"Now I wish to take, most respectfully, issue with the {330} right honourable the Member for Montrose upon this point. I say this with great respect and with great earnestness that so far as I can judge from the right honourable gentleman's writings and by his teachings, he is no judge of religious fanaticism whatever. I say this with respect because, as I understand what he has written, he does not regard religious fanaticism as anything that can ever be powerful, because he says himself that he does not understand the question at all. That being so, I cannot accept the right honourable gentleman as a guide as to what should be done to check religious fanaticism.... The right honourable the Member for Montrose does not believe in the power of religious fanaticism...." Mr. Morley: "The Noble Lord cannot have read my writings, or else he would have seen that fanaticism was one of the things I have written most about" (Hansard 5th June, 1899). A member said to me in the lobby afterwards: "You really ought not to say these things. Why do you make these assertions?" "Because," I said, "I have read Mr. Morley's works." "You know very well," said my friend, "that you have never read any of his books." "I beg your pardon," I replied. "I never go to sleep without reading one of Mr. Morley's books, and I never read one of Mr. Morley's books without going to sleep." {331} CHAPTER XXXIV THE SOUDAN WAR (_Continued_) XII. SEQUEL AND CONCLUSION For the first few weeks after the return of the Desert Column to Korti, we all believed that there would be an autumn campaign, and we looked forward to the taking of Khartoum. Lord Wolseley distributed his troops among various stations along the Nile from the Hannek Cataract to Abu Dom, there to remain in summer quarters. In his dispatch of 6th March, 1885 (Colville's _History of the Soudan Campaign_, Part II.), Lord Wolseley indicated the force he would require, and requested that the railway might be continued from Halfa to Ferkeh, a distance of 47 miles. The railway was begun and was eventually completed. By 1st April the troops were occupying their allotted stations. One distinguished officer was so certain of remaining in his quarters, that he sowed vegetables in his garden. But upon 13th April Lord Wolseley was ordered to consider the measures requisite to effect a total withdrawal; and British faith was once more broken by a British Government. By that time Lord Wolseley, to whose personal staff I was once more attached, had been to Dongola and had come to Cairo.