Escapes have happened at other places. When military operations were in progress on the frontier leading to the revindication of the Sudan, an immense amount of good work was done by large detachments of convicts at stations high up the river. There were rough and ready “Tourahs” at Assuan, Wady Halfa, Korosko, Suakin, El Teb, points of considerable importance in the service of the campaign, where supplies were constantly being landed, stored or sent forward to the front. The Egyptian prison authorities very wisely and intelligently utilised the labour at their disposal to assist in unloading boats and in reshipping stores and railway plant. Numbers of convicts were employed to construct the railway ahead in the direction of Abu Hamed by which the advance was presently made. The Nile above Merawi flows through the most difficult country in its whole course, the very “worst water,” and no navigation in that length was possible by steamers, little or none by small boats except at high Nile and then only by haulage. It was necessary, therefore, to complete the railway to Abu Hamed, so that gunboats might be sent up in sections over the line, to be put together above the cataracts and then utilised in the final advance, for the river is more or less open to Berber and on to Khartum, and the success of the campaign was greatly facilitated thereby.
Egyptian convicts did much good work of a superior kind. Now and again a trained handicraftsman was found who was willing to put forward his best skill and there was always a smart man ready to act as leader and foreman of the rest, as is very much the case, indeed, with convicts all over the world. One man in particular at Wady Halfa was well known as a most industrious and intelligent worker. He so gained the good-will of the British officers that, not knowing his antecedents, many of them strongly recommended him for release as a reward for his usefulness. But the prison authorities were unable to accede to this seemingly very justifiable request. This best of prisoners (again following experience elsewhere) was the worst of criminals. He had committed no fewer than eight murders, possibly not with malicious motives, or he would hardly have escaped the gallows. The death penalty is not, however, inflicted very frequently in Egypt. In one case worth mentioning as illustrating the almost comical side of Egyptian justice, a man sentenced to death was held to serve a short term of imprisonment for some minor offence before he was considered ripe for execution. When the short sentence was completed, he was incontinently hanged.