CHAPTER IX The last chapter carried the account of the war forward at express speed. The reader, who had already on the railway, reached the Atabara encampment, and was prepared for the final advance on Khartoum, must allow his mind to revert to a period when the Egyptian forces are distributed along the river in garrisons at Dangala, Deba, Korti, and Marawi, when the reorganization of the conquered province has been begun, and when the desert railway is still stretching steadily forward towards Abu Hamid. The news of the fall of Dangala created a panic in Amderman. Great numbers of Arabs believing that the Khalifa's power was about to collapse fled from the city. All business was at a standstill. For several days there were no executions. Abdullah himself kept his house, and thus doubtfully concealed his vexation and alarm from his subjects. On the fifth day, however, having recovered his own confidence, he proceeded to the mosque, and after the morning prayer ascended his small wooden pulpit and addressed the assembled worshippers. After admitting the retreat of the dervishes under Wad Bishara, he enlarged on the losses the Turks had sustained, and described their miserable condition. He deplored the fact that a certain of the Jihadia had surrendered, and reminded his listeners with a grim satisfaction of the horrible tortures which it was the practice of the English and Egyptians to inflict upon their captives. He bewailed the lack of faith in God which had allowed even the meanest of the Ansar to abandon the Jihad against the infidel, and he condemned the lack of piety which disgraced the age. But he proclaimed his confidence in the loyalty of his subjects, and his enjoyment of the favor of God in the councils of the late Madi, and having by his oratory raised the fanatical multitude to a high pitch of excitement, he thus concluded his long harang. It is true that our chiefs have retired from Dangala. Yet they are not defeated.  I instructed the faithful to refrain from fighting and return to Matema. It was by my command that they have done what they have done. For the Angel of the Lord and the Spirit of the Madi have warned me in a vision that the souls of the accursed Egyptians and of the miserable English shall leave their bodies between Dangala and Omderman, at some spot which their bones shall whiten. Thus shall the infidels be conquered. Then, drawing his sword, he cried with a loud voice, Ed did Mansur! The religion is victorious! Islam shall triumph! Whereupon the worshippers, who to the number of twenty thousand filled the great quadrangle, although they could not all hear his voice, saw his sword flashing in the sunlight, and with one accord imitated him waving their swords and spears, and raising a mighty shout of fury and defiance. When the two mold heads subsided, the caliph announced that those who did not wish to remain faithful might go where they liked, but that he for his part would remain, knowing that God would vindicate the faith. Public confidence was thus restored. In order that the divine favour might be assisted by human effort, Dangala adopted every measure or precaution that energy or prudence could suggest. At first he seems to have apprehended that the Sardar's army would advance at once upon Omderman, following the route of the desert column in 1885 from Korti to Matema. He therefore ordered Osman Azrakh, in spite of his severe wound, to hold Abu Klia Wells with the survivors of his flag. Bishara, who had rallied and reorganized the remains of the Dangala army, was instructed to occupy Matema, the headquarters of the Jailin. Messengers were dispatched to the most distant garrisons to arrange for a general concentration upon Omderman. The emir Ibrahim Khalil was recalled from the Jazeera, or the land between the Blue and White Niles, and with his force of about four thousand jihadiya and baghara soon reached the city. Another chief, Ahmed Fadil, who was actually on his way to Gadaref, was ordered to return to the capital. Did there also Osman Dighna repaired from Adorama? But it appears that the Khalifa only required the advice of that wily counsellor, for he did not reduce the number of dervishes in the small forts along the line of the Atbara. Ed Darnair, Adorama, Asubri, El Fashir, and after a short visit and a long consultation Osman Dighna returned to his post at Adorama. Last of all, but not least in importance, Mahmud, who commanded the army of the West, was ordered to leave very reduced garrisons in Kordofan and Darfur, and march with his whole remaining force, which may have numbered ten thousand fighting men, to the Nile, and so to Omderman. Mahmud, who was as daring and ambitious as he was conceited and incapable, received the summons with delight, and began forthwith to collect his troops. The Khalifa saw very clearly that he could not trust the riverine tribes. The Jailin and Barabra were discontented. He knew that they were weary of his rule and of war. In proportion as the Egyptian army advanced, so their loyalty and the taxes they paid decreased. He therefore abandoned all idea of making a stand at Berber. The Amir Yunus, who, since he had been transferred from Dangla in 1895, had ruled the district, was directed to collect all the camels, boats, grain, and other things that might assist an invading army and send them to Matema. The duty was most thoroughly performed. The inhabitants were soon relieved of all their property and of most of their means of livelihood, and their naturally bitter resentment at this merciless treatment explains to some extent the astonishing events which followed the capture of Abu Havid. This last place Abdullah never regarded as more than an outpost. Its garrison was not large, and although it had now become the most northerly dervish position, only a slender reinforcement was added to the force under the command of Muhammad Adzain. The power of the gun-boats and their effect in the Dangla campaign were fully appreciated by the Arabs, and the Khalifa, in the hopes of closing the Sixth Cataract, began to construct several forts at the northern end of the Shabluqa Gorge. The Bordeon, one of Gordon's old steamers, plied busily between Omderman and Wad Hamad, transporting guns and stores, and Abid Fadil was sent with a sufficient force to hold the works when they were made. But the prophecy of the Maadi exercised a powerful effect on the Khalifa's mind, and while he neglected no detail he based his hopes on the issue of a great battle on the plains of Qarari, when the invaders should come to the walls of the city. With this prospect continually before him he drilled and organized the increasing army at Omderman with the utmost regularity, and every day the savage soldiery practised their evolutions upon the plain they were presently distrued with their bodies. But after a while it became apparent that the Turks were not advancing. They terried on the lands they had won. The steamers went no further than Marawi. The iron roads stopped at Kerma. Why had they not followed up their success? Obviously because they feared the army that awaited them at Omderman. At this the Khalifa took fresh courage, and in January 1897 he began to revolve schemes for taking the offensive and expelling the invaders from the Dangala province. The army drilled and maneuvered continually on the plains of Qarari. Great numbers of camels were collected at Omderman. Large stores of dried kizru, or Sudan biscuit, the food of dervishes on expeditions, were prepared. The Surdar did not remain in ignorance of these preparations. The tireless enterprise of the Intelligence Branch furnished the most complete information, and preparations were made to concentrate the troops in Dangala on any threatened point should the enemy advance. Regular reconnaissancees were made by the cavalry both into the desert towards Gakdul Wells and along the river. Towards the end of May it was reported that the Emir Yunis had crossed the Nile and was raiding the villages on the left bank below Abu Hamid. In consequence the Surdar ordered a strong patrol under Captain Lou Gele and consisting of three squadrons of cavalry under Captain Mayan, three companies of the Camel Corps, and one hundred men of the Ninth Sudanese on camels, with one maximum gun, to reconnoiter up the Nile through the Shukuk Pass and as far as Salamat. The outward journey was unbroken by incident, but as the patrol was returning it was attacked by an equal force of dervishes, and a sharp little skirmish ensued in which one British officer, Captain Payton, was severely wounded, nine Egyptian troopers were killed, and three others wounded. This proof that the dervishes were on the move enforced the greatest vigilance in all the Dangala garrisons. At the end of May Mahmud with his army arrived at Omderman. The Khalifa received him with delight and several imposing reviews were held outside the city. Mahmud himself was eager to march against the Turks. He had no experience of modern rifles, and felt confident that he could easily destroy or at least roll back the invading forces. Partly persuaded by the zeal of his lieutenant, and partly by the wavering and doubtful attitude of the Jailan, the Khalifa determined early in June to send the Kourtifan army to occupy Matema, and thereby either to awe the tribe into loyalty, or force them to revolt while the Egyptian troops were still too distant to assist them. He summoned the chief of the Jailan, Abdullah Wad Saad, to Omderman, and informed him that the Jailan territories were threatened by the Turks. In the goodness of his heart, therefore, and because he knew that they loved the Mahdi and practiced the true religion, he was resolved to protect them from their enemies. The chief bowed his head. The Khalifa continued that the trustee Mahmud with his army would be sent for that purpose. Abdullah might show his loyalty in furnishing them with all supplies and accommodation. He intimated that the interview was over. But the Jailan chief had the temerity to protest. He assured the Khalifa of his loyalty, and of the ability of his tribe to repel the enemy. He implored him not to impose the burden of an army upon them. He exaggerated the poverty of Matema. He lamented the misfortunes of the times. Finally he begged forgiveness for making his protest. The Khalifa was infuriated. Forgetting his usual self-control and the forms of public utterance, he broke out into a long and abusive harangue. He told the chief that he had long doubted his loyalty, that he despised his protestations, that he was worthy of a shameful death, that his tribe were a blot upon the face of the earth, and that he hoped Mahmud would improve their manners and those of their wives. Abdullah Wad Saad crept from the presence and returned in fury and disgust to Matema. Having collected the headmen of his tribe, he informed them of his reception and the Khalifa's intent. They did not need to be told that the quartering upon them of Mahmud's army meant the plunder of their goods, the ruin of their homes, and the rape of their women. It was resolved to revolt and join the Egyptian forces. As a result of the council the Jailin chief wrote two letters. The first was addressed to the Sardar and reached General Rundle at Merawih by messenger on the twenty-fourth of June. It declared the Jailin's submission to the government and begged for help, if possible, in men, or failing that in arms, but ended by saying that, help or no help, the tribe were resolved to fight the dervishes and hold Matema to the death. The second letter, a mad and fatal letter, carried defiance to the Khalifa. Rundle, who was at Merawih when the Jailin messenger found him, lost no time. A large amount of ammunition and eleven hundred Remington rifles were speedily collected and hurried on camels across the desert by the Kourti Matema route, escorted by a strong detachment of the camel corps. The Khalifa did not receive his letter until the twenty-seventh of June, but he acted with even greater promptitude. Part of Mahmud's army had already