On this occasion we paid no more than a rapid visit to the ancient cemeteries which lie a few hundred yards from the river at this point; but when I was here in 1910, I went back some six miles into the western desert to visit the field of the battle of Toshkeh, where on August 3, 1889, Sir Francis (now Lord) Grenfell defeated an army of Dervishes under Wad er Nejumi. The Dervishes were invading Egypt along the desert route, which avoids the twisting course of the Nile, and at this point they were met by the opposing forces and practically annihilated. The battlefield is most interesting; for many of the dead still lie upon the ground where they fell, and in all directions the marks of the conflict are apparent, even the tracks of the gun-carriages being still visible passing across the firm surface of the sand. On a mound of rock, at the foot of which one may see the neat squares and circles of pebbles marking out the general’s quarters on the eventful day, there is a monument under which the Egyptian soldiers who fell are buried; and a commemorative inscription in marble proclaims to the unvisited and silent desert around how these men “gave their lives for their country.” I trust that I shall not appear cynical if I record here the impression of surprise which one could not help feeling upon seeing these fine old British sentiments applied to Egyptian soldiery. The Egyptian Tommy, good fellow that he is, has not yet learnt to bother himself about patriotism, though in isolated cases he is beginning to read newspapers and to fill his head with sentiments to which it is difficult to put a name. It was cruel fate that caused him to be conscribed for the army, and something uncommonly like the black magic of an enemy that sent him in the month of August to fight in Nubia. What the fuss was about hardly concerned him; and, knowing the cheery, inconsequent _fellah_, it requires a considerable stretch of the imagination to suppose that he felt possessed of a country to defend or was prepared to give his life for it.