Page:Letters from New Zealand (Harper).djvu/262

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Letters from New Zealand

returned triumphant, having killed his foe. 'Why did you not shoot?' I said. 'Ah, me like you,—me a Christian. He have no rifle; me like you,—fight fair.'" Abyssinian Christianity, I believe, is in many respects barbaric, but a fact like this seems to show that the salt has not entirely lost its savour.

What splendid work is being done in Egypt, both in the Army and Civil Service, and by men of whom little is heard, and not the least likely to blow their own trumpets. It seems there is a general opinion that the power of Mahdism,—an unknown quantity—is a serious menace to the whole country, and that the position has been brought about, in great measure, by the vacillation of the Home Government, and its almost criminal neglect of its proper responsibility. Acknowledging its responsibility for the good government of Egypt, it shut its eyes to the fact that the Sudan is practically a part of Egypt, and let matters drift into terrible loss and disaster. Something must, and no doubt will, be done,—and will succeed. Great Britain's mission in Egypt will pursue its destined course, as elsewhere, in the cause of true civilization, irrespective of political apathy, or political shortsightedness at Home.

Emerging from Port Said, I persuaded Captain Hector, as we were ahead of our time, to go up through the Ionian Isles and so make his course to Brindisi. He agreed to do so, if he could manage by daylight, as the Islands are not well lit. We soon found ourselves on St. Paul's track in his journey to Rome, "running under a certain Island called Clauda," though we had no need, as they had, "to take trouble to come by their boat." Clauda, now Gozzo, rises with a cliff sheer out of the sea, some five hundred feet,