KITCHENER'S WORK IN EGYPT.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 15611, 8 June 1916, Page 7

KITCHENER'S WORK IN EGYPT.

'INTERVIEW WITH HIS SISTER Some years ago, when the wholes world was sounding tho praises of Lord Kitchener for his magnificent work in Egypt, Mrs Malcolm Ross interviewed Mrs I'arkor (tho sister of Lord Kitchener), who was then living in South Canterbury, and obtained from her some most interesting details of the great soldier's career for publication in "The Press." Mrs Parker, wrote tho correspondent, is naturally very proud of her brother's exploits and his achievements in Egypt, but she is equally modest in the recital of them. Most chroniclers state that tho Sirdar is a bright and lively Irishman, and only the other day no less a personago than the. Earl of Ranfurly, Governor of New Zealand, said he was proud to claim kinship with the illustrious Irishman. But Sir Herbert is English to tho back-bone, though if you go far enough back he has the blood of the Huguenots in him on his mother's side. Tho Kitcheners, then, are English people, and their father was in tho army in India. , Most of his service was with tho 13th Light Dragoons. Ho hurried out from England at tho timo of the mutiny, hut was too lato for the lighting. He only heard the shooting at a distance. On his retirement he secured land in Ireland, and the Sirdar was born in Kerry. He went to school there for a time, and afterwards, with his brother, went to a school in Geneva. Ho then passed for the Royal Engineers—"tho corps with the brains"—and was at Woolwich at the same time as Chcrnside, the well-known engineer." : "What sort of a fellow was he as a boy?" I asked. "Well," said Mrs Parker, "he was a most marvellously quiet boy, and rather delicate, though now ho is not a bit so. Indeed, lie is very strong." In tho Engineers lie had scope for his energy and ability, and lie went in for special things. First of all, r ho went to Palestine, and then to Cyprus, lvith Lieutenant Condor, where lie was engaged mainly in surveying and mapping the island. Afterwards he went there as chief. "He was a determined, but dreamy, boy," added Mrs Parker. "Biographical notices regarding him which I have seen in many papers are quite wrong, and many of them have amused me very much."For instance, he is generally described as having the lively Irish manner. Now, as I have told von. ho is quit-? the reverse of lively, and instead of being Irish he is a thorough Englishman. Frivolity borft* him frightfully, and, though he does not rnind big functions so much, he gets very tired of them. He has never been interviewed, because he objects to it. Indeed, I remember that on one occasion a London newspaper was forwarded to him, to look over a biographical sketch that was to accompany his portrait, and he hurriedly sent round to the office to have tho whole thing stopped." "But to return to his early career," I said. "What did he do after Cyprus?" "He afterwards went to Alexandria on leave. Ho turner! up there at the time of the bombardment, and secured a position on the staff of Major Tulloch, who was the engineer in command. No, he did nothing there— nothing more than anvbodv else—but 4ie saw the position cf affairs. Indeed. we all saw that Egypt was now the place." "I rather think that China's the place now. don't you know." auded my guest. "Well, after Alexandria," continued

