five o'clock A.M.
Indeed , it would have been impossible for them to get up , had the forts been manned ; as they would have had to pass within two hundred yards of the guns . But although the forts could hardly have been attacked by the gunboats , they were commanded by a lofty hill behind them ; and the scouts had discovered , some weeks before , that the Dervishes had retired from the position , and that the passage would be unopposed . Maxwell 's and Colville 's brigades started at four that afternoon , and the next day the whole division was established at El Hejir , above the cataracts . Lyttleton 's brigade started , at five o'clock A.M. on the 25th , the gunboats and other steamers moving parallel with them along the river . At five in the afternoon the first brigade followed and , two days afterwards , the camp was entirely evacuated , and the whole of the stores well on their way towards El Hejir . On the previous day , two regiments of Wortley 's column of friendly natives also marched south . The Sirdar and headquarters , after having seen everything off , went up in a gunboat , starting at nine in the morning .