Egypt in Transition

KHARTUM!

It is a name which many Englishmen cannot hear, even when it is prosaically called at a railway station, without a certain thrill. To some, indeed, of my fellowtravellers who arrived with me by the desert train that dark, warm evening in December, it may have meant little. 'Also sind wir zuletzt am Ende!' says the stout German, who has been grumbling and perspiring for many hours. For him, coming into the Sudan with strictly commercial aims, Khartum is only a town like any other. So it is to the American lady tourist, under the disc of a vast white felt helmet and a blue veil like a mosquito-curtain; to the good-looking young Briton, bound for Gondokoro and the pursuit of big game, it is merely the starting-point of a sporting expedition; to the bimbashi of a Sudanese battalion going back to duty after his three months' leave it means another spell of hard, hot, dusty toil before the moist greenness of 'home' can be felt again. The aliens have no part in the associations that gather round the spot where the two Niles join. The youngsters were not old enough to share in the long tension of that unavailing march which ended in futility and retreat; they were

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