WARS OF THE NINETIES. n8 thebeginning of the advance in 1896, and had put up hundreds of miles of telegraph along the Nile banks andthrough the desert.

The IntelligenceDepartment preparedelaborate plans of Omdurman, chiefly from Slatin's information, and a map ofthe Nile fromShendy to beyondKhartoum. ColonelWingate's reports placed the enemy's strength atabout 60,000 men.

The Dervishes had erected fortifications at the Shabluka Pass, but early in the summer they abandoned them, and rumour said that the Khalifa had formed a camp at Kerreri, a few miles north ofOmdurman, and that he intended there to await the Sirdar's attack. The Mahdi had once predicted that some day a greatbattle wouldbe fought at Kerreri against the infidels, and that they would be defeated with terrible slaughter. The desert near the Kerreri hills is strewn with white pebbles, and the Khalifa is said to have told his warriors that for every white stone in the valley they would see the skull of an English or an Egyptian soldier whiteningin the sun.

had fought at the Atbara should spend the summer in the Soudan. A second brigade would be sent out just before the campaign began, so that the Sirdar would have the cooperation of a complete British division,besides some British artillery and cavalry. He was to have four Egyptian divisions with him,eachfour battalions strong, besides the Egyptian cavalry, artillery and camel corps. A large force of friendly Arabs was to be raised to act withhim during the advance. Altogether including these friendlies, he would have some 25,000 troops under his immediate command.

In order that the army, while it advanced, should be in constant communication with the stations alongthe lineof supply, and with Cairo and England, it was necessary on carry the telegraph line across theriver. For this purpose an insulated cable was sent up to Dakhala, at the mouth of the Atbara, and successfully laid in the river bed by one of the gunboats, under the direction of Captain Manifold, R.E., who had been the director of telegraphs from In V LONG DRINI