Mrs Parker, in answer to further questions, "he came back to England, bnt again went out to Egypt. was second in command of the Egyptian Cavalry. Colonel Taylor and ho pub them in order.'' ! "When did his active servico begin?'' j I asked. J "His active service began." =nid fS Parker, "who.i he was in command of the friendly Arabs. Tie was put in command on the frontier after tho 'first fisihting Most of tho time ho was at Dongola. and without any English officers ur soldiers. T.iero Ik* succeeded splendidly. He dressed liko tho friendly natives, and lived _witli them. Indeed, people did not know him from an Arab. Ho was given tho command of tho Intelligence Department, and that-, of course, to a. extent helped him to gain t'ao power ho has obtained in the country. Ht< lias acquired a wonderful knowledge of the language, the character, and tho manners and customs of the people." "Oh. yes. I have been several time-? out there to see him.'" said Mrs Parker. in answer to another question. "When ho was Governor of tho Red Sea littoral 1 spent a winter with him, and that was delightful. I liked it much better than Cairo, which wast too English. At Suakim wo v.ere absolute autocrats. Rut all the timo my brother hr.-j hard work. Tho mornings were gent-ally taken up with office details, then there would be tho reviewing' of tho troops —a daily occurrence ; next came work in connexion with trade and tho administration of tho country, and then more oflicc work. He had also to do with tho slave trade. We often captured dhows in il>e lie I Sea on tliei: way to Arabia with slaves One trip in which I went in a gunboat , we captured seven dhows. The slave* had all to be liberated, except the servants of the slavo traders, who wen* used to catch more slaves. They had to go to prison along with tho traders. This slave-catching was sometimes | rather exciting, and onco I. myself fired I a gun over the dhows to frighten tbeiu and make them surrender." "Your brother was wounded at Su.> lcim, was ho not?" "Yes, near Suakim, at Handoub. Thero was fighting there, and a bulleo struck him behind the cheek, breaking tho bono of tho base of tho jaw. Itwas a dreadful wound, and the bull"t remained in I was sent for from England. The doctors said he would not live, but ho objected to dK am.' said ho would not. However, it was •i bad case because it took so long L o get tho pieces of bono out. Tho bullet, and tho brjkfn bone were so near tliJ jugular vein that they could rot operate, and the doctors fcArod fatal consequences. It took a week to :rct down to Cairo in one of tho slow •.nmboats, and cooped up as ho was in a littlo cabin in a verv trying climate, it was a wonder ho did not dio of fever. But was a thin man, without an ounco of superfluous flesh on his body. Mid that stood him in pood stead. Ho did no* believe tho bullet was in his jaw, bub one day, when ho was eating a cutlet, the lead dropped out into his mouth. After that he made rapid progress towards recovory. Ho now has tho flattoned bullet on his key-chain; but it was as nnrow an cscapo as ever a man had."

Lifo at Suakim, as described by Mrs Parker, mado an intensely interesting story, to which wo listened eagerly. l It was there that her brother put into practice his great idea of enlisting tho services oF tho friendly natives;- and making soldiers of them. Kitchener was always in great favour with Lord Salisbury, also with tho Queen, and ho practically received carte blanche to cany out his own ideas, and thus it was that tho new policy was inaugurated, and England sent old Pharaoh Sergeant \Vhat's-his-name. Mr s Parker gave me an interesting account of tho initiation of this policy. Tho Sirdar was marvellously patient over tho business—"fuddling" they called it —and often in their hot and stuffy tents, under a burning tropic sun, he Gat and "fuddlod" with tho natives the whole day long. But ho was as diplomatic as ho was patient, and tha natives both admired the man and his methixls. In fact, they thought him beyond human.

SOME PERSONAL NOTES. Writing some years ago in "T.P.'s Weekly," Mr T. P. O'Connor said: — I find in a signed article in the "Pilot" a very interesting and instructive study of Lord Kitchener by a writer —Mr Filson Young—who writes as if he know the great General very thoroughly. The description ho gives confirms the impression most people have that Lord Kitchener is a man to inspire respect and something like awed obedience rather than love. Mr Filson Young rather laughs at the contrast between tho real/ Kitchener and his present environment of routs, receptions, dinner parties, and all tho other entertainments which are provided for lijm by the hostesses of London. Hero is the picture—and a striking one it is:— "Subduo a lion, take him from tho suns and sands that havo burnt hini into a creature of nnger and activity, lead him by golden chains amid tho fountains of a palace courtyard; and, seeing the hungry iiro that sleeps in his eyes, you will look on a not more incongruous sight than that of tho passago of our Viscount across the carpets of tho frivolous world. Ho is not of that world, it is not his place; and from tho childish entertainments of a metropolis his gaze is turned across seas and continents." The most remarkable feature in Kitchener's face is undoubtedly his eyes. Their power is well brought out in tho following passage. I do not apologise for Mr Filson Young's picturesqueness—it helps me to realise Kitchener's gift as a rule of tho hearts and will ol' men: "Everyone who has seen him know? those eyes; they arc at onto tlia secret and the advertisement of tha man. Pale-bluo, without depth, steel-hard and sea-bright, they givo magic power to tho harsh, bnck-rcd s face. They defy the camera, appearing through that untruthful medium in a droop of leonino stilkiness that Jong ago captivated the servants' hnli. lteally the man is very unlike his photographs, and the unlikencss is all in this eyes. Tho first timo they rested upon mo I flinched, although I was doing nothing wrong; I was, in fact, attending to mv business. the on© thing tliat Kitchener approves of. I was conferring with one of his minions upon some af-» fair, when the great man stepped out of his tent and sent his gasse travelling round the semi-circle of his view. 1 believe that everyone in

