All British merchandise was looked upon as the ne plus ultra of purity and integrity; there could be no doubt of the quality of goods, provided that they were of English manufacture. An Englishman cannot show his face among those people at the present day. The myth has been exploded. The golden image has been scratched, and the potter's clay beneath has been revealed. This is a terrible result of clumsy management. We have failed in every way. Broken faith has dissipated our character for sincerity, and our military operations have failed to attain their object, resulting in retreat upon every side, to be followed up even to the seashores of the Red Sea by an enemy that is within range of our gun-vessels at Souakim. This is a distressing change to those who have received much kindness and passed most agreeable days among the Arab tribes of the Soudan deserts, and I look back with intense regret to the errors we have committed, by which the entire confidence has been destroyed which formerly was associated with the English name. The countries which we opened by many years of hard work and patient toil throughout the Soudan, even through the extreme course of the White Nile to its birthplace in the equatorial regions, have been abandoned by the despotic order of the British Government, influenced by panic instead of policy; telegraphic lines which had been established in the hitherto barbarous countries of Kordofan, Darfur, the Blue Nile territories of Senaar, and throughout the wildest deserts of Nubia to Khartoum have all been abandoned to the rebels, who under proper management should have become England's friends. This has been our civilising influence (?), by which we have broken down the work of half a century, and produced the most complete anarchy where five-and-twenty years ago a lady could travel in security. England entered Egypt in arms to _re-establish the authority of the Khedive!_ We have dislocated his Empire, and forsaken the Soudan. CHAPTER IV The experience of modern practice has hardly decided the vexed question "whether the African species is more difficult to train than the gentle elephant of Asia." In a wild state there can be no doubt that the African is altogether a different animal both in appearance and in habits; it is vastly superior in size, and although of enormous bulk, it is more active and possesses greater speed than the Asiatic variety. Not only is the marked difference in shape a distinguishing peculiarity,--the hollow back, the receding front, the great size of the ears,--but the skin is rougher, and more decided in the bark-like appearance of its texture.