50 EGYPT AND THE SOUDAN.

it was prudent for their tired horses to advance; others were coming along the river bank to intercept lis, and it seemed that they were stretching out right and left, and would attempt to close round our rear, while the din of the tomtoms could now be heard on all sides. It was now about seven o'clock, and Sir Herbert Stewart, seeing that our men would have to fight their way to the river, determined to halt and let them breakfast, then close up the transport and march for the river bank, with the fighting men going between the transport and the town. Preparations were made for forming a seriba on an open space of gravelly ground, where all the baggage camels were packed close together in the centre, the riding camels round them, and the troops forming an irregular oblong outside all. The seriba was formed of boxes, sacks, camel saddles, barrels, brushwood, and sand. The men and the officers worked with a will notwithstanding the previous night's exhausting duty. One officer, who had been in the hot corner at Abu-Klea, had been on arduous duty ever since, and had had no sleep and little food or drink for forty-eight hours. During the time that the seriba was being formed the enemy's sharpshooters began firing with their Remingtons from the surrounding tall grass and clumps of bushes, and the exposed situation of the place, chosen that it might not be suddenly attacked, caused the position of our men to be far from pleasant. The seriba could not be "rushed" by a charge of the Arabs, but there was so much cover from which the enemy could fire that it was not safe to leave the shelter of the boxes and saddles. Great numbers of camels were shot, and the centre, where the field-hospital had been formed, was, so to speak, in the midst of a pattering hail of bullets from the sharpshooters, who were so concealed that their position could only be descried Ijy the puffs of smoke. There could be but little opportunity of breakfasting in any sense beyond that of hastily partaking of much-needed food—and neither rations nor water were plentiful.

Probably many of the men got little or nothing, and many were so exhausted that directly they crouched or lay down in the shelter of the breastwork it was as much as the officers