THE RECONOUEST OF THE SOUDAN. 151 in their camp. Even if he had waited till they were on the move,he might have met them in the broken ground between Kerreri and Omdurman on less hopelessly disadvantageous terms.

Dervishes had only brought out with them three Krupp guns and one of the old Nordenfeldts. These were in their right centre. Topping the ridges infront, the great moving multitudeof Dervish warriors poured out upon the sandy plain in front of the Sirdar's line. Some of the leading Mahdists were firing as they marched,but the range— nearly two miles — was far beyond the furthest limit of what the Remington rifle could do, even with better ammunition than the cartridges made in Omdurman arsenal. Shouting and drumming, the main mass moved on without firing a shot. Their right climbed over the Jebel Surgham height, and from that point to the Kerreri Hills the whole plain was filling with horse and foot, rifles and spears, and waving banners, while the drum and war-horn raised a deafening din. A staff officer spurred away from the Sirdar's side to the British left, where Major Williams's gunners of the Royal Artillery were waiting ready beside their long 15-pounders. He brought the order to open fire. Precisely at 6.40 the first gun aimed at the Dervish right and loaded with shrapnel boomed out, and the shell burst fairly in the air, just in front of the enemy's line,rolling over a good score of the foremost in the attack. Then the other guns and the Egyptian batteries joined in, and all along the Dervish front the bursting shells tore gaps in their ranks, gaps that were filled as soon as they were made. Through the field - glass those who watched the bursting shell saw that many even of the wounded Dervishes sprang up and regained their place in the front. A few minutes more, and another galloper carried the order to the Grenadier Guards to open fire with volleys from their long - ranging Lee-Metfords at 2,700 yards, the extreme distance for which the rifle is sighted. The Guardsmen standing close to the zereba hedge opened fire with volleys by sections, and the other regiments of Gatacre's division carried on the firing away to theleft. In the huge moving mass in front of them they had a target against which even at such a distance the volleys could hardly fail tobe effective. In the centre and on the right theSoudanese andEgyptianbattalions werestill silently watching the enemy's advance, lying down in their shelter trenches, for the range wasfar too great for their Martinis.

At a quarter past six it was seen that the cavalry wereretiring. A lastmessage had come in from Jebel Surgham. " An enormous force of the enemyis advancing to the attack,"it said, "'drummingand shouting as they come." How steadily the mounted troops retired, trotting back towards the camp with evenly dressed lilies as if they were riding in from an early morning drill in the desert! Over the ridges behind them there came a long whiteline. It was the front ofthe first greatcolumnof Dervish infantry. The men wore the white jibba, ornamented with divers coloured patches— the Dervish uniform. Over their heads' fluttered the brightly-coloured pennons of their emirs. Even before they came in sight many in the camp had heard,like the noise of the sea, the confused roar made by hundreds of war-drums and the mingled shouts of thousands of fanatic warriors,marching, as they fondly dreamed, to victi y, under the eye of the Khalifa himself, for soonhis black banner showedin the midstof the advancingtide ofarmed men.

Here and there the foremost Dervishes fired a few shots at the retiring cavalry. The Lancers rode into the left of the camp and formed up between the British division and the river ;the Egyptian squadrons,moving rapidly across the front of the camp,rejoined the main body of Broadwood's cavalry away to the north of the battleline. The Lancers had been out on Jebel Surgham, and in the earlierpart of the Dervish advance Colonel Martin had dismountedsome ot his men and exchanged fire with the enemy. He had inflicted some loss on them without a single casualty on his side.

The gunboats had steamed up the river and had joined Major Elmslie's battery in the renewed bombardment of Omdurman. Now that the enemy's army was in sight, they were recalled to assist in repelling his attack. The cavalry reports showed that the Khalifa's first line was formed of five greatmasses of rifle and spearmen. From left to right it was between two and three miles long. In the rear of it there was a second line,of much less strength, escorting a mass of camels and donkeys laden with supplies. Cavalry were riding on the flanks and here and there in the intervals of the great moving mass of infantry, but the Under therain of bursting shells and Maxim and Lee-Metford bullets the Dervishes were still comingsteadily on. Thequick-firing guns ofthe