END OF THE EXPEDITION. 219 On the evening of the 6th of March General Brackenbury held a review of the river column—" the first and the last time it was ever inspected on parade. . . . Two thousand of the finest fighting men that it ever was any man's lot to command were inspected in line, marched past, re-formed in line of quarter-columns, and advanced in review order." Havingr said a few farewell words to commanding officers General Brackenbury bade the column, as the " river column," good-bye.

The voyageurs were drawn up at the flagstaff. Out of 377 men who had left Canada ten had died, six of them having been drowned in the Nile. They had been engaged only for six months, but eighty-nine of them had renewed their service, and of these sixty-seven had gone with the river column, where both their officers and men had worked with untiring vigour and dauntless courage.

On the morning of the 7th of March General Brackenbury started with the main bodj' of his troops for Korti, where he arrived and handed over his command next day.

This then was the end of the double expedition which it was hoped would meet to co-operate for the relief of Khartum and the rescue of General Gordon, of whose death there was now little doubt on the part of the officers in command, although in England it was not till some time afterwards that the hope was abandoned that he had escaped to the Equatorial provinces, or had found protection with some friendly tribe, or was even kept in durance by the Mahdi himself The telegraphic message sent from Cairo by Sir E. Baring to Earl Granville on the afternoon of the 15th of February may be said to contain as much of certainty as any subsequent account of the actual taking of Khartilm and the murder of Gordon, and it was merely a repetition of the message sent from Korti to Cairo by Lord Wolseley earlier on the same day : " A cavass of Ibrahim Bey Rushdy left Khartum fourteen days ago. Rebels entered Khart(jm at daylight 26th January, through treachery of Farag Pasha, who opened two gates in south wall. On first alarm cavass went with his master to government