7° EGYPT AND THE SOUDAN.

rifle ammunition they fancied they would have enough to carry, and so had left the rations behind.

The first care was for the wounded, of whom there were eighty-six, nineteen men having been killed, and two officers Quartermaster Lima of the 19th Hussars, and Mr. Jewell of the commissariat. The doctors showed splendid qualities of courage, endurance, and professional experience. This was the fourth night that they had been without sleep, and they had been through two sharp fights, and yet were at work until every wounded man had been attended. One of the sursfeons fainted from exhaustion before he would give up. The bearer company had also behaved with the utmost coolness, every wounded man was at once picked up and placed on a cacelot on a camel, or upon a stretcher, and removed, making no great outcry, though many were very severely injured and must have suffered great pain.

To have reached the Nile, and an abundant supply of water, was so great a thing that next to, or perhaps before, the opportunity for sleep it was cause for a feeling of thankfulness. There was not a man who had not acted in such a manner as to deserve praise, and though the night was cold just before daybreak, and the rest was short, it was remarkably sweet. Daylight was the signal for everyone to be up and doing, for the next business was to bring down the seriba and its occupants, and to establish a camp and hospital on the river bank. Tanks and water-skins had to be filled, for the occupants of the seriba had but a limited supply of the thick water brought from Abu-Klea. Scouting parties were sent out to reconnoitre up and down the river. One returned bringing in a black slave, who had at once willingly submitted, and declared that there were no Arabs in the direction whence he had been taken. The other had discovered that a village at a little distance was completely deserted; and Sir Charles Wilson at once moved on with the guards and mounted infantry to occupy it, leaving the heavies under Colonel Talbot to protect the wounded. The village which was quite deserted, was well situated on a terrace of gravel overlooking the Nile at about three-quarters of a mile distance. This was Abu-Kru, which for