The return of the Sirdar on Thursday was attended by
scenes and demonstrations which show how deeply his achievement has impressed the popular imagination. At Dover, where a dense crowd had been waiting for hours on the pier, he was received by the Mayor and entertained at a public luncheon, responding to the toast of his health in a short speech, in which he spoke of the "most arduous and sometimes dangerous duties" discharged by his troops. The attempts to keep the general public behind the barriers at Victoria proved utterly futile, and when the train steamed into the station, the platform was "rushed" by the crowd, and inde- scribable confusion prevailed, the Sirdar having to fight his way through his admirers, while the Commander-in-Chief had the greatest difficulty in getting near him. In short, both in and outside the station the police arrangements appear to have been wholly inadequate to control the crowd, and thus what might have been an impressive demonstration of enthusiasm was reduced to a mere tumult. Indeed, the "battle of London," as one of our contemporaries has christened it, must have been almost as formidable an ordeal to the Sirdar as the battle of Omdurman.
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