started for the north. Mahmud and the rest followed on the twenty-eighth. On the thirtieth the advance guard arrived before Matema. The Jailin prepared to resist desperately. Nearly the whole tribe had responded to the summons of their chief, and more than twenty-five hundred men were collected behind the walls of the town. But in all this force there were only eighty serviceable rifles, and only fifteen rounds of ammunition each. Abdullah expected that the dervishes would make their heaviest attack on the south side of Matema, and he therefore disposed his few riflemen along that front. The defense of the rest of the town had perforced to be entrusted to the valour of the spearmen. On the morning of the first of July, Mahmud, with a force variously estimated at ten thousand or twelve thousand men, began his assault. The first attack fell, as the chief had anticipated, on the southern face. It was repulsed with severe loss by the Jailin riflemen. A second attack followed immediately. The enemy had meanwhile surrounded the whole town, and just as the Jailin ammunition was exhausted, a strong force of the dervishes penetrated the northern face of their defenses, which was held only by spearmen. The whole of Mahmud's army poured in through the gap, and the garrison, after a stubborn resistance, were methodically exterminated. An inhuman butchery of the children and some of the women followed. Abdallah Wad Sa'ad was among the killed. A few of the Jailin who had escaped from the general destruction fled towards Gakdul. Here they found the camel-core with their caravan of rifles and ammunition. Like another force that had advanced by this very road to carry succor to men in desperate distress, the relief had arrived too late. The remnants of the Jailin were left in occupation of Gakdul Wells. The convoy and its escort returned to Korti. But while the attention of the Califa was directed to these matters, a far more serious menace offered from another quarter. Unnoticed by the dervishes, or if noticed unappreciated, the railway was stretching farther and farther into the desert. By the middle of July it had reached the hundred-and-thirtieth mile, and is related in the last chapter, work had to be suspended until Abu Hamid was in the hands of the Egyptian forces. The Nile was rising fast. Very soon steamers would be able to pass the fourth cataract. It should have been evident that the next movement at the advance of the Turks impended. The Califa seems, indeed, to have understood that the rise of the river increased his peril, for throughout July he continued to send orders to the Amir in Berber, Yunus, that he should advance into the Monaseer district, harry such villages as existed, and obstruct the frequent reconnaisances from Merwawi. Yunus, however, preferred to do otherwise, and remained on the left bank opposite Berber until at length his master recalled him to Omderman to explain his conduct. Meanwhile, determined with mathematical exactness by the rise of the Nile and the progress of the railway, the movement of the Egyptian advance arrived. At the end of July preparations were made, as secretly as possible, to dispatch a flying column against Abu Hamid. The dervish garrison, under Muhammad as Zayn, was not believed to exceed six hundred men. But in order that there should be no doubt as to the result it was determined to employ a strong force. A brigade of all arms was formed as follows. Commanding, Major General Hunter, Cavalry, One Troop, Artillery, Number Two Field Battery, this battery consisted of six crup guns, two maxims, one gardener gun, and one Nordenfelt, an effective medley. Infantry, McDonald's Brigade, consisting the Third Egyptian, the Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Sudanese. Major General Sir Archibald Hunter, the officer to whom the operation was entrusted, was from many points of view the most imposing figure in the Egyptian army. He had served through the Nile Expedition of 1884, 1885, with some distinction in the Khadeev's service. Henceforward his rise was rapid, even for an Egyptian officer, and in ten years he passed through all the grades from Captain to Major General. His promotion was not, however, undeserved. Foremost in every action, twice wounded, once at the head of his brigade, always distinguished for valor and conduct, Hunter won the admiration of his comrades and superiors. During the River War he became, in spite of his hard severity, the darling of the Egyptian army. All the personal popularity which great success might have brought to the Serdar focused itself on his daring, good-humored subordinate, and it was to Hunter that the soldiers looked whenever there was fighting to be done. The force now placed under his command for the attack upon Abu Hamid amounted to about thirty-six hundred men. Until that place was taken all other operations were delayed. The Serdar awaited the issue at Marawi. The railway paused in mid-desert. The troops composing the flying column concentrated at Kassengar, a small village a few miles above Marawi, on the right, where Abu Hamid, bank of the Nile. General Hunter began his march on the twenty-ninth of July. The total distance from Kassengar to Abu Hamid is one hundred forty-six miles. The greatest secrecy had been observed in the preparation of the force, but it was known that as soon as the column actually started, the news would be carried to the enemy. Speed was therefore essential, for if the dervish garrison in Abu Hamid were reinforced from Berber, the flying column might not be strong enough to take the village. On the other hand, the great heat and the certainty that the troops would have to fight in action at the end of the march imposed opposite considerations on the commander. To avoid the sun, the greater part of the distance was covered at night. Yet the advantage thus gained was to some extent neutralized by the difficulty of marching over such broken ground in the darkness. Throughout the whole length of the course of the Nile there is no more miserable wilderness than the Monocere Desert. The stream of the river is broken and its channel obstructed by a great confusion of boulders between and among which the water rushes in dangerous cataracts. The sandy waste approaches the very brim, and only a few palm trees, or here and there a squalid mud hamlet, reveal the existence of life. The line of advance lay along the river, but no road relieved the labor of the march. Sometimes trailing across a broad stretch of white sand, in which the soldiers sank to their ankles, and which filled their boots with a rasping grit, sometimes winding over a pass or through a gorge of sharp cut rocks, which, even in the moonlight, felt hot with the heat of the previous day. Always in a long, jerky and interrupted procession of men and camels, often in single file, the column toiled painfully like the serpent to whom it was said, On thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat. The column started at five-thirty in the evening, and by a march of sixteen-and-a-half miles reached Mushra El-Obiad at about midnight. Here a convenient watering-place, not commanded by the opposite bank, and the shade of eight or ten thorny bushes afforded the first suitable bivouac. At three-thirty p.m. on the thirtieth the march was continued eight-and-a-half miles to a spot some little distance beyond Shababit. The pace was slow, and the route stony and difficult. It was after dark when the halting-place was reached. Several of the men strayed from the column, wandered in the gloom, and reached the bivouac exhausted. General Hunter had proposed to push on the next day to Hosh El-Jaref, but the fatigues of his troops in the two night-marches had already been severe, and as, after Abu Haraz, the track twisted away from the river so that there was no water for five miles, he resolved to halt for the day and rest. Hosh El-Jaref was therefore not reached until the first of August, a day later than had been expected, but the rest had proved of such benefit to the troops that the subsequent acceleration of progress fully compensated for the delay. The column moved on again at midnight and halted at daybreak at Salmi. In the small hours of the next morning the march was resumed. The road by the Nile was found too difficult for the Maxim guns, which were on wheels, and these had to make a detour of twenty-eight miles into the desert while the infantry moved ten miles along the river. In order that the Maxim should not arrive alone at Dakhfili, General Hunter had marched thither with the ninth Sudanese at eleven p.m. on the previous day. The rest of the column followed a few hours later. On the fourth, by an eighteen-mile march through deep sand, Nile Khab was reached. A single shot was fired from the opposite bank of the river as the cavalry patrol entered the village, and there was no longer any doubt that the dervishes knew of the advance of the column. Both the troops and the transport were now moving admirably. Nevertheless their sufferings were severe. The nights were consumed in movement. Without shade the soldiers could not sleep by day. All ranks wearied, and the men would frequently, during the night marches, sink down upon the ground in profound slumber, only to be sternly aroused and hurried on, but the pace of the advance continued to be swift. On the fifth, the force, by a fourteen-mile march, reached Kula. Here they were joined by Sheikh Abdel Azim with one hundred fifty Ababda Camelmen from Murat Wells. Up to this point three Egyptians had died, and fifty-eight men had been left behind exhausted in depots. A double ration of meat was issued to the whole force. The column moved on during the night, and arrived at Jinnifab at eight a.m. on the morning of the sixth. Here startling news of the enemy was received. It was known that Muhammad Ez-Zayn was determined to fight, and a trust where the report was now received that a large force was coming down from Berber to support the Abu Hamid garrison. In spite of the long marches and the fatigues of the troops, General Hunter resolved to hurry on. He had already made up the day, spent at Abu Haraz. He now decided to improve on the prescribed itinerary, accelerate his own arrival, and anticipate that of the dervish reinforcements. Accordingly the troops marched all through the night of the sixth through the seventh, with only a short halt of an hour and a half, so as to attack Abu Hamid at dawn. After covering sixteen miles of bad ground, the flying column reached Jinnifab, one hundred forty-four miles from Kassengar, and only two from the dervish post, at three-thirty on the morning of the seventh of August. A halt of two hours was allowed for the troops to prepare themselves. Half the third Egyptian battalion remained as escort to the transport and reserve ammunition, and then the force moved off in the darkness towards the enemy's position. The village of Abu Hamid straggles along the bank of the Nile, and consists of a central mass of mud-houses, intersected by a network of winding lanes and alleys, about five hundred yards long by perhaps one hundred yards wide. To the north and south are detached clusters of ruined huts, and to the south there rises a large ragged pile of rocks. The ground slopes gradually up from the river, so that at a distance of three hundred yards, the villages surrounded on three sides by a low plateau. Upon this plateau stand three stone watch-towers, which were erected by General Gordon. The dervish garrison were strongly posted in shelter trenches and loop-hold houses along the eastern face of the village. The towers were held by their outposts. Making a wide circuit to their left, and then swinging round to the right, so as to front facing the river, the brigade silently moved towards the enemy's position, and at a quarter past six occupied the plateau in a crescent-shaped formation. The eleventh Sudanese on the right, opposite the northeast corner of the village, the battery escorted by the remaining half battalion of the Third Egyptians, next, then