A study of the contribution of the Canadian boatmen sent to the Sudan to assist in the Nile expedition under Wolsley to relieve Gordon in 1884-85 and later under Kitchener during the Reconquest of the Sudan. Vancouver,
Exploited by weak, profligate rulers, Egypt in 1882 was near bankruptcy -a prospect which alarmed those in Europe who held her bonds. Britain, a major shareholder in the Suez Canal, assumed the leading role. Attacks on foreigners by Egyptian nationals contributed to the increasing clamour from the British press and public that their government take action because "national honour demanded it". Gladstone and other anti-imperialists reluctantly relinquished their dream of a "Little England" and Egypt gradually became part of the Victorian tapestry.

To this stage came "Chinese" Gordon -pious, dedicated, and eccentric. As a former governor-general of the Sudan, he was pressed into service to effect the withdrawal of Egyptian forces from that province which, it was concluded, could not be held against the mystic leader, the Mahdi. To this scene in turn came Gordon's old comrade-in-arms, Garnet Wolseley, brave and capable, but also "vain, pompous, and scheming". It was Wolseley who, in masterminding the daring expedition up the Nile to rescue Gordon from the Mahdi, recalled the special aptitudes of Canadian voyageurs from his earlier military life in Canada, and it was he who was mainly responsible for Canadian involvement.

Before the final defeat of the Mahdists in 1898, many Canadians won distinction in these distant imperial expeditions which, "paradoxically," the author concludes, "contributed to the impetus to full Canadian nationhood", as Canadians became more aware through their military achievements of their separate experience and identity. 1978, Univ. of British Columbia, first Canadian ed w/dj, 6 x 9, 184 pp, illus & maps.