THROUGH THE SHUKOOK PASS. 209 that a strong lorce of all arms was proceeding to Suakim to crush Osman Digma, and that Lord Wolseley would probably leave Korti to join General Buller's force and co-operate with the Nile column in the capture of Berber. These were the particulars made known to the Nile force by General Brackenbury on the 13th of February. The men had not previously been informed of the fall of Khartum, but as the Renter's telegram which came into the camp referred to it the general thought it was desirable to circulate an official memorandum instead of leaving unauthentic rumours to disturb the minds of the men.

On the 14th of February the boat column prepared to pass the Uss Rapid opposite Uss Island, a troublesome obstacle not marked in the maps. At the same time General Butler with the mounted troops entered the beginning of the long village of Salamat, which extends for above two miles along the left bank of the river opposite the island of Sherri. The village was deserted, and there was another difficult rapid opposite the island.

The Shukook Pass had threatened to be one of the ugliest places through which the troops would have to make their way, and it was with no small satisfaction that General Brackenbury, who had taken up his headquarters at the old dervish's camp opposite to the rapid and to the entrance of the pass, saw the head of the convoy and the battery emerge. " In some places," he tells us, "there was barely room for a loaded camel to pass between the perpendicular rocks; in others, where the path was wider, the rocks had been prepared for defence by loopholed stone sconces in the same way as the koppies and ridge at Kirbekan. There was no order or regularity in the plan of the rocks. They seemed to have been upheaved as a mass in some great volcanic convulsion, and to have fallen one upon another in every direction, covering a space some si.x miles long by three or four broad. With an infantry tied to the boats, as it was, and with so small a force of mounted troops it would have been a most difficult task to dislodge an active and determined enemy from such a position, of which he knew every outlet, and of which we knew nothing. It was an oppressive place to remain in. It had Vol. IV. 67