the ninth in the center, and the tenth Sudanese on the left flank. As the troops approached the watch-towers, the dervish outposts fell back and the forest continued to advance until the edge of the plateau was reached. From here the whole scene was visible. The day was just breaking, and the mist hung low and white over the steel-gray surface of the river. The outlines of the mud-houses were sharply defined on this pale background. The dervish riflemen crouched in the shelter-trench that ran round the village. Their cavalry, perhaps a hundred strong, were falling in hurriedly on the sandy ground to the south near the ragged rocks. The curve of the hills, crowned with the dark line of the troops, completed and framed the picture. Within this small amphitheater one of the minor dramas of war was now to be enacted. At half-past six the battery came into action, and after a few shells had been fired at the loop-hold houses in the left center of the position, a general advance was ordered. In excellent order the three Sudanese battalions, with General Hunter, Lieutenant Colonel MacDonald, and the other British officers on horseback in front of their line, advanced slowly down the hill, opening a destructive fire on the entrenchment. The distance was scarcely three hundred yards, but the crescent formation of the attack made the lines of advance converge, and before half the distance was covered, the tenth were compelled to halt, lest the eleventh Sudanese on the right flank should fire into them. The dervishes remained silent until the troops were within a hundred yards, when they discharged two tremendous volleys which were chiefly effective upon the halted battalion. Major Sidney, Lieutenant Fitz Clarence, and a dozen men were shot dead. More than fifty men were wounded. All the Sudanese thereupon with a loud shout rushed upon the entrenchment, stormed it, and hunted the dervishes into the houses. In the street fighting which followed, the numbers of the troops prevailed. The advance scarcely paused until the river bank was reached, and by 7.30 Abu Hamid was in the possession of the Egyptian forces. The dervish horsemen, who had remained spectators near the southern crag during the attack, fled towards Berber as soon as they saw the attack successful. Scarcely any of the infantry escaped. In this action, besides the two British officers, Major H.M. Sidney and Lieutenant E. Fitz Clarence, twenty-one native soldiers were killed, sixty-one native soldiers were wounded. The news of the capture of Abu Hamid was carried swiftly by camel and wire to all whom it might concern. The Sardar, anticipating the result, had already ordered the gun-boats to commence the passage of the fourth cataract. The camp at railhead sprang to life after an unaccustomed rest, and the line began again to grow rapidly. The dervishes who were hurrying from Berber were only twenty miles from Abu Hamid when they met the fugitives. They immediately turned back and retired to the foot of the fifth cataract. Once after a few days' halt they continued their retreat. Their proximity to the captured village shows how little time the column had to spare, and that General Hunter was wise to press his marches. The Amir who commanded at Berber heard of the loss of the outpost on the 9th. He sent the messenger on to Matema. Mahmud replied on the 11th that he was starting at once with his whole army to reinforce Berber. Apparently, however, he did not dare to move without the Khalifa's permission, for his letters, as late as the 20th, show that he had not broken his camp and was still asking the Amir for information as to the doings of the Turks. Of a truth there was plenty to tell. On the 4th of August the gun-boats El Teb and Tamay approached the fourth cataract to ascend to the Abu Hamid Berber reach of the river. Major David was in charge of the operation. Lieutenant's Hood and Beatty, Royal Navy, commanded the vessels. Two hundred men of the Seventh Egyptians were towed in barges to assist in hauling the steamers in the difficult places. The current was, however, too strong, and it was found necessary to leave three barges containing one hundred sixty soldiers at the foot of the rapids. Nevertheless, as the cataract was not considered a very formidable barrier, Major David determined to make the attempt. Early on the 5th, therefore, the Tamay tried the ascent. About three hundred local Shagia tribesmen had been collected and their efforts were directed, or as the result proved misdirected, by those few of the Egyptian soldiers who had not been left behind. The steamer, with their engines working at full speed, succeeded in mounting half the distance, but the rush of water was then so great that her boughs were swept round, and after a narrow escape of cap-sizing she was carried swiftly down the stream. The officers thought that this failure was due to the accidental fouling of a rope at the critical moment, and to the fact that there were not enough local tribesmen pulling at the hausers. Four hundred more Shagia were, therefore, collected from the neighboring villages, and in the afternoon the Teb attempted the passage. Her fortunes were far worse than those of the Tamay. Owing to the lack of cooperation and discipline among the local tribesmen, their utter ignorance of what was required of them, and the want of proper supervision, the hauling power was again too weak. Again the boughs of the steamer were swept round, and as the hausers held, a great rush of water poured over the bulwarks. In ten seconds the Teb healed over and turned bottoms upwards. The hausers parted under this new strain, and she was swept downstream with only her keel showing. Lieutenant Bady and most of the crew were thrown, or glad to jump, into the foaming water of the cataract, and being carried down the river were picked up below the rapids by the Tamay, who was luckily under steam. Their escape was extraordinary, for of the score who were flung into the water only one Egyptian was drowned. Two other men were, however, missing, and their fate seemed certain. The capsized steamer, swirled along by the current, was jammed about a mile below the cataract between two rocks, where she became a total wreck. Anxious to see if there was any chance of raising her, the officers proceeded in the Tamay to the scene. The bottom of the vessel was just visible above the surface. It was evident to all that her salvage would be a work of months. The officers were about to leave the wreck when suddenly a knocking was heard within the hull. Tools were brought, a plate was removed, and there emerged safe and sound from the hold in which they had been thus terribly imprisoned, the second engineer and a stoker. When the rapidity with which the steamer turned upside down, with the engines working, the fires burning, and the boilers full, the darkness, with all the floors become ceilings, the violet inrush of water, the wild career down the stream, are remembered, it will be conceded that the experience of these men was sufficiently remarkable. Search was now made for another passage. This was found on the sixth, nearer the right bank of the river. On the eighth the Matema arrived with three hundred more men of the seventh Egyptians. Three days were spent in preparations and to allow the Nile to rise a little more. On the thirteenth, elaborate precautions being observed, the Matema passed the cataract safely, and was tied up to the bank on the higher reach. The Tamai followed the next day. On the nineteenth and twentieth the new gumboats Fateh, Nasser, and Zafir, the most powerful vessels on the river, accomplished the passage. Meanwhile the Matema and Tamai had already proceeded upstream. On the twenty- third the unarmed steamer Dal made the ascent, and by the twenty- ninth the whole flotilla reached Abu Hamid safely. After the arrival of the gumboats, events began to move at the double. The sudden dart upon Abu Hamid had caused the utmost consternation among the dervishes. Finding that Mahmud was not going to reinforce him, and fearing the treachery of the local tribes, Zeki Azman, the Amir in Berber, decided to fall back, and on the twenty-fourth he evacuated Berber and marched south. On the twenty-seventh, general hunter at Abu Hamid heard that the dervish garrison had left the town. The next day he dispatched Abdul Azim, the chief of Irregulars, and Amid Bey Khalifa, his brother, with forty ababded tribesmen, to reconnoiter. These bold fellows pushed on recklessly and found the inhabitants everywhere, terrified or acquiescent. Spreading extraordinary tales of the strength of the army who were following them, they created a panic all along the river, and in spite of a sharp fight with the dervish patrol, reached Berber on the thirty-first. As there was no armed force in the town, the enterprising allies rode into the streets and occupied the grain store, the only public building, in the name of the government. They then sent word back to Abu Hamid of what they had done, and sat down in the town, thus audaciously captured, to await developments. The astonishing news of the fall of Berber reached general hunter on the second of September. He immediately telegraphed to Mirwawi. Sir Herbert Kitchener was confronted with a momentous question. Should Berber be occupied, or not? It may at first seem that there could be little doubt about the matter. The objective of the expedition was Omderman. The occupation of Berber by an Egyptian garrison would settle at once, the difficulties near Suwaken. The town was believed to be on the clear waterway to the dervish capital. The moral effect of its capture upon the riverine tribes and throughout the Sudan would be enormous. Berber was, in fact, the most important strategic point on the whole line of advance. This great prize and advantage was now to be had for the asking. The opposite considerations were, however, tremendous. Abu Hamid marked a definite stage in the advance. As long as Mirwawi and other posts in Dangala were strongly held, the line from Abu Hamid to Deba was capable of easy defense. Abu Hamid could soon be made impregnable to dervish attack. The forces in Dangala could be quickly concentrated on any threatened point. At this moment in the campaign it was possible to stop and wait with perfect safety. In the meantime the califa would steadily weaken and the railway might steadily grow. When their line reached the angle of the river it would be time to continue the systematic and cautious advance. Until then, prudence and reason counsel delay. To occupy Berber was to risk much. Mahmud with a large and victorious army lay at Matema. Osman Degna, with two thousand men, held Adorama almost within striking distance. The railway still lagged in the desert. The Dangala garrisons must be weakened to provide a force for Berber. The dervishes had the advantage of occupying the interior of the angle which the Nile forms at Abu Hamid. The troops in Berber would have to draw their supplies by a long and slender line of camel communication winding along all the way from Mirwawi and exposed, as a glance at the map will show, throughout its whole length, to attack. More than all this, to advance to Berber must inevitably force the development of the whole war. The force in the town would certainly have its communications threatened, would probably have to fight for its very existence. The occupation of Berber would involve sooner or later a general action, not a fight like Ferkhet, Hafeer, or Abu Hamid, with the advantage of numbers on the side of the Egyptian troops, but an even battle. For such a struggle British troops were necessary. At this time it seemed most unlikely that they would be granted. But if Berber were occupied, the war, until the arrival of British troops, would cease to be so largely a matter of calculation and must pass almost entirely into the sphere of chance. The whole situation was premature and unforeseen. The Sardar had already won success. To halt was to halt in safety. To go on was to go on at hazard. Most of the officers who had served long in the Egyptian army understood the question. They awaited the decision in suspense. The Sardar and the Consul General unhesitatingly faced the responsibility together. On the 3rd of September General Hunter received orders to occupy Berber. He started at once with 350 men of the 9th Sudanese on board the gun-boats, Tamay, Zafir, Nasser, and Fateh. Shortly after daybreak on the 5th the Egyptian flag was hoisted over the town. Having disembarked the infantry detachment, the Flotillo steamed south to try to harass the retreating Amir. They succeeded, for on the next day they caught him, moving along the bank in considerable disorder, and opening a heavy fire soon drove the mixed crowd of fugitives, horse and foot, away from the river into the desert. The gun-boats then returned to Berber towing a dozen captured grain-boats. Meanwhile the Sardar had started for the front himself. Riding swiftly with a small escort across the desert from Merwawi, he crossed the Nile at the Bagara Cataract and reached Berber on the 10th of September. Having inspected the immediate arrangements for defense, he withdrew to Abu Hamid, and there busily prepared to meet the developments which he well knew might follow at once and must follow in the course of a few months. 