107 CHAPTER XIX.

AFTER THE BATTLE. THE interior of the zereba presented a terrible spectacle. Densely crowded with men and animals, it had been exposed for more than an hour to a heavy bombardment, and after that, had been the commander-in-chiefin the campaignof 1896.and had been wounded at Hafir; Mohammed Zaki, lately the Dervish governor of Berber ;Bishara Redi,whohadbeenruler of the westernSoudan ; and WadUssul,the chiefof the great Shaiggiyeh scene of a desperate handto-handfight in whichsome thousands were engaged. From side to side it was heaped and strewnwithdead and wounded men and animals. There were dozens of camels and donkeys that had been killedby the bursting shells as they lay tied down inthe trenches. Some twenty black soldier were found lying dead, chained together in the foremost trench. They wereprobably men whose allegiance to the Khalifa was doubtful, and Mahmoud had thus set them in the front of the battle to die. Other men were securedin their places tribe. The Emir Osman Digna had been in command of the part of the camp nearest the Atbara, and he added one more to a long list of escapes by getting away safe and sound and crossing the desert to Khartoum with a band of fugitives.

A great quantity of spears, swords, andrifles,with many banners and war-drums and ten brass cannon,were found in the camp. The firearms were mostly Remingtons, but there was a miscellaneous collection of sporting weapon>, from fowlingpieces up to heavy elephantrifles, some of them firing 1HUGADIER-GENERAL COLONEL A. G. WAUCHOPE. (Photo: T.Hoosebitrg, Edinburgh.)

by forked sticks fastened to their necks. Still further proof of the grim methods by which the Emir Mahmoud ruled his followers was to be found in a row of six severed heads fixed on posts in the north part of the camp. Just in front of it anEgyptian soldier lay dead with his head,hands, and feet cut off. Hisaccoutrements showed that he was a cavalryman who had been missing since the last reconnaissance before the battle.

Over three thousand Dervish dead were counted in and around the camp and on the ground opposite it on the other side of the Atbara. Mahmoud's clerk, who had been made prisoner at Shendy, went over the field with a staff-officer and identified many of the slain Dervish Emirs. Among them was Mohammed Wad Bishara, who had been the Mahdist explosive bullets. There was a large supply of cartridges for the rifles and shells for the guns, and it was curious that Mahmoud made so feeble an attempt to use his artillery. Several earthen pots full of gunpowder and stones and fitted with chimney fuse- were buried in the ground just outside his central citadel. One or two of these mineshadgoneoff, without, however,doing any serious damage. The plan of using these miniature mines had doubtless been suggested by someone who remembered Gordon's very effective use of them in his long defence of Khartoum.

The number of prisoners wasincreasing every minute as the cavalry and Lewis's brigade sent in iIio-lc they had gathered on the other side of the Atbara. Mahmoud, the chief prize of the day, was brought before the Sirdar. He