3-047-192 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

'Lord Kitchener Disguised As An Arab', c1929. 'He got to know the Bedouins intimately, to speak their language, to live their life, to think their thoughts. There was something about him that gave him a wonderful ascendancy over them. Purposeful, dignified, serene, the Arabs trusted him instinctively...His knowledge of Arabic had led to his appointment in 1881 to the rank of Major in the Egyptian army...It was during the dark days when [Major-General] Gordon was still a prisoner at Khartoum that an expedition had to be organized throughout the Soudan of desert outposts...It was a difficult, almost impossible, undertaking. Think of the thousands of miles of desert that the Soudan comprises...He departed with a native escort, riding as one of them, wearing the Arab dress, speaking their language'. From "Heroic Deeds of Great Men", by C. Sheridan Jones and Alfred Miles, illustrated by Howard Davie and Harry Payne [Raphael Tuck & Sons Ltd, London, c1929]