10. Berber. The town of Berber stands at a little distance from the Nile, on the right bank of a channel which is full only when the river is in flood. Between this occasional stream and the regular waterway there runs a long strip of rich alluvial soil covered during the greater part of the year with the abundant crops which result from its annual submersion and the thick coating of Nile mud which it then receives. The situation of Berber is fixed by this fertile tract and the houses stretch for more than seven miles along it and the channel by which it is caused. The town, as is usual on the Nile, is comparatively narrow and in all its length it is only at one point broader than three-quarters of a mile. Two wide streets run longitudinally north and south from end to end and from these many narrow twisting alleys lead to the desert or the river. The Berber of Egyptian days lies in ruins at the southern end of the main roads. The new town, built by the dervishes, stands at the north. Both are foul and unhealthy, and if Old Berber is the more dilapidated, new Berber seemed to the British officers who visited it to be in a more active state of decay. The architectural style of both was similar. The houses were constructed by a simple method. A hole was dug in the ground. The excavated mud formed the walls of the building. The roof consisted of palm leaves and thorn bushes. The hole became a convenient cesspool. Such was Berber, and this emporium of Sudan trade, as it has been called by enthusiasts, contained at the time of its recapture by the Egyptian forces, a miserable population of five thousand males and seven thousand females, as destitute of property as their dwellings were of elegance. The Egyptian garrison of Berber at first consisted only of the three hundred fifty men of the Ninth Sudanese, and two companies of the Camel Corps, who arrived on the sixteenth of September, having marched across the desert from Merawwi. But the proximity of Azman Dighna at Adorama made it necessary speedily to strengthen the force. During the latter part of September, McDonald's Brigade, with the exception of half the Third Egyptians, was moved south from Abu Hamid, and by the end of the month the infantry in Berber was swollen to three-and-a-half battalions. This was further increased on the eleventh of October by the arrival of the thirteenth Sudanese, and the remaining half of the Third Egyptians, and thereafter the place was held by five battalions, the Third, the Ninth, the Tenth, Eleventh, and Thirteenth, number two field battery, and two companies of the Camel Corps. As all the dervishes on the right bank of the Nile had fled to the south of the Atbara, it was found possible to establish a small advance post of Camel Corps in friendly Arabs in the village of Dahila, at the confluence of the rivers. From this humble beginning the Atbara Fort, with its great entrenchment, was soon to develop. The effect of the occupation of Berber upon the tribes round Suwaken was decisive, and the whole country between these towns became at once tranquil and loyal. Osman Dignas's influence was destroyed. The friendly villages were no longer raided. The Governor of the town became in reality, as well as in name, the Governor of the Red Sea Latoral. The route from Suwaken to Berber was opened, and a Camel Corps patrol, several small caravans of traders, and a party of war correspondents, who might boast that they were the first Europeans to make the journey for thirteen years, passed safely along it. It is now necessary to look to the enemy. Had the Khalifa allowed the Amir Mahmud to march north immediately after the destruction of the dervish outpost in Abu Hamid, the course of the operations would have been very different. Mahmud would certainly have defended Berber with his whole army. The advance of the expeditionary force must have been delayed until the desert railway reached the river, and probably for another year. But, as the last chapter has described, the sudden seizure of Abu Hamid, the defection of the riverine tribes, and the appearance of the gumboats above the fourth cataract, persuaded Abdullah that the climax of the war approached, and that he was about to be attacked in his capital. He accordingly devoted himself to his preparations for defense, and forbade his lieutenant to advance north of Matema or attempt any offensive operations. In consequence Berber fell, and its fall convinced the Khalifa that his belief was well founded. He worked with redoubled energy. An elaborate system of forts, armed with artillery, was constructed outside the great wall of Amderman along the river bank. The concentration of Arab and black soldiery from Gaderif, Kordafan, and Darfur continued. Large quantities of grain, of camels, and other supplies, were requisitioned from the people of the Jazeera, the country lying between the blue and white Niles, and stored or stabled in the city. The discontent to which this arbitrary taxation gave rise was cured by a more arbitrary remedy. As many of the doubtful and embittered tribesmen as could be caught, were collected in Amderman, where they were compelled to drill regularly, and found it prudent to protest their loyalty. The strength and tenacity of the ruler were surprisingly displayed. The Khalifa Sharif, who had been suspected of sympathizing with the Jalan, was made a prisoner at large. The direst penalties attended the appearance of sedition. A close cordon around the city, and especially towards the north, prevented much information from reaching the Egyptian troops, and those small revolts broke out in Kordafan in consequence of the withdrawal of Mahmud's army. The dervish empire as a whole remained submissive, and the Khalifa was able to muster all its remaining force to meet the expected onslaught of its enemies. During the first week in October, the Sardar decided to send the gumboats, which now plied, though with some difficulty, up and down the fifth cataract, to reconnoiter Matema and discover the actual strength and position of Mahmud's army. On the fourteenth, the Zafir, Fateh, and Nasser, steam south from Berber, under Commander Keppel, each carrying, besides its ordinary native crew, fifty men of the ninth Sudanese and two British sergeants of marine artillery. Shortly after daybreak on the sixteenth, the flotilla approached the enemy's position. So silently had they moved that a small dervish outpost a few miles to the north of Shendi was surprised still sleeping, and the negligent guards, aroused by a splutter of firing from the Maxim guns, awoke to find three terrible machines close upon them. The gumboats pursued their way, and, disdaining a few shots which were fired from the ruins of Shendi, arrived at about seven o'clock within range of Matema. The town itself stood more than a thousand yards from the Nile, but six substantial mud forts, armed with artillery, lined and defended the riverside. Creeping leisurely forward along the east bank, remote from the dervish works, the flotilla came into action at a range of four thousand yards. The fire was at first concentrated on the two northern forts, and the shells striking the mud walls and rapid succession or bursting in the interior soon enveloped them in dust and smoke. The dervishes immediately replied, but the inferiority of their skill and weapons was marked, and although their projectiles reached the flotilla very few took effect. One shell, however, crashed through the deck of the Zafir, mortally wounding a Sudanese soldier, and two struck the Fate. After the long-range bombardment had continued for about an hour, the gumboats moved forward opposite to the enemy's position and poured a heavy and continuous fire of shrapnel and double shell into all the forts, gradually subduing their resistance. The fugitives from the batteries and small parties of Bagara Horse who galloped about on the open plain between the works and the town, afforded good targets to the maxims, and many were licked up even at extreme ranges. No sooner had the gumboats passed the forts than the dervish fire ceased entirely, and it was discovered that their embrasures only commanded the northern approach. As the guns could not be pointed to the southward, the flotilla need fear nothing from any fort that had been left behind. The officers were congratulating themselves on the folly of their foes when danger threatened from another quarter. The boats had hugged the eastern bank as closely as possible during their duel with the forts. They were scarcely a hundred yards from the shore when suddenly a sharp fire of musketry was opened from twenty or thirty dervish riflemen concealed in the mimosa scrub. The bullets pattered all over the decks, but while many recorded narrow escapes no one was actually hit, and the maxim guns revolving quickly on their pivots took a bloody vengeance for the surprise. The flotilla then steamed slowly past the town, and having thoroughly reconnoitred it, turned about and ran downstream, again exchanging shells with the dervish artillery. All firing ceased at half past two, but six sailing boats containing grain were captured on the return voyage, and with these the gunboats retired in triumph to a small island six miles north of Matema where they remained for the night. It being now known that bombarding the dervishes was no less enjoyable than exciting, it was determined to spend another day with them, and at four o'clock the next morning the flotilla again steamed southward so as to be in position opposite Matema before daylight. Fire was opened on both sides with the dawn, and it was at once evident that the dervishes had not been idle during the night. It appeared that on the previous day Mahmud had expected a land attack from the direction of Gakdul, and it placed part of his artillery and nearly all his army in position to resist it. But as soon as he was convinced that the gunboats were unsupported he moved several of the landward guns into the river forts, and even built two new works, so that on the seventeenth the dervishes brought into action eleven guns firing from eight small round forts. The gunboats, however, contended themselves with keeping at a range at which their superior weapons enabled them to strike without being struck, and so, while inflicting heavy loss on their enemies, sustained no injury themselves. After four hours methodical and remorseless bombardment Commander Keppel considered the reconnaissance complete, and gave the order to retire downstream. The dervish gunners, elated in spite of their losses by the spectacle of the retreating vessels, redoubled their fire, and continued hurling shell after shell in defiance down the river until their adversaries were far beyond their range. As the gunboats floated