The war in Egypt and the Soudan; an episode in the history of the British Empire, being a descriptive account of the scenes and events of that great drama, and sketches of the principal actors in it

THE ROUTE OF THE DESERT COLUMN. 1

march to Abu- Haifa, to the next wells, continued from the after- noon till long after dark over some rough country till the fires of

a camp were seen at a distance—the camp of the 19th Hussars as

it turned out, whose officer, Major Barrow, had left the column

at Howeiyat and gone straight on. There was a good deal of

suffering for want of water during the night march, especially on

the part of the Sussex men, who had lost the contents of the

faulty water-skins served out to them at Korti, and as the supply

at Abu-Haifa was short when they reached that place men were

set to work to open new holes in the gravelly ground. The water was fresh and sweet, but muddy, and after much trouble to induce

the men to come up in regular order for a supply of a pint or more for drinking before they camped down, and a subsequent

supply for cooking, three tin biscuit -boxes were sunk in the ground to act as rough strainers or filters and reservoirs, from

which the men could bale out water.

We have in a previous page already noted some account of

the arrival of the troops at the wells at Gakdul.

The route of the desert column to Gakdul lay at the foot of

the long range of Jebel-el-Jilif, which is broken by many ravines,

so that after rain-storms there are numerous water-courses which

carry off the rain from the mountains. These streams at such

times issue from wild gorges, and are said to drain some distant

plains, the proof of which is to be found in the quantities of dry

brushwood and small timber strewn about, and evidently the

collected drift-wood of some such flood. After issuing from these

gorges the streams run over a slope of boulders and rubbish which

they have brought down with them, and there the water spreads

in numerous irregular channels and reunites at the foot of the

slope, afterwards following well-defined sandy channels, the banks

of which are fringed with trees; after running thus for distances

of from a mile to three miles, they again branch off in various

directions into smaller channels arid are lost in a verdant plain on

the south, where it is said that during the rains water is to be

found to a depth of three or four feet. In the sandy channels just

mentioned, holes are dug, which are, in fact, " the wells," such as