23 FEBRUARY 1889, Page 3

The Sepoy Army to be formed for the defence of

the German possessions in East Africa will consist, it is said, of two thousand men, part of whom will be Egyptian Blacks and part Zulus. The combination is a curious one, but both classes are brave, and Lieutenant Wissmann hopes to organise both in an island off the coast, support them with light artil- lery, already shipped, and then launch them at the Arab slave- dealers. He has secured the requisite number of officers, and, we suppose, money sufficient for the present, though it is at that point that the arrangements appear imperfect. A hundred thousand pounds will not pay and feed two thousand troops and all their porters for more than a year, and the German Chancellor is clearly half-hearted. He frets, to judge by the language of the newspapers, under the difficulty of con- trolling agents at such a distance. He says they " go too far," and fears lest his successor should find it impossible to repudiate them as he has done. The truth is, his heart is not in the work, and he regards all this energy expended against " niggers " as deducted from the energy which should be expended against France.