The Tragedy of the Korosko

universal press agencies, responsive to the slightest stimulus, it may well seem incredible that an international incident of such importance sho

paper, but was generally discredited. They have now been thrown into narrative form, the incidents having been collated from th

sed to put his version of the matter into writing, but as these proofs have been submitted to him, and no correction or deletion has been made in them, it may be supposed that

a flat-iron, started upon the 13th of February in the year 1895, from Shellal, at the head of the

" FEBRUARY 13T

hrane Cochr

il Brow

adingly Bo

ms Bosto

s Worcester,

Fardet

rs. Belmo

ephens M

Stuart B

r, nurse and c

ntention of travelling up the two hundred miles of Nubian

runs between black and sun-cracked hills, with the orange drift-sand lying like glaciers in their valleys. Everywhere one sees traces of vanished races and submerged civilisations. Grotesque graves dot the hills or stand up against the sky-line: pyramidal graves, tumulus graves, rock graves-everywhere, graves. And, occasionally, as the boat rounds a rocky point, one sees a deserted city up above-houses, walls, battlements, with the sun shining through the empty window squares. Sometimes you learn that it has been Roman, sometimes Egyptian, sometimes all record of its name or origin has been absolutely lost. You ask yourself in amazement why

of further service, and who demonstrate the worth of such a system by spending their declining years in exploring Morocco, or shooting lions in Somaliland. He was a dark, straight, aquiline man, with a courteously deferential manner, but a steady, questioning eye; very neat in his dress and precise in his habits, a gentleman to the tips of his trim finger-nails. In his Anglo-Saxon dislike to effusiveness he had cultivated a self-contained manner which was apt at first acquaintance to be repellent, and he seemed to those who really knew him to be at some pains to conceal the kind heart and human emotions which influenced his actions. It was respect rather tha

moustache, a low voice and a listless manner, which was relieved by a charming habit of suddenly lighting up into a rapid smile and gleam when anything caught his fancy. An acquired cynicism was eternally crushing and overlying his natural youthful enthusiasms, and he ignored what was obvious while expressing keen appreciation for what seemed to the avera

Massachusetts. She had hardly landed in Egypt before she realised that the country needed putting to rights, and since the conviction struck her she had been very fully occupied. The saddle-galled donkeys, the starved pariah dogs, the flies round the eyes of the babies, the naked children, the importunate beggars, the ragged, untidy women-they were all challenges to her conscience, and she plunged in bravely at her work of reformation. As she could not speak a word of the language, however, and was unable to make any of the delinquents understand what it was that she wanted, her passage up the Nile left the immemorial East very much as she had found it, but afforded a good deal of sympathetic amusement to her fellow-travellers. No one enjoyed her efforts more than her niece, Sadie, who shared with Mrs. Belmont the distinction of being the most popular person upon the boat. Sh

g-range rifle-shot, who had carried off nearly every prize which Wimbledon or Bisley had to offer. With him was his wife, a very charming and refined woman, full of the pleasant playfulness of her country. Mrs. Shlesinger was a middle-aged widow, quiet and soothing, with her thoughts all taken up by her six-year-old child, as a mother's thoughts are likely to be in a boat

it, so that his soul was being gradually bricked up like the body of a mediaeval nun. But at last there came this kindly illness, and Nature hustled James Stephens out of his groove, and sent him into the broad world far away from roaring Manchester and his shelves full of calf-skin authorities. At first he resented it deeply. Everything seemed trivial to him compared to his own petty routine. But gradually his eyes were opened, and he began dimly to see that it was his work which was trivial when compared to this wonderful, varied, inexplicable world of which he was so ignorant. Vaguely he realised that the interruption to his career might be more important than the career itself. All sorts of new interests took possession of him; and the middle-aged lawyer developed an after-

on of the very oldest buildings which the hands of man have constructed, become impatient of temples which are hardly older than the Christian era. Ruins which would be gazed upon with wonder and veneration in any other country are hardly noticed in Egypt. The tourists viewed with languid interest the half-Greek art of the Nubian bas-reliefs; they climbed the hill of Korosko to see the sun rise over the savage Eastern desert; they were moved to wonder by the great shrine of Abou-Simbel, where some old race has hollowed out a mountain as if it were a c

