KHARTUM IN SIGHT. IO9 dense with vivid green undergrowths, the swiftly-rushing water, the yellow sand under brilliant sunlight, made a picture not to be forgotten; but Shabloka, a narrow passage between rocks, was just aher.d, and then a gorge between steep hills where the rushing river was only about 300 yards wide. Two more friendly Shagiyehs hailed the vessels as they lay beside the end of the island in the evening, and their report was that there had been fighting round Khartum for fifteen days, that Gordon had held his own, that the advance of the English was dreaded. The conclusion come to was that the Mahdi was trying to take Khartum before their arrival. "We little dreamt all was then over," writes Sir Charles Wilson. Surely it would not now take long to fight the way to Khartum.

Shabloka and the gorge were passed next morning; the Sussex men keeping a good look-out for an expected attack from the hills, but without a shot being fired to draw the volley with which they were to answer it; they reached a village opposite Jebel Royan, a hill from which, it was said, Khartum could be seen. More wood was wanted here and hostilities commenced again, increasing as the steamers entered open water between flat banks, and continuing in a desultory way till night, when the men landed and, protected by a picket of the Sussex, went for wood to a deserted village at some distance from the river bank, and were at work till one o'clock on the morning of the 28th. In the afternoon, before reaching this place, a man on the bank had called out that another man on a camel had passed down with the news that Khartum was taken and Gordon killed; but the same report had been made over and over again for weeks, and now the goal was almost in sight.

At six o'clock in the morning (the 28th) the Bordcin led the way into Khartum; the Sussex men ready to fire volleys at the embrasure of the batteries while the guns of the steamers kept them engaged. A heliostat was to be used to signal to Gordon. At half-past seven they passed a hill which had once been occupied by a battery and guns to command the river, but there was no one there; then past Abu Alim, the seat of one of the Mahdi's emirs, and there lay Khartum in the distance.