214 EGYPT AND THE SOUDAN.

feet six inches. The sides were protected by plates of iron, which were pitted with bullet marks and torn by case-shot or sphnters of shell. She lay with her keel sixteen feet above the water level, as it was then low Nile, in an intricate narrow channel studded with rocks; while on the left bank of the river there was open clear water three hundred yards in breadth. " To us," says General Brackenbury, " it seemed incredible that the wreck was an accident, for it was almost impossible to believe she had not been purposely steered to her destruction. And yet, who can say? At high Nile she would have come rushing down the swift water above, and a very small error in steering would have caused her to be swept in here. The natives had stripped her of everj'-thing that could be of use, leaving her a mere shell. All her woodwork had been carried away, including the floats of her paddles, and such iron as was sufficiently portable. The after part of her hold was filled with sand, her bows were high out of water. A few torn scraps of letters and paper, of no particular interest, were littered about, but there was nothing whatever worth preserving as a relic." At the scene of the murder were found some fragments of books, some more of Stewart's visiting-cards, a shirt sleeve stained with blood, and a few papers which seemed to have belonged to Herbin and Power; but at Sherri Island there had been discovered five pages of Stewart's diary, describing Gordon's entry into Abu-Hamed and Berber on the way from Korosko to Khartum. Abu Bekr said, that as soon as the steamer went ashore Fakri Wad Etman had sent a message to Suleiman Wad Gamr at Salamat, and that Suleiman had immediately ordered his camels, and had hastened to Hebbeh. This was found to confirm Hassein's assertion that the wreck had taken place at nine, and that Suleiman first appeared on the scene in the afternoon. The village of Hebbeh was destroyed on the 21st under the direction of the officers of the intelligence department, who searched carefully for papers or relics, even digging the ground wherever it seemed to have been recently disturbed, but nothing of importance was discovered, and no trace was found of Stewart's journal, which, as we have seen,