184 WARS OF THE NINETIES.

The White Nile expedition started soonafter dawn on Saturday, September ioth, under the Sirdar's command. The flotilla was made up of five steamers, towing several double-decked barges and Nile boats. The steamers were the stern-wheeler Dal, formerly a postboat on the river between Shellal and Haifa, but now conveying the Sirdar and his staff; the Sultan, Commander Keppel's flagship ;the Fullch,conveying on her decks and on barges alongside journey down the river, a journey which it appearstheyhad toperformunder circumstances of extreme discomfort. Those who go with an army to record its exploits with pen and pencil areprepared to take their fair share of the hardshipsand dangersof war;butit would seem that during this last Nile expedition, by some mischance, the unfortunate correspondents had a little more than the usual share of hard times. One of them, Mr. Henry Cross, of the Man-Chester Guardian, who was seeing his first campaign, was taken ill with enteric fever on the waydown, and died in the hospital at the Atbara river, on September 20th — another name added to the long death roll of correspondents in the Soudanwars.

Thesendingdown of the pressmen suggested that events wereaboutto happen which the Government was anxious to conceal from the public for some time to come.

The same policy of secrecy was curiously adopted white the expedition was on its way, and after its return.

a company of the Cameron Highlanders and the whole battalion of the13th Soudanese; the Yasir, conveying in the same way the nth Soudanese; and the Abu Klea, towing two barges laden with a battery of Egyptian artillery and a quantity of reserve stores and provisions. All the steamers flew both theBritish and the Egyptian flags. Sir Herbert Kitchener was taking up the Nile a more formidable force than had ever yet been led so far into the heart of Africa.

The first few days of the journeywere monotonous in the THE ENTRANCE TO 'IHE MAHDI'S TOMB.

For some time, in the absence of reliableinformation, the wildest rumours obtainedcurrency. It is only right here to pay a tribute to the enterprise of Mr.Bennet Burleigh, of the Dailv Telegraph. He sent home from Assouan, where he was beyond the reach of the censorship, interesting items of information collected from the Dervishes who manned the Tewfikieh, and later obtained an outline of the story of the Sirdar's voyage to Fashoda from some of the British troops who were sent down to Cairo after escorting him thither. Looking back now' on the whole story, as told in the despatches, it is difficult to see what was the object the Government had in view in keeping up an abortive attempt at secrecy for so long a time.

extreme. The gunboats steamed steadily against the strong current, which, as they went higher up, was more and more encumbered with weed;here drifting in m there growingup in great tangled beds from the river bottom. Near Fashoda the navigable passage of the river was often not more than two hundredyards wide. The banks were low,and the watershoaledsorapidly that even the light draught steamers sometimes found it difficult to approach a landing place. The weedencumbered river teemed with animal hfe. Crocodiles and hippopotami were seen in large numbers. One day no less than twelve of the latter were in sight at the same time, there had of late been so little traffic on this upper