northward their officers, looking back towards Matema, saw an even stranger scene than the impotent but exalting forts. During the morning a few flags and figures had been distinguished moving about the low range of sand hills near the town, and as soon as the retirement of the flotilla began, the whole of the dervish army, at least ten thousand men, both horse and foot, and formed in an array more than a mile in length, marched triumphantly into view, singing, shouting, and waving their banners amid a great cloud of dust. It was their only victory. The loss on the gunboats was limited to the single Sudanese soldier who died of his wounds and a few trifling damages. The Arab slaughter is variously estimated, one account rating it at one thousand men, but half that number would probably be no exaggeration. The gunboats fired in the two days bombardment six hundred fifty shells and several thousand rounds of Maxim gun ammunition. They then returned to Berber, reporting fully on the enemy's position and army. As soon as Berber had been strongly occupied by the Egyptian troops, Asma and Digna realized that his position at Adorama was not only useless but very dangerous. Mahmud had long bid imperiously summoning him to join the forces at Matema, and although he hated the court of fund general, and resented his superior authority, the wary and cunning Osman decided that in this case it would be convenient to obey and make a virtue of necessity. Accordingly about the same time that the gunboats were making their first reconnaissance and bombardment of Matema, he withdrew his two thousand Hadandoah from Adorama, moved along the left bank of the Atbara, until the tongue of desert between the rivers became sufficiently narrow for it to be crossed in a day, and so made his way by easy stages to Shandy. When the Serdar heard of the evacuation of Adorama, he immediately determined to assure himself of the fact, to reconnoiter the unmapped country in that region, and to destroy any property that Osman might have left behind him. On the twenty-third of October, therefore, a flying column started from Berber under the command of General Hunter, and formed as follows. 11th Sudanese, Major Jackson, two guns, one company of the Camel Corps, and Abdul Azim and 150 Irregulars. Lightly equipped, and carrying the supplies on a train of 500 camels, the small force moved rapidly along the Nile, and reached the post at the confluence on the twenty-fourth, and arrived at Adorama on the twenty-ninth, after a journey of eighty-four miles. The report that Osman Degna had returned to the Nile proved to be correct. His former headquarters were deserted, and although a patrol of sixty of the Camel Corps and the Arab Irregulars scouted for forty miles further up the river, not a single dervish was to be seen. Having this collected a great deal of negative information, and delaying only to burn Adorama to the ground, the column returned to Berber. It was now November. The Nile was falling fast, and an impassable rapid began to appear at Oom Teer, four miles north of the confluence. The Serdar had a few days in which to make up his mind whether he would keep his gun-boats on the upper or lower reach. As in the latter case their patrolling limits would have been restricted, and they would no longer have been able to watch the army at Matema, he determined to leave them on the enemy's side of the obstruction. This involved the formation of a depot at Dahila, the Atbara Fort, where simple repairs could be executed and wood and other necessities stored. To guard this little dockyard, half the Third Egyptian battalion was moved from Berber, and posted in a small entrenchment. The other half battalion followed in a few weeks. The post at the confluence was gradually growing into the great camp of a few months later. A regular system of gun-boat patrolling was established on the upper reach, and on the 1st of November the Zafir, Nasser, and Matema, under Commander Keppel, again steamed south to reconnoitre Mahmud's position. The next day they were joined by the Fateh, and on the 3rd the three larger boats ran the gauntlet of the forts. A brisk artillery duel ensued, but the dervish aim was, as usual, erratic, and the vessels received no injury. It was observed that the position of the dervish force was unchanged, but that three new forts had been constructed to the south of the town. The gun-boats continued on their way and proceeded as far as Wad Habeshi. The Arab cavalry kept paced with them along the bank, ready to prevent any landing. Having seen all there was to be seen, the flotilla returned and again passed the batteries at Matema. But this time they were not unscathed, and a shell struck the Fateh, slightly wounding three men. No other incident enlivened the monotony of November. The caliph continued his defensive preparations. Mahmud remained motionless at Matema, and although he repeatedly begged to be allowed to advance against the force near Berber, he was steadily refused, and had to content himself with sending raiding-parties along the left bank of the Nile, and collecting large stores of grain from all the villages within his reach. Meanwhile the railway was stretching further and further to the south, and the great strain which the sudden occupation of Berber had thrown upon the transport was to some extent relieved. The tranquility which had followed the advance to Berber was as opportune as it was unexpected. The Sardar, delighted that no evil consequences had followed his daring move, and finding that he was neither attacked nor harassed in any way, journeyed to Kasala to arrange the details of its retrocession. The convenient situation of Kasala, almost equally distant from Anderman, Berber, Suwaken, Masowa, and Rosaris, and the fertility of the surrounding region raised it to the dignity of the most important place in the eastern Sudan. The soil is rich, the climate, except in the rainy season, not unhealthy. A cool night breeze relieves the heat of the day, and the presence of abundant water at the depth of a few feet below the surface supplies the deficiency of a river. In the year 1883 the population is said to have numbered more than 60,000. The Egyptians considered the town of sufficient value to require a garrison of 3,900 soldiers. A cotton mill adequately fitted with machinery and a factory chimney gave promise of the future development of manufacture. A regular revenue attested the existence of trade. But disasters fell in heavy succession on the eastern Sudan and blighted the prosperity of its mud metropolis. In 1885, after a long siege and a stubborn resistance, Kasala was taken by the dervishes. The garrison were massacred, enslaved, or incorporated in the Madi's army. The town was plundered and the trade destroyed. For nearly ten years an Arab force occupied the ruins and a camp outside them. Kasala became a frontier post of the Dervish Empire. Its population perished or fled to the Italian territory. This situation might have remained unaltered until after the Battle of Omderman if the dervishes had been content with the possession of Kasala. But in 1893 the Amir in command of the garrison, being anxious to distinguish himself, disobeyed the Caliph's instructions to remain on the defensive and attack the Europeans at Agrodat. The Arab force of about eight thousand men were confronted by twenty- three hundred Italian troops protected by strong entrenchments under Colonel Aramandi. After a fierce but hopeless attack the dervishes were repulsed with a loss of three thousand men, among whom was their rash leader. The engagement was, however, as disastrous to Italy as to the Califa. The fatal African policy of Signor Crespi received a decided impetus, and in the next year, agreeably to their aspirations in Abyssinia, the Italians under General Baratieri advanced from Agrodat and captured Kasala. The occupation was provisionally recognized by Egypt without prejudice to her sovereign rights, and nine hundred Italian regulars and irregulars established themselves in a well-built fort. The severe defeat at Adawa in 1896, the disgrace of Baratieri, the destruction of his army, and the fall of the Crespi cabinet, rudely dispelled the African ambitions of Italy. Kasala became an encumbrance. Nor was that all. The dervishes, encouraged by the victory of the Abyssinians, invested the fort, and the garrison were compelled to fight hard to hold what their countrymen were anxious to abandon. In these circumstances the Italian government offered, at a convenient opportunity, to retrocede Kasala to Egypt. The offer was accepted, and an arrangement made. The advance of the cadavial forces into the dongle of province relieved, as has been described, the pressure of the dervish attacks. The Arabs occupied various small posts along the Atbara and in the neighbourhood of the town, and contended themselves with raiding. The Italians remained entirely on the defensive, waiting patiently for the moment when the fort could be handed over to the Egyptian troops. The Serdar had no difficulty in coming to a satisfactory arrangement with General Keneva, the Italian commander. The fort was to be occupied by an Egyptian force, the stores and armament to be purchased at evaluation, and a force of Italian Arab irregulars to be transferred to the Egyptian service. Sir H. Kitchener then returned to the Nile, where the situation had suddenly become acute. During November Colonel Parsons, the 16th Egyptian battalion, and a few native gunners marched from Suwaken, and on the 20th of December arrived at Kasala. The Italian irregulars, henceforth to be known as the Arab Battalion, were at once dispatched to the attack of the small dervish posts at El Fasher and Asubri, and on the next day these places were surprised and taken with scarcely any loss. The Italian officers, although a little disgusted at the turn of events, treated the Egyptian representatives with the most perfect courtesy, and the formal transference of Kasala Fort was arranged to take place on Christmas day. An imposing ceremonial was observed, and the scenic self was strange. The fort was oblong in plan, with mud ramparts and parapets pierced for musketry. Tents and stores filled the enclosure. In the middle stood the cotton factory. Its machinery had long since been destroyed, but the substantial building formed the central keep of the fort. The tall chimney had become a convenient lookout post. The lightning conductor acted as a flagstaff. The ruins of the old town of Kasala lay brown and confused on the plain to the southward, and behind all rose the dark rugged spurs of the Abyssinian mountains. The flags of Egypt and of Italy were hoisted. The troops of both countries, drawn up in line, exchanged military compliments. Then the Egyptian guard marched across the drawbridge into the fort and relieved the Italian soldiers. The brass band of the 16th battalion played appropriate heirs. The Italian flag was lowered, and with a salute of twenty-one guns the retro-session of Kasala was complete. Here then for a year we leave Colonel Parsons and his small force to swelter in the mud fort, to carry on a partisan warfare with the Dervish raiders, to look longingly towards Gadarov, and to nurse the hope that when Omderman has fallen their opportunity will come. The reader, like the Sardar, must return in a hurry to the upper Nile. Towards the end of November the califa had begun to realize that the Turks did not mean to advance any further till the next flood of the river. He perceived that the troops remained near Berber and that the railway was only a little way south of Abu Hamid. The blows still impended, but it was delayed.  