THE EGYPTIAN SUDAN the army of Wad an-Nagumi at Argin and Toski. Between 1887 and 1897 they had met the Dervishes in many a frontier skirmish, and they had found that the troops of the Mahdi and Khalifa were not invincible.

At Sarras itself there was absolutely nothing to see, and until one realized that it offered a very convenient site for an outpost, it was difficult to understand why the Dervishes had fought for its possession so tenaciously. The banks of the Nile are high and comparatively steep, and the fort on the hill commanded an excellent view of a fine broad reach of the Nile, which here bends away to the west, and of the track which runs south to Akasha via Ambigol Wells. On the flat ground, not far from the railway a considerable number of graves were to be seen. Up to this point the railway runs by the river, but soon after leaving Sarras it enters one of the most stony regions it is possible to imagine, and does not touch the Nile again until it reaches Akasha. The railway embankment from Sarras to Akasha was first made by the engineers of Isma'il Pasha, but rails were not laid on it ; the route chosen was. according to experts, the worst possible, and it seems as if the object of those who surveyed it was to make as long and difficult a road as they could. During Lord Wolseley's Expedition in 1884 rails were laid on it for about fifty-seven miles, but these had been torn up by the Dervishes between 1884 and 1896, and much damage done to the embankment. When the advance to Dongola was ordered there was no time to make a survey for a new road ; the old embankment was therefore repaired, and all the rails which the Dervishes had not carried off were re-laid as fast as possible.

What travelling on this portion was like we had an opportunity of learning so soon as we left Sarras, and the experience was an exciting one. The curves in many places were very sharp, and it was not difficult to understand why two engines had fallen from the line to the bottom of a fifteen-foot bank, and why engines and trucks left the line daily. The wreck of a train frequently interfered with the water supply, but the British officers who worked the line were equal to all emergencies, and the men under them responded with amazing alacrity.

The short and less steep gradients were ascended without 90