lOO EGYPT AND THE SOUDAN.

and devotion to duty shown by the medical and surgical staff were beyond all praise. Sir Herbert Stewart was raised to the rank of major-general in recognition of his services,, but it was felt, as Lord Wolseley had stated, that there was little or no probability of his ever again being on active service.

As we have seen, the tendency in some quarters in England was to calculate on too large or too decisive a result from the victories that had been obtained, and this tendency was fostered by the reported declarations of several of the prisoners who fell into our hands. Some of these who had been wounded represented that the Frenchman, Olivier Pain, was in command at Metammeh. Captain Piggott, on his way down to Korti, found a large number of the enemy's wounded at Abu-Klea. Some had crawled in by themselves, others had been brought down near the wells by their comrades, and were left there. Everything possible had been done by our garrison to relieve them: and they all seemed to say that they considered the cause of the Mahdi to be lost, as his followers would no longer believe in him after their defeat. It was said, too, that he was sending away all his valuables. It may be feared that these prisoners were placed in a position which they thought would be improved if they said only what their listeners might like best to hear; and throughout the campaign there seems to have been a tendency on the part of some of our officers to place too much faith in the reports or declarations of natives, whether they were messengers, spies, officials ready to protest their friendliness and promise their co-operation, or prisoners, professing to be convinced of the good intentions of the Khedive's allies. At all events, however, the scene at Abu-Klea must have impressed the wounded prisoners with the sense of disaster, for on the battle-field and its neighbourhood lay the bodies of their comrades—heaps of slain—and to bury these was one of the heaviest duties of our garrison there.

Of the steamers with which Sir Charles Wilson was to make the short voyage to Khartum, we have' already given some description. Those "penny" steamers, as Gordon called them, were in fact little larger than those that ply on the Thames, and