CAIRO: 39 Thes.e were ordered to stay with the baggage and await our arrival. General Baker and several officers and friends were going to see us off, and so we went quietly down at six o’clock, thinking to be in time, when to our astonishment we heard a whistle, and saw the train moving along, amidst a prolonged howl from thousands of natives, assembled as before to see the men off. It then turned out that General Baker, wishing to put an abrupt end to this dis agreeable scene, which could not otherwise than dishearten the soldiers, sent off the train suddenly. It was a very good plan as far as the soldiers were concerned, but, unfortunately for us, our paragon William had begun a series of thinking by ensconcing himself in a waggon with all our baggage, without troubling in the least as to our being present or not, and saying afterwards that he thought we were coming all right. So there was nothing for it but to go to Shepheard’s Hotel and stay there the night. General Baker told my husband that in any case he wished him not to leave by that train, as he had some last orders to give him. That evening there was a grand assemblage on the hotel piazza, amongst them several Egyptian army officers, English, who naturally were all wish ing to go to the war, and could not understand why the gendarmerie went, while the army were carefully kept back. A joke was passed round that it was “Wood’s” army and therefore “wouldn’t” go! I expect, though, that if Sir E. Wood had really his wish, he and his army would be in Suakim now.
