EN VOYAGE TO KHARTUM. IO5 " helped out by strong English and much vigour of action." The commander of this vessel, Abd-ul-Hamid, also a Shagiyeh and related to Khashm-el-Mus, was a tall slight youth who had been highly recommended in a letter from Gordon, but whose chief characteristics appear to have been a petulant and sulky temper and a personal vanity which found expression in fine clothes, or rather in gorgeous-coloured robes. He bade fair to be a troublesome customer, and did not altogether confute the opinion that he was not to be completely trusted. There was no time to give effect to mere suspicions, however, nor to change the order of arrangement. The steamers were to go with all speed to Khartum, and in order successfully to pass the batteries of the enemy on the banks, the Sussex men were to fire volleys at the embrasures directly they were within range. They could be relied on to do this duty steadily, and so might, at all events, diminish the attacks of the batteries; but the native soldiers were under little or no control, and therefore the only useful order they were likely to obey was to fire at any one who fired at them.

The end of the island was soon passed, and then the steamers began to open their voyage. A friendly native Shagiyeh was taken on board from the right bank, and he reported a battery with a gun a short distance ahead; but when Gascoigne, Trafford, and Stuart-Wortley with black troops landed, they found that the gun had been very lately removed, the marks of the wheels being still quite fresh. Some more natives who also went on board said that the gun had been put there by Wad Hamza, the Emir of Shendy, to prevent the steamers from going up, and that he had taken it away again on hearing that the steamers had gone down to Shendy. The same men brought promises from their chiefs to say that they would join our army when it came up. They were sent back with a message that the natives would be well treated by the British. Sir Charles Wilson also sent off a letter to Gordon saying that the steamers were on their way.

Soon afterwards, the " look-out " on the steamers saw at a considerable distance on the right bank a large number of horse and camel men; and this was a part of that force under Feki