126 EGYPT AND THE SOUDAN.

of the bank where the water was deeper the steamer would pick them up in the morning.

But there were still some hours of daylight, and after a hastymeal the men were soon ready to take a very prominent part in the fight with the battery. One of the guns was taken out of the nuggar, and Abdullah and his men were soon sending shells into the fort, while four of the best marksmen of the Sussex lay on the sand by the edge of the river and peppered away at the parapet and the embrasures with such effect, that thousfh the distance was about I lOO yards the enemy could not put in a well-directed fire in return, and their attack on the steamer was drawn off to the bank where their new assailants continued the assault. So ill-directed was the enemy's fire that when Lieutenant Gascoigne with two native artificers and a native crew went off in the small boat to the steamer he made the journey and came back without any one being hit, though he was under what appeared to be a hot fire both in going and returning.

All on board the steamer were plucky enough, though one seaman had been killed, and Lieutenant Van Koughnet was wounded.

Several were scalded by the sudden rush of steam when the" boiler was hit. Mr. Benbow, the chief engineer, who had reached Gubat with the 2nd division of the naval brigade just before Lord C.

Beresford started, was on board, and he was busy mending the boiler—a troublesome job, which he said would detain them till night, by which time Sir Charles Wilson and the men ashore would arrive at the point lower down, to which Trafiford with the Sussex and Khashm-el-Mus and his men went forward to select a place where a seriba was made for the night. Sir Charles remaining with a few men and the gun to keep up the attack on the enemy's battery and draw its fire away from the nuggar, which floated down with the rest of the men, the wounded, and the provisions and kits. At sunset Sir Charles Wilson's party set off to march down through thickets and cultivated fields, where it was impossible to drag the gun, which had to be abandoned by the exhausted men, who spiked it, broke up the carriage, and pitched both into the river. At the seriba there was no food but corn cobs taken from the fields, and