104 EGYPT AND THE SOUDAN.

plenty of ammunition on board, and the guns were brass pieces (canons rayds) throwing a nine-pound shell.

Khashm-el-Mus, the commander, was Melik, or King of the Shagiyeh in the adjoining country on the right bank, and is described by Sir Charles Wilson as a rather short man of about fifty-three with grayish beard. He could neither read nor write; but Muhammad Bey Abud, a shrewd little fellow, grandson of the commander of the Shagiyehs who conquered Dongola at the end of the last century, did both for him, assisted by Sheikh Mahmud, one of Gordon's trusted messengers, who was shut out of Khartum while on a mission to Sidi Osman at Kassala.

It appears that Khashm did nothing but sit and drink coffee and smoke. He, with Muhammed Ibrahim the interpreter, Gascoigne, and Sir Charles Wilson, occupied the saloon, in the -small room at the back of which were the two servants and the native workman, and at the top of the deck-house ten men of the Sussex, Avho with all their belongings,—arms, ammunition, kit, and rations, may be said to have been in a little citadel commanding- the whole ship in case of mutiny or any misunderstanding, no one being allowed to go to their quarters e.xcept the two helmsmen.

The Sussex detachment of a corporal and nine men in the Talahawiych were under Captain Trafford; and with them were Stuart-Wortley with his servant (who was a rifleman), an artificer of the royal navy, and a signaller. The medley crew of soldiers and sailors was like that of the Bordcin; but the latter had no black troops and the former only 80; but she had in tow a dismasted nuggar full of dhurra for Khartum, and carrying also 40 or 50 soldiers. All the arrangements, including the occupation of the place of vantage by the Sussex men, were the same in both vessels, and each flew an Egyptian flag at foremast and stern, though Sir Charles Wilson records that he felt inclined to pull these down as he disliked the idea of fighting under the Egyptian flag; but he had no others to put in their place, and the steamers after all belonged to the Khedive.

There was no interpreter on the TalaJiawiych, and Stewart Wortley had to make the best of his knowledge of Arabic,