Major-General Sir Archibald Hunter, the new Governor of Omdurman, the best-known of the trio of Governors named in a recent cable message, was a major general before he was 40 and for a dozen years before that he had (says Mr G. W. Stevens in one of his articles on the late war) been in the vaguart of all the fighting on the Nile, Ginnis, Argin, Toski, Firket, Abu Hamed, the Atbara, Omdurman 每 General Hunter has been in the front of them all. He has been Governor of the frontier at Haifa, Governor of the frontier at Dongola, Governor of the frontier at Berber 每 always on the frontier. When there was fighting he always led the way to it with his blacks whom he loves like children, and who love him like a father. Fourteen years of bugle and bullet by night and day, in summer and winter, fighting Dervishes year in and year out 每 till fighting Dervishes has come to be a holy mission, pursued with a burning zeal akin to fanaticism.
Hunter Pasha is the Crusader of the 19th century. In all he is and does he is the true knight-errant 每 a paladin drifted into the wrong century. He is one of those happy men whom nature has made all in one piece 每 consistent, simple, unvarying, everything he does is just like him. He is short and thick-set; but that, instead of making him unromantic, only draws your eye to his long sword. From the feather in his helmet to the spurs on his heels, he is all energy and dancing triumph; every movement is vivacious, and he walks with his keen conquering hazel eye looking our and upward, like an eagle's. Sometimes you will see on his face a look of strain and tension, which tells of the wound he always carries with him. Then you will see him lolling under a palm tree, while his staff are sitting on chairs; light brown hair rumpled over his bare head, like a happy school-boy. Reconnoitring almost alone up to the muzzles of the enemy's rifles, charging bare-headed and looing on his blacks, going without his slee to watch over wounded 每 he is always the same hero out of a book of chivalry.
He is framed as a brave man even among British officers; you know what that means. But he is much more than a tilting Don Quixote; he is one of the finest leaders of troops in our army. Report has it that the Sirdar knowing his talents and too great for jealousy, was wont to leave the actual fighting largely to Hungar; and he never failed of a masterly victory. It was he, they say who shifted Macdonald into the place of crisis at Omdurman; he who, safe with all his daring, sent for Warchope to second him. Moreover, they say he is as good in an office as in an action. Best of all, "General Archie" can stir and captive and inspire 每 a born leader of men, the idol of every British officer and every black savage who ever served under him.
End of a Century
Sir Douglas Forsyth
Filipino Atrocities
The Expulsion of Count Tolstoi
World Disasters: Air, Sea and Space
Tragedy in Klondyke
World Disasters Report 2002
World Disasters
World Disasters timeline
The lost gold of Lord Kitchener
The Sinking of the Titanic and Other Great Sea Disasters