He knew that the falling Nile would restrict the movements of the gun-boats. He knew that there were only two thousand men in Berber, a mere handful. He did not realize the tremendous power of rapid concentration which the railway had given his enemies. And he began to think of offensive operations. But Mahmud should not go alone. The whole strength of the Dervish army should be exerted to drive back the invaders. All the troops in Omderman were ordered north. A great camp was again formed near Kerrari. Thousands of camels were collected, and once more every preparation was made for a general advance. At the beginning of December he sent his own secretary to Mahmud to explain the plan, and to assure him of early reinforcements and supplies. Lastly, Abdullah preached a new jihad, and it is remarkable that, while all former exhortations had been directed against the infidel, i.e. those who did not believe in the Mahdi, his letters and sermons on this occasion summoned the tribes to destroy not the Egyptians, but the Christians. The caliph had no doubts as to who inspired the movement, which threatened him. There were at this time scarcely one hundred fifty Europeans in the Sudan, but they had made their presence felt. The Serdar was returning from Kasala when the rumors of an intended Dervish advance began to grow. Every scrap of information was assiduously collected by the Intelligence Department, but it was not until the 18th of December, just as he reached Wadi-Halfa, that the General received apparently certain news that the Khalifa, Mahmud, all the Amirs, and the whole army were about to march north. There can be no doubt that even this tardy movement of the enemy seriously threatened the success of the operations. If the Dervish's move swiftly it looked as if a very critical engagement would have to be fought to avoid a damaging retreat. Sir H. Kitchener's reply to the Khalifa's open intent was to order a general concentration of the available Egyptian army towards Berber, to telegraph to Lord Cromer asking for a British brigade and to close the Swakon-Berber route. The gunboat depot at the confluence, with only a half battalion escort, was now in an extremely exposed position. The gunboats could not steam north, for the cataract four miles below the confluence was already impassable. Since they must remain on the enemy's side, so must their depot, and the depot must be held by a much stronger force. Although the Sardar felt too weak to maintain himself even on the defensive without reinforcements, he was now compelled to push still further south. On the 22nd of December, Louis's brigade of four battalions and a battery were hurried along the Nile to its junction with the Atbara, and began busily entrenching themselves in an angle formed by the rivers. The Atbara fought, sprang into existence. Meanwhile the concentration was proceeding. All the troops in Dungala, with the exception of Scanty garrisons in Mirawi, Korti, and Deba, were massed at Berber. The infantry and guns dropping down the river in boats, entrained at Kerma, were carried back to Haufa, then hustled across the invaluable desert railway, Pasta Bukhamed, and finally deposited at Railhead, which then, January 1st, stood at Dahesh. The whole journey by rail from Mirawi to Dahesh occupied four days, whereas General Hunter with his flying column had taken eight. A fact which proves that, in certain circumstances which Euclid could not have foreseen, two sides of a triangle are together shorter than the third side. The Egyptian cavalry at Mirawi received their orders on the 25th of December, and the British officers hurried from their Christmas dinners to prepare for their long march across the bend of the Nile to Berber. Of the eight squadrons, three were pushed on to join Lewis's force at the position which will, here and after be called the Atbara encampment, or more familiarly, the Atbara. Three swelled the gathering forces at Berber, and two remained for the present in the Dangala province, looking anxiously out towards Gakdul Wells and Matema. The war-office, who had been nervous about the situation in the Sudan since the hasty occupation of Berber, and who had a very lively recollection of the events of 1884 and 1885, lost no time in the dispatch of British troops, and the speed with which a force so suddenly called for, was concentrated, shows the capacity for energy which may on occasion be developed even by our disjointed military organization. The first battalions of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, of the Lincoln Regiment, and of the Cameron Highlanders, were formed into a brigade and moved from Cairo into the Sudan. The first battalion of the Seaforth Highlanders was brought from Malta to Egypt, and held in immediate readiness to reinforce the troops at the front. Other battalions were sent to take the places of those moved south, so that the army of occupation was not diminished. The officer selected for the command of the British brigade was a man of high character and ability. General Gataker had already led a brigade in the Chitral expedition, and serving under Sir Robert Lowe and Sir Bindenblood had gained so good a reputation that after the storming of the Malacand Pass and the subsequent action in the plain of Cairo, it was thought desirable to transpose his brigade with that of General Kinloch, and send Gataker forward to Chitral. From the mountains of the northwest frontier the general was ordered to Bombay, and in a stubborn struggle with the bubonic plague, which was then at its height, he turned his attention from camps of war to camps of segregation. He left India, leaving behind him golden opinions just before the outbreak of the great frontier rising, and was appointed to a brigade at Aldershot. Thence we now find him hurried to the Sudan, a spare, middle-sized man, of great physical strength and energy, of marked capacity and unquestioned courage, but disturbed by a restless irritation to which even the most inordinate activity afforded little relief, and which often left him the exhausted victim of his own vitality. By the end of January a powerful force lay encamped along the river from Abu Hamid to the Atbara. Meanwhile the dervishes made no forward movement. Their army was collected at Kireri. Supplies were plentiful. All preparations had been made. Yet they tarried. The burning question of the command had arisen. A dispute that was never settled ensued. When the whole army was regularly assembled, the Khalifa announced publicly that he would lead the faithful in person, but at the same time he arranged privately that many amirs and notables should beg him not to expose his sacred person. After proper solicitation, therefore, he yielded to their appeals. Then he looked round for a subordinate. The Khalifa Ali Wad Helu presented himself. In the Sudan every advantage and honor accrues to the possessor of an army, and the rival chief saw a chance of regaining his lost power. This consideration was not, however, lost upon Abdullah. He accepted the offer with apparent delight, but he professed himself unable to spare any rifles for the army which Ali Wad Helu aspired to lead. Alas! he cried, there are none! But that will make no difference to so famous a warrior. Ali Wad Helu, however, considered that it would make a great deal of difference and decline the command. Osman Sheikh Eddin offered to lead the army, if he might arm the riverine tribes and use them as auxiliaries to swell his force. This roused the disapproval of Yaqub. Such a policy, he declared, was fatal. The riverine tribes were traitors, dogs, worthy only of being destroyed, and he enlarged upon the more refined methods by which his policy might be carried out. The squabble continued, until at last the Khalifa, despairing of any agreement, decided merely to reinforce Mahmud and accordingly ordered the Amir Yunus to march to Matema with about five thousand men. But it was then discovered that Mahmud hated Yunus and would have none of him. At this the Khalifa broke up his camp and the Derbysh army marched back for a second time in vexation and disgust to the city. It seemed to those who were acquainted with the Derbysh movements that all offensive operations on their part had been definitely abandoned. Even in the Intelligence Department it was believed that the break-up of the Karari camp was the end of the Khalifa's determination to move north. There would be a hot and uneventful summer, and with the flood Nile the expedition would begin its final advance. The news which was received on 15 February came as a great and pleasant surprise. Mahmud was crossing the Nile and proposed to advance on Berber without reinforcements of any kind. The Sardar, highly satisfied at this astounding piece of good fortune, immediately began to mass his force nearer the confluence. On the twenty-first the British at Abu Diz were instructed to hold themselves in readiness. The Seaforths began their journey from Cairo, and the various battalions of the Egyptian army pressed forward towards Berber and Atabara Fort. On the twenty-fifth Mahmud being reported as having crossed the right bank, the general concentration was ordered. CHAPTER X Although the story of a campaign is made up of many details which cannot be omitted, since they are essential to the truth as well as the interest of the account, it is of paramount importance that the readers should preserve throughout a general idea. For otherwise the marches, forays, and reconnaissance will seem disconnected in purposeless affairs, and the battle simply a greater operation undertaken in the same haphazard fashion. To appreciate the tale it is less necessary to contemplate the wild scenes and stirring incidents than thoroughly to understand the logical sequence of incidents which all tend to and ultimately culminate in a decisive trial of strength. The hazards which were courted by the daring occupation of Berber have been discussed in the last chapter. From October to December the situation was threatening. In December it suddenly became critical. Had the Amir Mahmud advanced with the dervishes at Matema even as late as the middle of January he might possibly have recaptured Berber. If the great Amderman army had taken the field the possibility would have become a certainty. The young courtified general saw his opportunity and begged to be allowed to seize it, but it was not until the Khalifa had sent his own army back into the city that, being very badly informed of the numbers and disposition of the Egyptian force, he allowed the Matema dervishes to move. Mahmud received permission to advance at the end of January. He eagerly obeyed the longed foreorder. But the whole situation was now changed. The Egyptian army was concentrated. The British brigade had arrived. The railway had reached Janaineti. The miserable hamlet of Dahila at the confluence had grown from a small depot to a fort and from a fort to an entrenched camp against which neither dervish science nor strength could by any possibility prevail. Perhaps Mahmud did not realize the amazing power of movement that the railway had given his foes. Perhaps he still believed, with the Khalifa, that Berber was held only by two thousand Egyptians, or else, and this is the most probable, he was reckless of danger and strong in his own conceit. At any rate, during the second week in February he began to transport himself across the Nile with the plain design of an advanced north. With all the procrastination of an Arab he crawled leisurely forward towards the confluence of the rivers. Had El Aliyab some idea of the strength of the Atapara entrenchment seems to have dawned upon him. He paused undecided. A council was held. Mahmud was for a continued advance and for making a direct attack on the enemy's position. Osman Degna urged a more prudent course. Many years of hard fighting against disciplined troops had taught the wily Hadandoah slaver the power of modern rifles and much sound tactics besides. He pressed his case with jealous enthusiasm upon the commander he detested and despised. An insurmountable obstacle confronted them. Yet what could not be overcome might be avoided. The hardy dervishes could endure privations which would destroy the soldiers of civilization. Baran and inauspitable as was the desert, they might move round the army at the Atapara fort and so capture Berber after all. Once