THE RECONOUEST OF THE SOUDAN. 27 mud walls on the steep hill slope north-east of Ferkeh. The leading Soudanese regiment, the 9th infantry, replied, and almost immediately Burn-Murdoch's heavy guns opened with a deep roar from the hills east of the village. The cooperation of the two columns wasperfect.

Surprised and outnumbered as they were, Hammuda's wrarriorswere not dismayed. They swarmed out of their mud huts and straw shelters, rapidly taking up a position among the rocky ridgesthat form a kind of natural fortification for Ferkeh to thenorth and east. Some of them were Jaalin and Dongolawi tribesmen, whose loyalty to the Khalifa was doubtful. These were sent into the fight with Baggara was in action against a strong force of Dervish riflemen, and Captain Broadwood and Captain Legge, each at the head of three Egyptian squadrons, charged and broke up a force of Dervish camel-menthat wasmoving up from the south along the river bank to reinforce Ferkeh.

Having repelled the Dervish counter-attacks and stormed the outlying ridges, the infantry division— its first brigade on the right, its second on the left,andits third in the centre— wheeled towardsthe river so as to closeupon thevillage. There was a brief bombardment, the shells from the heavyguns knocking to pieces the clay-built houses and setting fire to some of the straw shelters. Ferkeh was a large village of perhaps spearmen behindthem ready tokillthemif theyattempted toturn back. The mountain gun^ of the river columnhad nowcomeinto action,shelling the Dervish position, and whilst MacDonald's Soudanese, with the qth in advance, moved against the rocky ridges, Lewis's mixed Egyptian and Soudanese brigade was fighting its way across the cultivated ground near the palm belt by the river. The Dervishes made a stubborn fight. They not only held the rocks but their black regulars tried to advance to a counter-attack, firing as they came. Happilv a thousandhuts, running for nearly a milealongthe river bank. It was stormed by the infantry, Lewis's brigade at the north end being the first to get in. Soudanese andEgyptians vied with each other in clearing the enemy out of the houses and the lanes and open spaces between them. There was some bayonet work, but the rifle was most used even inside the village. The Der--|.night to the end,the Emirs for the most part refusing quarter and throwing their lives away in desperate attempts to close with the victors. Hammud.i Idris COLONEL BURN-M< {Pltoto:Jseyman, Cairo.)

their sire, though rapid, was wild and high, and did little damage. They were met and di back with heavy loss by a storm of bursting shells, a hail of bullet-, from the Maxims, and stead) volleys from the well-drilled infantry opposed to them. Some doubts had been thrown by military critics on the fighting value of the Fellahin, or purely Egyptian, element in tlie Sirdar's army,but at Ferkeh there was little to choose between the Soudanese and the Egyptian battalions. On the right a rush of horsemen and footmen mixed came to hand-tohand conflict,brief though it was, with Lewis's brigade, north of the village. Farther to the left mother party of desperate menhad tried to I'urn-Murdoeh's guns, charging up the slope by oneof the desert ravines. The rifles of the 12th Soudanese and the Maxims soon disof them. Farther still away, and out of sight of the main attack, Tudway's camel corps himself was killed early in the action, and more than forty of the Emirs fell « ith him. By seven o'clock what was left of his army was streaming away to the southward, a lew taking refiigi ■rj an island, from which they were promptly cleared out by the Soudanese; while those who got across to the west bank of the Nile were dealt with by the Arab "Friendlies," who had moved down along the Other side of the river as the armv advanced from Akasha.

Then it was that Burn-Murdoch, with the cavalry, camel corps, and horse battery, started on the pursuit which wr.s to reap the full fruits of the victor}', Townshend, with the 12th Soudanese, following to support the mounted The put suit lasted just twenty-two hours, from 7 a.m. <>n Sunday, when the battle ended, till dawn on Monday. The Dervishes neverhad a chance of rallying. The river bank and the border of the desert were strewn for