113 CHAPTER XX.

THE SUMMER IN THE SOUDAN.

FOUR battles— Ferkeh and Hafir in 1896, Abu Hamed in 1897, and the Atbara in the spring of 1898— had carried the Egyptian standards from Wady Haifa to Metemneh, along sevenhundred miles of the Nile Valley, and to within one and the river. The work wouldhave been tenfold moredifficult, the long line of communications would have had to be guarded by a far stronger force, but for the fact that as the flagof Egypt was pushed further and further south along the Nile it was everyhundred and twenty miles of Khartoum. There had been only four days of battle, but there had been two years of unceasing toil, the main burden of which fell on the Egyptian regiments. Dayby day the railway had beencreepingon,now under the palms by the riverside, now across the waterlessand Useless desert, till more than five hundred miles of the iron track had been laid. For the Arab enemyit must haveseemedfar moreterrible than the swiftest onset. Slow and sure as some everlasting fate theSirdar's armywas moving into the heart of the land, making fast its hold as it came on— shatwhere welcomedas the standard of an army of rescue and deliverance. Seldom has a soldierset forth on anobler mission than that confided to the Sirdar. His task was to bring back peace and freedom to the Nile Valley by destroying a cruel and ical tyranny. As a type of what was happening in the Soudan under Dervish rule, let us Like the grim facts of the massacre of Metemneh, one of the last exploits of the Khalifa's Baggaras. The full story was known only after the Dervish army was routed at the Atbara. It is thustoldby theHon.Hubert Howardin aletter writtento rllK LATE HON. HUBERT HOWARD, CORRESPONDENT OF "THE TIMES' (KILLED AT THE BATTLE OF OMDURMAN).

(Photo: Mayall.Piccadilly.)

tering with its deadly fire all that barred its way, seeing and knowing everything by its wonderful intelligence system, and, as it came, shortening the way it traversed with the iron road that was travelled over by those strange monsters of fire and steam.

Men at home in Englandheard of the battles, but only the few who had actually seen the work could have any real idea of the unceasing toil by which the gunboats were brought past Ltaracts and set afloat on the upper river, by which therailway waslaid over the rock and sand of the desert and kept in working order ; and the supplies for a large army were collected fifteen hundred miles from the base at Cairo, far off on the narrow margin between the desert 8 the Times only a weekbefore his own deathin battle. By that time our army had advanced through the Jaalin country and had heard from thepeople themselves the tale of their defeat in July, 1897, and of the vengeance of the victors. This is what Mr. Howard wrote:— "The great interest of the march to Wad Hamed lay inseeing thenatural richness of the countryand its present desolation, and aboveall in Metemneh itself, the capital of the Jaalin tribe and the scene of their great slaughter by the Baggara. The storyis nowovera year old, yet it may be briefly told as typical of the Khalifa's rule. The Jaalin were disaffectedsick of the domination of the Baggara, who, strangers in the land, were plundering and