they were behind the Egyptians these accursed ones were lost. The railway, that mysterious source of strength, could be cut. The host that drew its life along it must fight at a fearful disadvantage or perish miserably. Besides, he reminded Mahmud, not without reason, that they could count on help in Berber itself. The agreement of the Amirs, called to the council, decided the dervish leader. His confidence in himself was weakened, his hatred of Osman Degna increased. Nevertheless, following the older man's advice, he left Aliab on the 18th of March and struck northeast into the desert towards the village and ford of Hudi on the Atapara River. Thence by a long desert march he might reach the Nile and Berber, and while his information of the Sardar's force and movements was uncertain, the British general was better served. What Mahmud failed to derive from spies and friendlies, his adversary obtained by gunboats and cavalry. As soon therefore as Sir H. Kitchener learned that the dervishes had left the Nile and were making a detour around his left flank, he marched up the Atapara River to Hudi. This offered Mahmud the alternative of attacking him in a strong position or of making a still longer detour. Having determined upon caution he chose the latter, and, deflecting his march still more to the east, reached the Atapara at Nakheela. But from this point the distance to Berber was far too great for him to cover. He could not carry enough water in his skins. The wells were few and held against him. Their advance was impossible. So he waited and entrenched himself, sorely troubled but uncertain what to do. Supplies were running short. His magazines at Shendi had been destroyed as soon as he had left the Nile. The dervishes might exist, but they did not thrive on the nuts of the Dome palms. Soldiers began to desert. Osmandigna, although his advice had been followed, was at open enmity. His army dwindled. And all this time his terrible antagonist watched him as a tiger gloats on a helpless and certain prey. Silent, merciless, inexorable. Then the end came suddenly. As soon as the process of attrition was sufficiently far advanced to demoralize the dervish host without completely dissolving them, the Sardar and his army moved. The victim, as if petrified, was powerless to fly. The tiger crept forward two measured strides, from Ras El-Hudi to Abadar, from Abadar to Umdabiya. Crouched for a moment, and then bounded with irresistible fury upon its prey and tore it to pieces. Such is a brief strategic account of the Atbara campaign, but the tale must be told in full. On the 23rd of January, the Khalifa, having learned of the arrival of British troops near Abu Hamid, and baffled by the disputes about the command of his army, ordered Kerrari camp to be broken up and permitted his forces to return within the city, which he continued to fortify. A few days later he authorized Mahmud to advance against Berber. What he had not dared with sixty thousand men, he now attempted with twenty thousand. The course of action, which had for three months offered a good hope of success, he resolved to pursue only when it led to ruin. He forbade the advance while it was advisable. When it was already become mad and fatal he commanded it. And this was a man whose reputation for intelligence and military skill had been bloodily demonstrated. The gumboats ceaselessly patrolled the river and exchanged shots with the dervish forts. Throughout January nothing of note had happened. The reports of spies showed the Khalifa to be at Kerrari or in Umberman. Ahmed Fadil held the Shabluka Gorge, Azman Digno was at Shendi, and his presence was proved by the construction of two new forts on that side of the river. But beyond this the dervishes had remained passive. On the 12th of February, however, it was noticed that their small outposts at Kuli had been withdrawn. This event seemed to point to a renewal of activity. It was felt that some important movement impended. But it was not until the fifteenth that its nature was apparent, and the gumboats were able to report definitely that Mahmud was crossing to the east bank of the Nile. The flotilla exerted itself to harass the dervishes and impede the transportation, but although several sailing boats and other river-craft were captured, Mahmud succeeded in moving his whole army to Shendi by the 28th of February. His own headquarters were established at Hosh Ben Naga, a little village about five miles further south. A delay of more than a fortnight followed, during which the gumboats exercised the utmost vigilance. The Swak and Berber Road was again closed for caravans, and the Sardar himself proceeded to Berber. On the eleventh of March the remnants of the Jailin tribe, having collected at Gakdul, reoccupied the now abandoned Mutema to find its streets and houses choked with the decaying bodies of their relations. On the thirteenth, the Egyptian lookout station, which had been established on Shibalayah Island, was attacked by the dervishes, and in the skirmish that ensued Major Sitwell was wounded. On the same day the enemy was reported moving northwards to Ali'ab, and it became evident that Mahmud had begun his advance. He started from Shendi with a force which has been estimated at nineteen thousand souls, but which included many women and children, and may have actually numbered twelve thousand fighting men, each and all supplied with a month's rations and about ninety rounds of ammunition. The Sardar immediately ordered the Anglo-Egyptian army, with the exception of the cavalry and Louis' Egyptian brigade, which with three squadrons held the fort at the confluence, to concentrate at Kunur. Broadwood, with the remaining five squadrons, marched thither on the sixteenth, and the whole cavalry force, with the Camel Corps in support, on the three subsequent days, reconnoitred twenty miles up the Nile and the Atbara. Meanwhile the concentration was proceeding apace. The two Sudanese brigades formed into a division under command of Major General Hunter, with the artillery, reached Kunur on the night of the fifteenth. The British Brigade, the Lincolns, the Warwrecks, and the Camerans marched thither from Dabaiqa. The Seaforth Highlanders, who on the thirteenth were still at Wadi-Halfa, were swiftly railed across the desert to Jena'nati. Thence the first half- battalion was brought to Kunur in steamers. The second wing, since the need was urgent and the steamers' few, were jolted across the desert from railhead on camels, an experience for which neither their training nor their clothes had prepared them. By the sixteenth the whole force was concentrated at Kunur, and on the following day they were reviewed by the Surdar. The first three days at Kunur were days of eager expectation. Rumor was king. The Dervish army had crossed the Atbara at Houdi, and was within ten miles of the camp. Mahmud was already making a flank march through the desert to Berber. A battle was imminent. A collision must take place in a few hours. Officers with field-glasses scanned the sandy horizon for the first signs of the enemy. But the skyline remained unbroken, except by the wheeling dust devils. And gradually the excitement abated, and the British Brigade began to regret all the useful articles they had scrupulously left behind them at Dabaiqa, when they marched in a hurry and in the lightest possible order to Kunur. On the nineteenth of March the gumboats reported that the Dervishes were leaving the Nile, and Mahmud's flanking movement became apparent. The next day the whole force at Kunur marched across the desert angle between the rivers to Houdi. The appearance of the army would have been formidable. The cavalry, the camel-core, and the horse-artillery covered the front and right flank. The infantry, under the British on the right, moved in line of brigade masses. The transport followed. All was, however, shrouded in a fearful dust storm. The distance, ten miles, was accomplished in five hours, and the army reached Houdi in time to construct a strong Zareba before the night. Here they were joined from Atbar-a-Fort by Lewis's brigade of Egyptians, with the exception of the fifteenth battalion, which was left as garrison, and the troops at the Serdar's disposal were thus razed to fourteen thousand men of all arms. This force was organized as follows. Commander-in-Chief, the Serdar. British Brigade, commanded by Major General Gadhaker. First Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, Six Companies. First Battalion, Lincolnshire Regiment. First Battalion, Seaforth Highlanders. First Battalion, Cameron Highlanders. The Egyptian Infantry Division, under Major General Hunter. First Brigade, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Maxwell, with the Eighth Egyptians, Twelfth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth Sudanese. The Second Brigade, under Lieutenant Colonel McDonald, with the Second Egyptians, the Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Sudanese. The Third Brigade, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Lewis, with the Third, Fourth, and Seventh Egyptians. Cavalry, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Broadwood, with Eighth Squadrons, Two Maxim Guns. Camel Corps, commanded by Major Tudway, Six Companies. The Artillery, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Long. Detachment, Number Sixteen Company, E-Division Royal Artillery, with Six Five Inch Breach Loading Howitzers. Egyptian Horse Battery, of Six Guns. Numbers One, Two, and Three Field Batteries of the Egyptian Army, Eighteen Guns. The British Maxim Battery, Four Guns, and Rocket Detachment, of Two Sections. Mamoud had early intelligence of the movement of the Anglo-Egyptian Army. His original intention had been to march to Houdi. But now he learned that at Houdi he would have to fight the Serdar's main force. Not feeling strong enough to attack them, he determined to march to Nakhila. The mobility of the Arabs was now as conspicuous as their dilatory nature had formally been. The whole dervish army, horse, foot, and artillery, men, women, children, and animals, actually traversed in a single day the forty miles of waterless desert which lie between Aliab and Nakhila, at which latter place they arrived on the night of the twentieth. The Serdar's next object was to keep the enemy so far up the Atbara that they could not possibly strike at Berber or Railhead. Accordingly, at dawn on the twenty-first, the whole force was ordered to march to Ras El Houdi, five miles nearer the dervish's supposed halting place. The detour which the Arabs would have to make to march round the troops was nearly doubled by this movement. The utter impossibility of their flank march with a stronger enemy on the radius of the circle was now apparent. The movement of the Anglo-Egyptian force was screened by seven squadrons of cavalry and the horse artillery, and Colonel Broadwood was further instructed to reconnoitre along the river and endeavour to locate the enemy. The country on either bank of the Atbara is covered with dense scrub, impassable for civilized troops. From these belts which average a quarter of a mile in depth, the dome palms rise in great numbers. All the bush is leafy and looks very pretty and green by contrast with the somber vegetation of the Nile.  