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but that must naturally be the case in all conscript armies. I afterwards found it was so with the Germans also. The troops were worked uncommonly hard, almost, if not quite, as much as if they had been on active service. There were no dry canteens and waggon-loads of beer following, as at our manœuvres, as if for the express purpose of making our men helpless, and teaching them "how not to do it" on active service. I could not help being struck with the way my French acquaintances, taken from their ordinary civil-life occupations, managed, heavily laden as they were, to do the long marches and tiring manœuvres across country. Dead tired as they must have been, it was grand to observe how rapidly the shooting line was formed and the supports in the right place as soon as the enemy opened on us. As in the Crimea and China, it was worth seeing how quickly fires were lighted and food got ready during the middle-of-the-day halt. Public disclosures a few years ago show something very wrong in the administration of the French army, but if France in days to come produces a Cromwell or Napoleon, the carefully organised Germans would find the French army could not be disposed of as in 1870.

DURING my last year at Portsmouth-viz., 1881when the Duke made his usual autumn inspection, there was so much going on that I was unable to get a chance of an interview with the quartermastergeneral, Sir G. W., which I much wished for; but as he left with the headquarter staff for town, I requested him to read a little memo which I gave him about Egypt, where matters were approaching a crisis. It was an outline of the paper I had written in 1875, with reference to an advance on Cairo via the Canal and Ismailia. Towards the end of the year the chances of our having to interfere in Egypt became so evident that I thought it would be a move in the right direction if I paid another visit to that country for the purpose of making myself acquainted with the military resources of a possible enemy, so that in the event of hostilities I might have a fair chance of being employed on active service. With this view I went to town and saw the quartermaster-general on the subject of getting six weeks' leave: I had some two months due to me, and I thought I might combine business with pleasure, shooting snipe in the Delta. My leave

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was arranged, and I was directed to call at Adair House before leaving. My proposed trip met with the approbation of the chief there, who exclaimed, "Thank goodness you are going! We wanted to send out two officers some time ago, but it was forbidden." I mentioned that as I was going out at my own expense, snipe-shooting, no one could interfere with me, or even know where I had gone, and I should be only too pleased to be of use to my old department. An Indian troopship happened to have a vacant cabin in pandemonium,-the lower deck, so much depised by subalterns: this, a naval friend, a retired admiral who had agreed to go with me, and I occupied, and thought how luxurious it was compared with what we had known in our younger days.

We landed at Port Said the end of January, and as a good deal of special information with regard to the capabilities of that place had to be recorded, we remained there some days. I had several cases of ammunition with me, all very legibly marked as such; we were consequently looked on as very keen sportsmen. Snipe were not plentiful near the town, but we had other business to occupy us; amongst that work, the possibility of the Canal being wilfully blocked in places, and the means of clearing it had to be considered. A naval friend, I found, was similarly employed at the Suez end. I commenced at Port Said, and when making my observations on the Canal bank, I made a curious discovery. An easterly gale came up very rapidly, and at last was so strong, driving the sand from the dry far side into my face, that I had to cease work. Next morning the wind having a good deal gone down, I went on the Canal bank again, when, to

my astonishment, I noticed that Lake Menzaleh on the west side of the Canal had disappeared beyond the horizon in that direction, and that the Arabs were walking on the mud where the day before large boats had been floating. When thinking over this extraordinary effect of wind on shallow water, it suddenly flashed upon me that I was witnessing a similar event to that which had taken place between three and four thousand years ago, at the time of the passage of the so-called Red Sea by the Israelites. Subsequently, when I had time for it, I examined the shores of the Bitter Lakes, and came to the unquestionable conclusion that the Red Sea of Pharaoh's day extended to the head of the Bitter Lakes, and it was there the passage took place, and that the description of it in Exodus is literally correct, word for word. I need hardly say the usually accepted Sunday-school picture of a number of people running through what looks like a deep railway cutting is not what really happened. The crossing was evidently by a broad shallow belt-cleared by the east windwhich would permit of the immense crowd of people and animals getting over in the time stated. I went fully into the subject in a public lecture in London, at which the savants declared I had proved my case, and solved a problem which had puzzled the world for many centuries. The lecture was widely discussed, one post bringing me two newspapers, one from Bengal, the other from New Orleans, both concurring in the correctness of the idea brought forward.

Ismailia was the next place where I thought it advisable to try for snipe. As that town might be required for a base of operations, we were a few

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days there our bags were not great, but nevertheless sufficient to impress the people with whom we were brought in contact. In the following August I happened to be again at our old lodgings in the Hôtel des Bains; I was then in uniform. Our former acquaintance, the Arab waiter, beckoned me to the corner of the building,-"Ah! monsieur était ici en hiver pour la chasse aux bécassines"; and then pointing to the troop - boats landing the soldiers, "Voilà vos bécassines!" The next place visited was Tel-el-Kebir, at that time without intrenchments, with the exception of a line of an old sheltertrench we went simply for the shooting, which was splendid. It was not until I had been to Cairo and got behind the scenes that I discovered what the intention of the Egyptian War Office was with regard to the position at Tel-el-Kebir; then I paid another and much longer visit to the place.

Unfortunately my companion got a chill in the marshes, which brought out a bad attack of malarial fever, from which he had formerly suffered, so we had to go to Cairo for medical advice: the end of it was the admiral had to go home, and I was left to continue my work alone. By great good luck I made the acquaintance of Mr C. B. Alexander, who had come over from the United States for the winter, and who was also staying at Shepheard's. This acquaintance in due time became a firm friendship, which has existed between us to this day. I happened in course of conversation, when talking about Egyptian soldiers, to say I had not yet seen how they lived in barracks. Alexander mentioned this to General Stone, a fellow-countryman, chief of the staff of the Egyptian army, who very kindly arranged for our