THE RECONOUEST OF THE SOUDAN. 59 "We sta\Ted a few hours at the island (below the town) while we collected all the Dervish animals we could lay hands on, and pushing them into the captured boats we started on our return journey. Before we had gone very far our machinery broke down. \Ve were obliged to dependon the secondengineer,whoseattempt to patch up the works proved unsuccessful,and finally wehad to be towedback."'

the river. One of the Soudanese soldiers on board was killed in passing Metemneh.

The march to Khartoum was to be the work of the Expedition of i898. At the close of1807 Dakhila, opposite Ed Darner, defended by a strongfort, was the frontier post. The railway had passed Abu Hamed and was approaching Berber. The Egyptian army was in garrison at Berber, Abu Hamed, and Haifa, Dongola, Debbeh, and Merowe. But the two branches of the Soudan railway, both starting from Haifa, enabled the Sirdar to concentrate rapidly a large force either on the Atbara or on the Dongola side of the Bayuda desert* in case the enemy at Metemneh assumed the offensive in either direction. Further, he could, if need be, rapidly bring up British regiments from LowerEgypt, for the Lower Nile railway had now been completed to the First Cataract. Troops could be thus hurried up from Cairo to beyond AbuHamedin five days, a journey that a few years ago would have occupied week.. The gunboat flotilla lay between Berber and Ed Darner; it had just been reinforcedby two more gunboats— built by Yarrow— the Sultan and the Slniklt, armed with quick-firing and machine guns, armoured with steel shields for breastworks, propelledbv screws (and therefore less likely t.> he disabled than the stern-wheelers), and drawing only eighteeninches of water.

This reconnaissanceshowedthat the Dervishes could not prevent the gunboats running past Metemneh. On the other hand, it was clear that thev had chosen such a position for their fortified camp that the attackuponit wouldhave to be carried out chiefly by the army, the range beingsuch that all the gunboats could attempt against it would be a distant bombardment. The forts along the river were small structures of sun-dried mud, mounting each only one or two Krupp guns. On both flanks of each fort there was a shelter trench for riflemen. But even the heavy fire of the first day's attack had not permanently damaged any of the works, and their destruction promised to be a serious piece of work for the flotilla. The presence of the grain-laden boats showed that the camp was being supplied chiefly by water from Omdurman, so to put an end to the river traffic the gunboats, while the high Nile lasted, paid several flying \isits to thereach of the river above Metemneh, exchanginga fewshots with the forts as they went by. On oneof these occasions Keppel ran up a gunboat to the foot of the Shabluka cataract, some sixty miles above Metemneh, and at least a hundred and forty above Berber. At that date in the late autumn the river had fallen so far that the ascent of the rapids in the narrowgorge between the hills would have beendifficult:so. at the foot of the cataract, the gunboats turned and ran down Before he left Berber tor Cairo at the end of the autumn eampaign the Sirdar reviewed the concentrated at the front. Those who saw the march past and the subsequent manSuvres were greith impressed by the splendid condition and perfect equipment of the little army which,in the past summer, with only one battle,hut with many a day of hard work, had ed forward the Nile frontier from Merowe to the Atbara.