The river itself above Ras El Houdi is, during March and April, only a dry bed of white sand about four hundred yards broad, but dotted with deep and beautifully clear pools, in which peculiarly brilliant fish and crocodiles, deprived of their stream, are crowded together. The atmosphere is more damp than by the Nile and produces, in the terrible heat of the summer, profuse and exhausting perspiration. The natives dislike the water of the Atbara and declare that it does not quench the thirst like that of the Great River. It has, indeed, a slightly bitter taste, which is a strong contrast with the sweet waters of the Nile. Nevertheless the British soldiers, with characteristic contrariness, gave their preference for it. Outside the bush the ground undulated gently, but the surface was either stony and uneven or else cracked and fissured by the annual overflow. Both these conditions made it hard for cavalry and still more for artillery to move freely, and the difficulties were complicated by frequent holes and small cores full of long grass. Amid such scenes the squadrons moved cautiously forward. Having made the ground good for fifteen miles from Houdi, Colonel Broadwood halted his force at Abadar, an old fort, and sent one squadron under Captain Le Galais seven miles further. At two o'clock this squadron returned, having met a few of the enemy scouts but no formed bodies. While the force watered by turns at the river, Captain Bearing's squadron was extended in a line of outposts, about a mile and a quarter to the southeast. But the reconnoitering squadron had been followed homeward by several hundred dervish horsemen. Creeping along through the dense bush by the bank and evading the vedettes, these suddenly fell on the picket line and drove in all the outposts. In this affair eight troopers were killed and seven wounded. Thirteen horses were also lost, as having rid themselves of their riders on the broken ground they galloped off after the Arab mares on which the dervishes were mostly mounted. The news of an attack on Adorama was received on this same afternoon. It appeared that the Arabs had been repulsed by the Abyssinian irregulars raised by Colonel Parsons. Glowing details were forthcoming, but I do not propose to recount the Homeric struggles of the friendlies. Little in them is worthy of remembrance. Much seeks oblivion. For more than a week the Anglo-Egyptian force remained halted at Ras El-Hudi, waiting for privation to demoralize Mahmoud's army or to exasperate him into making an attack. Every morning the cavalry rode out towards the enemy's camp. All day long they skirmished with or watched the Bagara horse, and at night they returned wearily to camp. Each morning the army awoke full of the hopes of battle, waited during the long hours, and finally retired to sleep in deep disgust and profound peace. And while the army halted the camp began to assume a more homely appearance. The Zareba grew stronger and thicker. The glacis wider, the field kitchens more elaborate, the pools of the Atabara more dirty. Overall the sun beat down in merciless persistence till all white men quivered with weary suffering when in the open air, and even under the grass huts or improvised tents the temperature always registered 115 degrees during the hottest hours of the day. The nights were, however, cool and pleasant. But although the main part of the force found the days long and tedious, the time which the army spent at Ras El-Hudi was by no means uneventful. The work of the squadrons was hard, and ceased only with the night. The continual patrolling told severely on men and horses, and the fact that the dervishes were far stronger in the mounted arm than the Sirdar's army necessitated the utmost vigilance of the cavalry commander. Employment was also found for the gun-boats. When Manwood had left the Nile he had established a sort of depot at Shandy, in which the wives of the Amirs and the surplus stores had been deposited. This treasure-house was protected only by a slender garrison of seven hundred riflemen and twenty-five horsemen. On ordinary military grounds, and also since the event might infuriate the Arabs, it was decided to capture this place and disperse its defenders. Accordingly, on the afternoon of the twenty-fourth, the Third Egyptian Battalion from Lewis's Brigade marched from Ras El-Hudi to Atbar-a-Fort and relieved the fifteenth Egyptians then in Garrison, and a small force under Commander Keppel, consisting of the fifteenth Egyptians under Major Hickman, two field guns of Peaks Battery, and one hundred fifty Jailin Irregulars, was embarked on or in boats towed by the three gun-boats Zafir, Nasser, and Fatah, and started the same night for Shandy. At dawn on the twenty-seventh the flotilla appeared off Shandy. The dervishes had been apprised of its approach and prepared to offer resistance, but the force against them was overwhelming. Under cover of the gun-boats the infantry and guns were landed. The artillery then came into action, but after they had discharged two shells the Arabs fled, firing their rifles with little effect. Shandy was occupied by the Egyptians. The pursuit was left to the Jailin, and in it they are said to have killed one hundred sixty men, a revenge which must have been doubly sweet since it was consummated so near to the scene of the destruction of their tribe, and was also attended by scarcely any danger. Loot of all kinds fell to the victors, and the gun-boats were soon laden with a miscellaneous spoil. The wives of the important Amirs made their escape to Omderman, but upwards of six hundred fifty women and children of inferior rank were taken prisoners and transported to the Atbara, wherein due course they contracted new family ties with the Sudanese soldiery, and, as far as can be ascertained, lived happily ever afterwards. There were no casualties among the troops, but the Jailin lost a few men in their pursuit. The force then returned to the Atbara. The third of April was the last day the army spent at Ras El Hudi. The period of waiting was over. The enemy's position had been duly reconnoitred. His strength was believed to be sufficiently impaired for a successful attack to be made. The camp at Hudi was becoming very insanitary. Moreover the situation, satisfactory though it was, was not one which the commander could view without anxiety. All the time that the army was operating on the Atbara, it drew its supplies from the fort at the confluence. Between this and the camp, convoys, protected only by a hem full of Camelkor, passed once and every four days. Only the idiotic apathy of the derbishes allowed the communications to remain uninterrupted. Mahmud was strong in cavalry. It will be evident to anyone who looks at the map how easily a force might have moved along the left bank to attack the convoys. Such tactics would have occurred to most savage tribes, but in their last campaigns the derbishes thought only of battles and disregarded all smaller enterprises. Had they assailed the communications the Serdar might have been forced to build a chain of forts and to guard his convoys with strong infantry escorts. The fighting force would have been weakened, the troops would have been wearied, and the result must have been delayed. The derbishes had as yet attempted nothing. But there was no reason why they should not at any moment become enterprising. It was time to make an end. On the 4th of April the whole force moved to Abadar and established themselves in a new camp five miles nearer the enemy. The tiger was tired of watching. He had taken his first stride towards his prey. Although the information as to the enemy's strength and position was accurate and complete, the Serdar decided to order a final reconnaissance on the 5th of April. Starting at four o'clock Broadwood cut off the sharp angle which the Atbara forms at Umdabia and, avoiding the thick bush, soon approached the dervish camp. Not a sign of the enemy was seen during the march. The bush by the Atbara appeared deserted. The camp gave no sign of life. An ominous silence prevailed. The squadrons moved forward at a walk, keeping about twelve hundred yards away from the enemy's Zareba, and almost parallel to it. Presently, as they did so, a large force of cavalry became visible in front. It was difficult to estimate their strength, but they appeared to be superior in numbers to the reconnaissance. The dervish horsemen continued to retire towards the southeast, always reaching round the Egyptian left flank. And while the Egyptian force advanced, as soon as they were opposite the southern end of the Zareba, another considerable body of dervish horse issued from the northern side and threatened the line of retreat. At the same time the camp began to swarm with men, and crowds of tiny figures were observed clambering on to the entrenchments and gun emplacements, eagerly watching the development of the fight. The cavalry had by this time approached to within one thousand yards of the Zareba, and the Arab artillery began to fire occasional round shot and clumsily fused shells. At nine o'clock, the enemy's position having been again sketched and the approaches reconnoitred, Colonel Broadwood ordered the retirement to begin. The maxims and artillery were in the center, supported by Colonel Broadwood and three squadrons. Captain Bering with three squadrons watched the left flank, now in retirement, become the right. Captain's Lugale and Perse guarded the river flank. The cavalry retired by alternate wings in measured fashion, but the enemy pressed on impetuously, and their horsemen, soon completely enveloping the desert flank of the Egyptians, began to threaten a charge. To meet this Colonel Broadwood sent one of his squadrons from the center to join those under Captain Bering, so that at about a quarter to ten the reconordering force was formed with four squadrons toward the desert, two with the guns, and two towards the river. The weakness of the river flank of the troops encouraged the dervish horse lurking in the scrub to make a bold attempt to capture the guns. The movement was shrewd and daring, but the cavalry commander met it with admirable skill. The springing up of dust-clouds hardly three hundred yards away was his only warning. He immediately took command of the two squadrons under Perse and Lugale and ordered them to right about wheel and charge. Thus headed by Broadwood himself, and with their British officers several horse lengths in front, the Egyptians broke into a gallop and encountered the Bagara line, which numbered not fewer than four hundred men, but was in loose order with firmness. They struck them obliquely and perhaps a third of the way down their line, and breaking through routed them utterly. While this dashing operation was carried out on the river flank, the dervish cavalry, following up the retirement, also delivered an attack towards the guns. Thereupon Captain Bering with two squadrons galloped from the desert flank across the front of the artillery and, riding through the advancing enemy, repulsed them with loss. The charge was good and effective, but the shock and confusion broke both squadrons, and although successful, they came through the dervishes and back on to the river flank in some disorder. Perse and Lugale, who had just rallied, at once dismounted their men and opened carbine fire on the retreating dervishes. Their action not only checked the enemy, but prevented, by getting the troopers off their horses, any chance of their being involved in the disorder of the squadrons who had just charged. Although their horsemen were thus sharply checked, the dervish infantry continued in spite of losses, to advance rapidly, and for a few minutes a hot musketry fire was exchanged by the Arab riflemen and the two dismounted squadrons. Captain Perse was severely wounded, and several other casualties occurred. But the whole force was drawing away from the enemy, and by eleven o'clock it had passed through the gap to the northeast, and had shaken off all pursuit. The casualties in the operation were fortunately small. One British officer was wounded, six Egyptian troopers were killed and ten wounded, and about thirty horses were lost or disabled. The details of the enemy's defenses were now known. His strength was estimated from trustworthy information. It was evident from the frequent desertions that his army was disheartened, and from his inactivity that he was scarcely hopeful of success. The moment for destroying him had arrived. At daybreak on the morning of the sixth, the whole army broke camp at Abadar and marched to the deserted village of Umdabia, where they bivouacked close by a convenient pool of the Atbara, and seven miles nearer the dervish camp.


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