Considering that three years ago Khartoum was nothing more than a dirty dust-heap, the work that has been accomplished by the Royal Engineers is truly wonderful. Of course, the city is still in the hands of the builders; everywhere are gangs of workmen levelling roads, preparing foundations, making bricks of Nile mud, carrying, hammering, digging, building. Women, too, are employed. Their principal duty is bearing water for the lines of young trees that will one day make each street a shady avenue. Already the town is lighted with lamps far better than many an Egyptian city, and it is hoped that in a short time a tramway will be in working order. From November to March the climate is very delightful: it is hot, of course, at times, but the north wind blows steadily and coolly practically every day, and sometimes the nights are even cold. Even if it is hot, there is always the Blue Nile to refresh the eyes. It is a comfort to find that the Blue Nile is really blue—as blue as any Italian lake. One is so often told that it is called blue because of the mud it brings down during the flood—the mud which causes the ‘red’ water so dear to the Egyptian cultivator. But anyone who looks at it cannot fail to realize that its name is derived from its clear and limpid waters, and not from its muddy flood-time. One of the most charming scenes in Khartoum is the view of these blue waters seen from the windows of the Soudan Club through a green maze of palms and lime-trees. Khartoum, with its bungalows, offices, shops, and banks, is a civilized town, summoned up out of nothing, as it were, by an enchanter’s wand. Far different is Omdurman. Here, too, the engineers have been at work, clearing, demolishing, and cleaning. Only those who marched in after the battle four years ago and saw those foul labyrinths of streets can realize how much has been accomplished. But though purified and greatly shrunk, of course, within its limits in the Khalifa’s time, Omdurman remains a real Central African city, with nothing European about it. It was originally intended to move all the inhabitants over to Khartoum; but the natural convenience of its position on the left bank of the river, just at the junction of the two Niles, makes it impossible to carry out this intention. Its population is actually increasing at present, and it seems far better to let natural forces work their way, and retain it as the native quarter of the capital, distinct from the seat of government. It possesses, too, a wide sloping foreshore, or beach, exactly suited to the feluccas which ply upon the river.