127 CHAPTER XXII.

THE EVE OF THE ADVANCE, THE date for the attack on Omdurman was determined by the fact that the Nile between Berber and Khartoum would be at its highest about the end of August and the beginning of September. The Sirdar's plan was to complete the concentration of his army in the first half of August,andbegin the advance about themiddle of themonth. He wouldthus be able to make the fullest use of the high Nile for transportby waterof troops and supplies in the first stage of the advance, and for the operations of his gunboat flotillain the actual fighting.

so the Dervishes were orderedto retreat,and the Sirdar,in passing the Cataract, had only to deal with the physical difficulties which it presented to the movements ofhis flotilla. And these were not serious. At high Nile steamers could pass up and down the Cataract withoutany helpfrom the shore.

Shendy had been the advanced post of the expedition in the early summer. The first step of immediate preparation for the advance was taken inJuly, when the gunboats conveying a detachment of Soudanese troops steamed up to Nasri Island,forty miles above Shendy, and occupied it. The command of the river by the flotilla made the occupation of the island by its little Soudanese garrison perfectly secure. A fort was erected,and the island becamethe advanced depot for stores for the expedition. Thus the Egyptian flag was flying over a garrison established only eighty miles from Omdurman, or within less than six days of easy marching from the enemy. But for thegunboatsit would have been a piece of reckless imprudence to fix the depotof stores so far to the front and so near the Dervish headquarters.

His task had been considerably simplified by the bad tactics of his opponents. It was generally expected that they would hold the hills on the river bank at the Shabluka Cataract. Here the Nile,broken into several channels by rocks and islands, flows for some miles through a narrowgorge, the hills rising steeply on each side. The Dervishes had erected batteries on both banks near the water's edge, and the hills above supplied splendid defensive positions to meet a force advancing by theriver bank. The gunboats struggling with the torrent that runs down between the hills, and workingtheir way between steep and often precipitous ridges of rock on either side,could have given very little co-operationto the land attack, and would have had some difficulty- even in engaging the riverside batteries. The Dervish positions would of course have been turned and the garrison driven out, but it might have caused some tough fighting, and in any case a stand at the Shabluka would have forced the Sirdar to concentratehis army for battle below the Cataract, and would have thus delayed the advance. If Mahmoud had not venturedon his ill-directed march tothe Atbara he could have fallen back on the Shab-During these last weeks beiore the advance hard work, and plenty of it, was the lot of the Egyptian army. Two battalions were north ot Berber at the Fifth Cataract away towardsAbu Hamed,hauling up barges and riverboats tobe used in the coming expedition. Otherbattalions were camped at various points along the Nile, where the belt of scrub was widest and the trees well grown. All day they worked at cutting firewood,loading it on boats, and sending it up to Nasri Island, to be stored there in the grea'.. fuel depot for the gunboats. Their furnaces arc arranged to burn either coal or wood, and once they get away from the neighbourhood of therailway they have to rely on the inferiorfuel. "Wooding" is a more frequent operation than coaling with a Nilegunboat.

lukaHills and fought there. The destruction of his army left only a very small force available for holdingthebanks of the Cataract. The Khalifa did not wish to send any more troops forward from the force he had assembled at Omdurman, One of the regiments engaged in this hard work on the river, the 18th Egyptians, was