the track of that baleful search-light folt uncomfortable. 'The subaltern • stopped talking to me as though he had been caught in a theft: I felt liko a schoolboy surprised in the very act of somo impertinent transgress- - sion; a soldier who was driving in tent-pegs dropped his tools and began to fumble with his buttons; upon all sides there was an instant of extreme discomfort until the great man went in again. "A mere glance of his eves will shake, the complacency of even the most plausible trifler. a moment of his gaze will take every atom of starch out of that now rare bird, the military cockatoo: and thereforo ho is hated exceedingly by all these. Nor is it that his eye rests approvingly upon work duly performed; his gaze is always the same a mcro enquiry of steel and stone and fire, but as n sweating orderly once remarked under his breath, 'like the bloomin' Day of Judgment.•' " "For my part," confesses Mr Filson

Young, "he never looked at me but I began to examine, with some anxiety, my title to existence; and although wholly innocent of any offence under his authority, felt as guilty as though I had been arraigned before him." KITCHENER'S LONELINESS. There are two or three other observations in this very interesting article, which explain much in the career and character of Kitchener, and which lather confirm some of the views I expressed when writing about him last week. For instance, few people realise how little Kitchener has seen of the life of London and of ordinary English people in the course of his career. Here is Mr Filson White's accurate summary of his career: "Ho was-never at a public school, he took arms as a private soldier for France, enlisting in the second army of the_ Loire; ho conductcd explorations in Palestine, was stoned at Mary's tomb, and is part-author of a great monograph on the archeology of Palestine; he spied upon the Arabians, disguised in thenhabits of thought and speech and dross; he defeated the Dervishes with hideous accompaniments of perhaps necessary severity. Then came the long South African campaign, marred Item and there by defects inseparable from his character, but crowned by a triumph of simple diplomacy." It will be ,cen at once that this is a career whicfe is all far away from London and its salons and intrigues and atmosphere, and that Kitchener was never of London and probably never could be. And such a career is one calculated to make Kitchener despise the ordinary ways of society —its ambitions, its occupations. As a friend of his once said to ine, '"Kitchener cares only for the big things of life." It is also in this remoteness that one has to find that shyness which is part of the man's character, with all its triumphant selfconfidence. "In all his career." says the sparkling writer I have already quoted, "h 0 has never lived in contact with any but men of his own choosing." And, therefore, it is that when Kitch oner gets back to the haunts of men and women, he at once sets to work at his own great imaginings— at something which will make him forget tho dalliance, and the junketings, and the festivities which ho has to accept as part of tho price of his elorv. KITCHENER WANTS MONEY * DOWN. AVhen after Omdurman he went to a jig lunch in the city, he went thero simply that he might raise money for the great college lie had projected for Khartoum. There were men who thought that Kitchener might be got to forget—like many other men—everything for the moment except turtle soup, and Roman punch, and "he's a jolly good fellow, which nobody can deny." And there was quite a "shock when Kitchener indicated that this was not at all the reason for which ho had como to lunch in the city, and that, if thero and then, some twenty or thirty thousand of the hundred thousand he wanted for his college were not forthcoming, he would take himself off. And he got his money, and I. hav<j no doubt became then tery pleasant. and gave that smile which seems to broaden over his broad face, and may even have had the turtle soup, and the Roman punch, and "he's a jolly got>d fellow," and all the other trivialities. But ho had got the money first. ,

TRIBUTE BY THE CHIEF JUSTICE. "*tPRESS ASSOCIATION" TELEGRAM.) NAPIER, Juno 7. Prior to the commencement of proceedings in tho Supreme Court this morning, Sir Robert Stout made a verv feeling reference "to the death of Lord Kitchener. The latter, he said, was certainly not a New Zealand settler, but Jiis father had at one time resided in tho Dominion, and thf speaker had known him quite well. Lord Kitchener's sister and brother had also been settlers in the Dominion. One and all would deeply regret the loss of so great a soldier, whose death was probably the outcome of the universal spy system which had been spread throughout tho Empire by the Germans. The Empire's loss was very great, especially at such a time a s this, and his place would be a hard one to fill. Every _ person in the Courthouse stood during his Honour's remarks. I