DEBBEH. 53 4 am. the morning after. Our road lay over pretty open ground, so we marched in column of companies, instead of sections of fours. On that day we got to Debbeh, an important town at the bend of the Nile.

It is important as being the junction of the camelroutes along the banks of the Nile, across the desert to Khartoum, and across to El Obeid ; accordingly the town is protected by a fort, garrisoned by Bashi Bazouks and a few Turkish troops, who amused themselves in the intervals of warfare by perpetrating outrages on the villages in the neighbourhood.

These men were in the service of the Mudir of Dongola, and capital troops they were. Two months before they had fought several actions with an emissary of the Mahdi's, and, although outnumbered, had defeated him utterly and eventually annihilated all his troops. During the next two days we passed over three battle-fields, strewn in places with their skulls and bones. Two days after leaving Debbeh we arrived at Ambukol, which we thought was to have been our concentrating point ; it had, however, been settled to