DULKA ISLAND. I57 with their previous assertions to give orders to complete the secondary purpose for which the columns had crossed the desert and threaded the intricate passages of the Nile cataracts? Would Berber be delivered and Abu-Hamed occupied, that the united army might strike down the power of the Mahdi by the junction at Berber of the Nile column, the reserve army, and the force now under the command of General BuUer at Gubat, while, at the same time, the hordes in the Eastern Soudan would be defeated by the troops who were concentrating there to crush Osman Digma and to open up the route between Suakim and Berber?

" Lord Wolseley is communicating with government as to future operations, but he wishes you to push on to Abu-Hamed and await further orders there." This was the teleojram received by General Earle at 8 o'clock on the morning of Sunday the 8th of February.

Not a moment then was to be lost. The programme might be carried out after all, and the right to punish might be vindicated though the power to save had not been timely exercised. All was activity at Birti, to which the Gordons were immediately to proceed; while the Staffords, protected by mounted troops, were to advance from Castle Camp and to be followed by the rest of the troops when the obstacles presented by the rapids had been more carefully inspected. At Castle Camp the men in their red coats had just returned from church parade when General Brackenbury rode over with the order to go forward, and within half an hour the first boats had put off and the cavalry were scouting on the bank: Colonel Butler commanding the advanced guard after having instructed Colonel Eyre to make a camp on Dulka Island.

Colonel Butler with Major Hood and a score of Hussars going forward on the left bank, came close to the enemy, who were occupying the stony ground that had been patrolled by our men three days before. They were posted on rocky clumps or knolls commanding the track by which the cavalry were advancing. A few sharp volleys from our men drove them away from the posts to the tops and sides of the hillocks. Later in the day