reach the celebrated pulpit rock of Abousir. The pulpit rock is supposed to have been called so, because it is a rock like a pulpit. When you have reached it you will know that you are on the very edge of civilisation, and that very little more will take you into the country of the Dervishes, which will be obvious to you at the top. Having passed the summit, you will perceive the full extremity of the second cataract,

s, his short English cover-coat, and his red tarboosh vanished successively down the lad

o know what I am looking at right there at the time, and not six hours afterwards in my state-room. I

dragoman to hustle me around, I'll have time to read about it all, and then I expect I shall begin to enthuse,

gest of the matter," said Stephens, handing a slip of paper to Miss Sadie. She l

an by 're,' Mr. Stephens? You put 're Ramese

e," said Stephens; "it is the custom in t

at, Mr.

know. We put re so-and-so

feels queer somehow when applied to scenery or to dead Egy

y that it does,

used to imagine they had less, and yet, when you come to think of it, Dickens and Thackeray and Barrie, and so many other of the humourists we admire most are Britishers. Besides, I never in all my days heard people

kes you as funn

e map, you began your letter, 'Enclosed, please find,'

usual form

aid Sadie demurely, a

s country and lay a few cold-drawn facts in front of them. I'd make a platform of my own, Mr. Stephens, and run a party on my ticket. A Bill for the compulsory use of eyewash wou

m," said Sadie; "until one day I saw o

is country I would as soon think of going ashore without my needle-case as without my white umbrella, Mr. Stephens. Then as I warmed on the job I got into the room-such a room!-and I packed the folks out of it, and I fairly did the chores as if I had been the hired help. I've seen no more of that temple of Abou-Simbel than if I had never left Boston; but, my sakes, I saw more dust and mess than you would think they could crowd into a house the size of a Newport bathing-hut. From the time I pinned up my skirt until I came out with my face the colour of that smoke-stack

and, but it's terrible too; and then when you think that we really are, as that dragoman said just now, on the very end of civilisation, and with nothing

d," said the older woman nervously. "It's

ching away and away until it is lost in the shadows. Hear the sad whisper of t

ke you solemn, my dear," said her Aunt. "I'v

side of the river there had risen a high shrill whimp

d Stephens. "I heard one when we went

sen, and her face showed tha

all the way up here, Sadie. Your mother will think that I am clean crazy, and I'd never dare to look her in the eye if

e girl, "it isn't like

put up with. There's one consolation, we are scheduled to be on our way home to-morrow, after we've seen this one rock or temple,

Good-night,

ies passed down

h Headingly, the young Harvard graduate, bending forw

lent English, but separating his syllables as d French

oods were full of the

ed across to where th

was glowing thr

he whispered. "It is perfectly comprehended upon the C

people-mostly of Irish stock-who are always mad with England; but the most of us have a kindly thought for the mother country

not without offence say to these others. And I repeat that there are

say!" cried

s been exposed in La Patrie and ot

l me, Monsieur Fardet, that the siege of Khartoum and the d

s local, you understand, and now long forgotten. Sin

hen the Arabs tried to invade Egypt. It was only Two days ago that we passed

good Miss Adams when she forces her way into the house of an Arab. 'Come out,' says the world. 'Certainly,' says England; 'just wait one little minute until I have made everything nice and proper.' So the world waits for a year or so, and then it says once again, 'Come out.' 'Just wait a little,' says England; 'there is trouble at Khartoum, and when I have set that all right I shall be very glad to come out.' So they wait until it is all over, and then again they say, 'Co

ow the rights of this business, for it has often

he country,

example, that there is

sh go

; it is the s

gives the contrac

ely, mo

through the country, the one that runs alongside the r

an honest man, if

onsieur, which holds the r

ican was

of course, there must be some indirect pull somewhere. For example

! No, they are p

der and guarding the frontier, with a constant war against the Dervishes on their hands, I don't know why any one should object. I suppose no one denies that the prosperity

renchman angrily. "Let them go back to their i

which was not meant for you. It's easy for us to talk, of course, for we have still got room and to spare for all our people. When we begin pushing each other ove

ieur Fardet. "Algier

have the honour to wish

and walked off, rigid w

is c