THE EGYPTIAN SUDAN was time to attack the large Dervish force of three thousand men gathered together at Ferket. On June 4th he began to move up his troops to Akasha, and by the afternoon of the 6th nearly ten thousand Egyptian soldiers were concentrated at that place.

This force was divided into two parts, which were known as the River Column and the Desert Column, the former being placed under the command of Colonel Hunter, and the latter under that of Major Burn Murdoch. The Sirdar decided that the River Column was to advance along the Nile bank to Ferket, and the Desert Column was to make a detour in the desert and march to the same place, his intention being that both Columns should arrive at the same time, and so hem in the Dervishes. The time of the starting of both columns was fixed, it is said, by Major Broadwood, who knew both routes well, and they arrived simultaneously at Ferket hills at dawn. The marching had been carried out so silently that the Dervish(iS knew nothing of the projected attack until they saw the Egyptian troops all round them. The Dervishes, seeing that all chance of escape was gone, prepared for action, and began the engagement at 5 a.m. on June 7th, by opening fire from an outpost on Ferket Mountain, which lay on the north side of the village, close to the river, by the side of which the Egyptian troops had to pass. As the River Column advanced from the north the Desert Column shelled the enemy from the south, and though the Dervishes fought with the utmost bravery, their losses were severe.

When all organized resistance was at an end, a certain amount of hut-to-hut fighting had to be gone through, and when all the huts were cleared a general rout of the Dervishes took place. In fact, the enemy were cleverly trapped, for those who ran away from one column fell into the hands of the other, and those who managed to avoid the columns, and who fled either to the river or the desert, were pursued by the cavalry and cut down. Within two hours the fight was over; the Dervish loss was about one thousand killed, and five hundred wounded, and of the Egyptians twenty were killed and eighty wounded. Among the killed were about forty Amirs, or "commanders," many of whom were identified by Sir Rudolf von Slatin PashS. ; of these was the infamous Osman Azrak, 1 whose ' According to some authorities OsmAn Azrak, " Osman the Blue," was not 94 i