131 CHAPTER XXIII.

THE CONCENTRATION AT WAD HAMED.

THE march of the strong column that left the Atbara camp on August 17th was considerably delayed by the height to prevent them being enfiladed,and to limit the damage doneby a shell to the section in which it burst. All these works were now being sappedby the rising Nile. The flood of brown water had breached some of the forts and flowed into the trenches.

which the Nile had risen. At many points the water had filled the hollow sandy valleys and rocky ravines— the wadys and khors, to use the local names— converting them for awhile into long creeks extending from the river bank far into the desert. To pass these,lone dt tours had to be made, and this greatly increased the labour of the march under the tropical sun.

The ruined town of Metemneh, the Jaalin capital, stood about a mile from the river, and yet another mile further away in the desert, to be more out of range from the river, stood Mahmoud's camp, an enormouscircle of sheltertrenches and riflepits, with four mud huts in the interior of the ring, one of them formerly the Dervish general's headquarters. " Never was there such a scene of desolation," wrote Mr. Howard of the Times,giving his impression of a visit to Metemneh. " The whole area from camp to river is carpeted with the dried-up carcases and bones of a multitude of beasts killed by Mahmoud's army. The town itself, stretching for nearly two miles, is a city of the dead. Not a soul is to be seen,but everywhere in the narrow streets are carcases with lurid birds feeding and whirling overhead, and the heavy, foetid smell of decomposing bodies. When first visited by Englishmen, after the massacre of the Jaalin, dead bodies lay about the town in heaps, but the tribe have now removedand buried them."

Except for a few cases of sunstroke, the health ofthe men was excellent.

The march was along the west bank of the Nile, on the southern edge of the Bayuda desert. This tract of riverside was part of the country of the Jaalin tribe, and everywhere there were grim signs of the vengeance which the Khalifa's Baggaras had wreakedupon them. The villages were all in ruins, the waterwheels burned,the fields unfilled. The few people who had come back to the river, and were living in grass shelters, gave the troops the heartiest 01 welcomes.

The line of march lay past Metemneh, and Mahmoud's huge camp on the edge of the desert, where the Emir lay so long waiting to bar the Sirdar's advance, and whence he started on the ill-fated march to the Atbara. Along the river bank were ten forts, in which the ten guns captured in the Atbara zereba had once been mounted. They were badly constructed so far as the useof the gun went, but looked as if they would give good shelter to the little garrison that worked it. Each was a round earthwork of sun-baked mud with three embrasures,one looking directly across the Nile,and the others up and down stream. The gun could be transferred to any of these positions, but the embrasures were so narrow that it could hardly be trained a single degree to right or left, so that the gunners would really have to wait andget off a shot just at the moment when a hostile gunboat was passing. The rifle trenches along the river edge were better planned. They were provided with traverses to The infantry travelling up the river onbarges and steamers had an easier time than the mounted troops. These reached Wad Hamed camp on August 24th, short of a number of men lost or disabled by sunstroke, and a still larger number of horses knocked up by the long march on the hot sand. The army was now concentrated at the foot of the .Shabluka Cataract, the great camp of 22,000 menextending for some two miles along the river. The camping-ground was a stretch of coarse grass with scattered tree's. In the middle of the long line of tents and grass shelters the Egyptian flag, flying from a knoll looking out on the river, marked the Sirdar's headquarters. At the south end of the camp were the tents of the British division. Although there was yet no