THE RECONOUEST OF THE SOUDAN. 79 cavalry, a battery, and some Maxim guns. At the same time an Egyptian squadronof cavalry under Captain Haig was sent across the river by theHudi fords, with orderstoreconnoitre up the south bank.

Berber showedthat the enemy wasnotadvancing in that direction.

The situation, therefore, was clear. Mahmoud was camped and entrenched at such a distance that if the Sirdar moved out to attack him he must make two marches, and considerably lengthen the line over which his hardworked transport convoys of camels had to bring up supplies. Until he had accumulated a strong reserve of stores at Ras-el-Hudi this was out of the question, and the daily needs of the armymade it difficult to accumulate such a reserve. But, at the same time,Mahmoudcouldnotmove on Berber without giving the Sirdar and his army the chance of taking up a position nearer the town, with a shorter line of supply, from which an attackcouldbe made on theDervishes, exhaustedby the march,and themselves short of food and water. Mahmoud therefore stayed in his camp in the bush, hoping that the Sirdar wouldattack him. Hehad water from the river near at hand,grazing for his camels and horses in the coarse grass and thornbushes of the river bank, while he could bring up dates and corn the desert from his depots at Shendy— not in any great quantity, but sufficient to keep his men moderately well fed, for the Dervish commissariat is simpler than that of a civilised army. At first sight itlookedasif the campaign had come to a dead stop, the two armies encamped more than twenty miles apart, and each waitingfor the other to come on. But the Sirdar had a possible move in the game which wouldturn all the chances .against his adversary. And this move he now proceeded to make, demonstrating once more how the civilised armycannearly always force the hand of a barbarian adversary.

Early intheday Lewis's brigade saw a number ofmounted patrolsretiringeastwards.Inthebush atAbadar hecameon the bodies of someDervish horsemen killed in the cavalry fight three days before, and buried them. But though he advanced some miles he could find no trace of any large bodv of the enemy. Haig's squadron rode as far as Em Manani, twenty-three miles up the river,but found only the tracks of the enemy's patrols on the sand. There was so far no sign of a Dervishcamp anywherealong theriver. In the evening Lewis returned to Ras-el-Hudi, and a messagearrivedfrom Haig. The result of the day's reconnaissances was to show that there was no large Dervish force within twenty miles of th.e camp. What had been taken for the camp-fires of a largebody were the watch-firesof scouting parties, showing here and there in the bush over a wide stretch of desert. This view of the situation was confirmed by the report brought by a deserter from the Dervish army who camein the same evening. He said that, finding the Sirdar in such strong force on the Atbara, Mahmoud hadstopped his advance, and wa- busy making a large entrenched camp for his armyin the bush near ElHilgi, thirty miles up the river.

The report was further verified bv a reconnaissance made by four squadrons on the Thursday morning. They found the country clear of the enemy for twenty miles along the northbank. Patrols of friendly Arabs and of the camel corps on the desert road from El Hilgi to