66 AT WADY HALFA: BEER FOR THE FIRST STAFFORDS CHAPTER XIII.

PREPARATIONS TO OPPOSE A DERVISH ADVANCE.

COLONEL WINGATE, thanks to his spies and correspondents, had for years been able to keep close watch on all the Dervishes were doing, even in their far-off capital round about the Mahdi's tomb at Omdurman. Whether he was in some camp on the Upper Nile or in his office at Cairo, news from the enenry's headquarters was not many days in reaching him. So,early in December, 1897, whenhe had come down theriver with the Sirdar to spendChristmas in Cairo,he stillreceived day by day reports ofthe doings of the Khalifa and his Emirs, andin these reports there came the news that the Dervishes at Omdurman werebusymakingandbuying waterskins— the roughly-tanned hide receptacles in which the camel-manstores the water for a long desert march. Here was the broadfact, but what wasits meaning? A soldier who knows anything of desert warfare would answer at once that the Dervishes were making ready for an expedition that might take themin some force away from the banks of the Nile.

eastward for the Upper Atbara and Kassala ;or Berber might be its object; and asit could not hope to pass the Nile opposite the city under the fire of the Sirdar's gunboats,in that casealso the Dervish general must begin by crossing to Shendy. Then the water-skins would come in useful for a desertmarch,not on the river bank, where the gunboats would be troublesome, but some miles inland,crossing the Lower Atbara above Ed Darner,avoiding the fort at Dakhila, wherethe two riversjoined,and sweepinground to attackBerber on its desert front.

Now, the gunboats had made a run up the river to Metemneh on Wednesday, December 8th, andhad brought back animportant pieceof information. They had on allpreviousoccasions been fired upon only by batteries on the left bank near Metemneh. This time, as they approached the place, someKrupp guns openedon them from earthworks on theother shore justin front of Shendy. The guns werebadlyservedand did noharm. It was seen, too,thatbehind these new batteries there was a camp of the em Shendy,to which the EmirMahmoud had transferred a portion of his force from the other side. The gunboats dropped a few shells into the new batteries, raninnear the bank and took in towsome boats laden with grain, and steamed back to Ed Darner camp with this useful boot), afl-There were three points against which such expedition might be directed from the Derrish camp at Metemneh. It might be directed cross the Bayuda desert, northwards, against the garrisons in the Dongola province ; or it might cross the river and strike away south-