Page:H. D. Traill - From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier.djvu/15

Rh to the expediency of effacing this artificial and mischievous delimitation seldom trouble those who have visited the country for themselves, The question of thrusting back the ever menacing hordes of marauding barbarism from those marches of African civilisation of which we have become the wardens—nay, the greater question of reconquering the vast region over which the beginnings at least of that civilisation once extended—does not delay them long. They think of the thousand miles of peace and industry, and simple contentment, and pathetic defencelessness through which they have passed; of the flood of savagery that beats for ever upon those ill-protecting barriers, and of the deeps of human misery that lie beyond; and they can have no doubt of the direction in which the duty of England points. Perhaps then, as has been said, the pages which follow may have