious damage by inundation, and the Nile as low as 20 feet would create a famine. The flood of the river depends entirely on the equatorial rains which cause the Upper White Nile to rise in April and the Blue Nile early in June. The muddy Atbara, joining her two sisters about the same time, sends the flood down to Lower Egypt toward the end of August at the rate of 100 miles a day. The Blue Nile in the middle of September falls rapidly away, while the Atbara leaves the trio in October. The White Nile is then left by herself to recede slowly and steadily from a current of four knots an hour to a sluggish and, in many parts, an unwholesome stream. Flies and mosquitoes increase, and fever is rife.