The gendarmerie consists of about 150 men.
The gendarmerie is a mounted force composed of men picked for their physique and divided into three divisions.
Lord Dufferin further advised the formation of a gendarmerie, which should be in a great measure a mounted force and empowered with a semi-military character (despatch of January 1st, 1883).
On the 23rd of December General Valentine Baker, followed by about 2500 men, gendarmerie, blacks, Sudanese and Turks, with 10 British officers, arrived at Suakin to prepare for the relief of Sinkat and Tokar.
Subdivisions may be, and often are, named according to the particular duties to which they are assigned, as la police politique, police des mceurs, police sanitaire, &c. The officers of the judicial police comprise the juge de paix (equivalent to the English police magistrate), the maire, the commissaire de police, the gendarmerie and, in rural districts, the gardes champtres and the gardes forestiers.
