SOUDAN VOLUNTEERS.

Kumara Times, Issue 2650, 5 March 1885, Page 2

SOUDAN VOLUNTEERS.

A correspondent writes to the Dunedin Herald as follows:—“Sir—New Zealand is moving in the matter of sending a contingent to the Soudan; it should not be done too hastily. It will probably be six months before General Wolseley is in a position to advance against Khartoum. The campaign will be by no means child’s play. We have not only a warlike enemy to fight against, but a climate which will tax to the utmost the constitution of the healthiest. If England was really in danger, it then would be patriotic of our young colonists to offer their services, but as this is merely a native rebellion, and as England has thousands of her paid troops idle, it seems premature for us colonists to sacrifice lives and property in such a case as this. I would very respectfully recommend our would-be Jingoites to earnestly peruse the subjoined extract from the Loudon Standard on “An Army in Rags—- “ Five boats of the Black Watch, with Colonel Kinston, arrived at llorti on Thursday, and two companies of the the Essex and Cornwall Regiments were hourly expected. The Black Watch so far seems to have made the quickest time in doing the cataracts. The Standard Soudan correspondent says;—‘The troops arriving in the boats present an absolutely ludicrous appearance in their torn and raged garments, whose condition testifies to the utter unsuitability of the clothes served out to our soldiers for a hard campaign. There is literally not a sound garment in the whole column, which resembles Falstnff’s ragged regiment rather than a body of British troops. The tartan trows of the Black Watch have been patched with old sacks, with native cloth from the bazaars, and even portions of biscuit tins have been sewn on to the trousers to repair the wear and (ear made by rowing. What the appearance of the troops will be when the expedition has finished its work we cannot even contemplate.”