out prominently as candidates—­Colonel Wodehouse, who held the command of the Halfa Field Force, and the Adjutant-General.  Colonel Wodehouse had undoubtedly the greater claims.  He had been for several years in command of a large force in continual contact with the enemy.  He had won the action of Argin, and was known throughout the Soudan as ’the conqueror of Wad-el-Nejumi.’  He had conducted the civil administration of the frontier province with conspicuous success, and he was popular with all ranks of the Egyptian army.  Kitchener had little to set against this.  He had shown himself a brave and active soldier.  He was known to be a good official.  But he had not been in accord with the Government in his civil administration, and was, moreover, little known to his brother officers.  Sir Evelyn Baring’s influence, however, turned the scale.  Somewhat, therefore, to the astonishment of the Egyptian army, Kitchener was promoted Sirdar.  Lord Cromer had found the military officer whom he considered capable of re-conquering the Soudan when the opportunity should come.

The years of preparation, wasted by no one in Egypt, were employed by no department better than by the Intelligence Branch.  The greatest disadvantage from which Lord Wolseley had suffered was the general ignorance of the Soudan and its peoples.  The British soldiers had had to learn the details of Dervish fighting by bitter experience.  But the experience, once gained, was carefully preserved.  The Intelligence Branch of the Egyptian army rose under the direction of Colonel (now Sir Reginald) Wingate to an extraordinary efficiency.  For ten years the history, climate, geography, and inhabitants of the Soudan were the objects of a ceaseless scrutiny.  The sharp line between civilisation and savagery was drawn at Wady Halfa; but beyond that line, up the great river, within the great wall of Omdurman, into the arsenal, into the treasury, into the mosque, into the Khalifa’s house itself, the spies and secret agents of the Government—­disguised as traders, as warriors, or as women—­worked their stealthy way.  Sometimes the road by the Nile was blocked, and the messengers must toil across the deserts to Darfur, and so by a tremendous journey creep into Omdurman.  At others a trader might work his way from Suakin or from the Italian settlements.  But by whatever route it came, information—­whispered at Halfa, catalogued at Cairo—­steadily accumulated, and the diaries of the Intelligence Department grew in weight and number, until at last every important Emir was watched and located, every garrison estimated, and even the endless intrigues and brawls in Omdurman were carefully recorded.