108 WARS OF THE NINETIES.

maintaineda sullen, defiant attitude,and at first seemed to expect to be put to death by the victors. "Why have you come into my territory to burn and to kill?" asked the Sirdar. "Iam a soldier,andIhave to obey the Khalifa's orders withoutquestion,just asyouhave to obey the Khedive's." Asked where his colleague, Osman Digna, was, he replied that he did not know, but he thought he had gone off with the cavalryearlyin the day. He seemedto bear not believe, too, that this heavy loss does not represent the full total ofwounded. The return is made so carefully in the case of a British regiment that alargenumber ofslightly wounded are counted into the regimental loss. But the Soudanese, unless he is badly hit or cut, has z. liking for doctoring himself, andwill not trouble the dressing station or the ambulance for what is rightly counted as a wound,though a slight one. The result is sometimes disastrous, for MAHMOUD EXAMINING HIS OWN THOTO.

muchgood-will towards his comrade, and afterwards, in conversation, attributed the failure of his plan of campaign to his having listened to the badadvice of Osman Digna.

his rough-and-ready treatment makes a serious injury out ofa meregraze or scratch. One very competent observer among the correspondents gave it as his opinion that the lossin wounded amongtheKhedive's regiments was nearer five hundred than four. Thelist of the nth battalion, enumerating over a hundred killed and wounded, shows how hotly they had been engaged. The half-savage recklessness of the men didsomething to increase their losses,theBritish regiments using their rifle-fire with better to keep down the deadly fire of the Dervishes from the zerebaand the inner stockades.

The work of searching and clearing the captured camp was assigned to a battalion and a squadron of the Egyptian army. The first effort was directed towards saving the wounded. The loss of the Anglo-Egyptian army had been heavyconsidering that it wasnearlyall the work of about a quarter of an hour's fighting. The Egyptian army lost fifty-one killed and 319 wounded,the latter figure including twobattalion commanders— Major Walter of the qth Soudanese,and Major Shekleton of the14th. Many The Camerons, who led the British attack, firedonanaveragethirty-four cartridgesperman.