her brilliant, persevering sons had repeated on a lesser scale in Egypt the marvellous evolution which is working out in India.  Smaller systems circulate more rapidly.  The administrators were guided by experience.  The movement had been far swifter, and the results were more surprising.  Such was the wonderful story, and it was told in a happy moment.  The audience were eager and sympathetic.  The subject was enthralling.  The story-teller had a wit and a style that might have brightened the dullest theme.  In these propitious circumstances the book was more than a book.  The words rang like the trumpet-call which rallies the soldiers after the parapets are stormed, and summons them to complete the victory.

The regeneration of Egypt is not a theme which would fall within the limits of this account, even if it had not been fully dealt with by Sir Alfred Milner.  But the reorganisation of the Egyptian army, the forging of the weapon of reconquest, is an essential feature.  On the 20th of December, 1882, the old Egyptian army—­or, rather, such parts as had escaped destruction—­was disbanded by a single sentence of a British decree, and it was evident that some military body must replace that which had been swept away.  All sorts of schemes for the employment of foreign legions or Turkish janissaries were devised.  But Lord Dufferin adhered firmly to the principle of entrusting the defence of a country to its inhabitants, and it was determined to form a new Egyptian army.  The poverty of the government, no less than the apparent folly of the experiment, demanded that the new army should be small.  The force was intended only for the preservation of internal order and the defence of the southern and western frontiers of Egypt against the Bedouin Arabs.  The Soudan still slumbered out its long nightmare.  Six thousand men was the number originally drawn by conscription—­for there are no volunteers in Egypt—­from a population of more than 6,000,000.  Twenty-six British officers—­either poor men attracted by the high rates of pay, or ambitious allured by the increased authority—­and a score of excellent drill-sergeants undertook the duty of teaching the recruits to fight.  Sir Evelyn Wood directed the enterprise, and became the first British Sirdar of the Egyptian army.  The work began and immediately prospered.  Within three months of its formation the army had its first review.  The whole 6,000 paraded in their battalions and marched past the Khedive and their country’s flag.  Their bearing and their drill extorted the half-contemptuous praise of the indifferent spectators.  Experienced soldiers noticed other points.  Indeed, the new army differed greatly from the old.  In the first place, it was paid.  The recruits were treated with justice.  Their rations were not stolen by the officers.  The men were given leave to go to their villages from time to time.  When they fell sick, they were sent to hospital instead of being flogged.  In short, the European system was substituted for the Oriental.