142 EGYPT AND THE SOUDAN.

be carried also. The plan was as complete as it was possible to make it, but we know how impossible it became to make that junction with the desert column on which its realization appeared chiefly to depend.

The orders were that the column was to leave Hamdab on the 24th of January, and it was originally intended that a battalion of infantry should form posts between Abu-Dom and Abu-Hamed, so that a line of communication might be preserved, which, of course, would have enabled the general to provide for the forwarding of cattle and supplies; but this was found to be impossible, as the men could not be spared, and therefore all the supplies would have to be carried with the force, with the exception of such provisions as could be found on the route and those that would be forwarded to Abu-Hamed with the convoy to Korosko.

On the 20th of January Colonel Butler arrived at Hamdab, and on the following day Golonel Alleyne brought a party of voyageurs, and, assisted by Captain Orde of the rifle brigade, Captain Lord Avonmore of the Hampshire regiment, and Lieutenant Peel of the 2d Life Guards, prepared to direct the advance by the river; v/hile Colonel Butler with the cavalry and camel corps was to reconnoitre along the bank and to select the jDositlons where the force in the boats could encamp. On the 2 2d he had reached OoH Island, where he found a suitable place for the camp, and was able to report that the passage of the river was free to that point, the natives having retired on his approach, though a few still remained at Ooli.

To Captain Courtney of the Royal Engineers and Captain the Hon. T. Colborne of the Royal Irish Rifles was intrusted the duties of surveying the river as the column advanced; but the passage of the troops to the camp itself was not effected without difficulty, and the later arrivals did not reach the camp till the day when they were to go forward; when Colonel Hammill was left in command at Hamdab with orders to send on the Cornwalls, two sections of the fi:eld hospital, and the Egyptian battery and transport company under escort of a portion of the camel company