GUNBOATS AND GAALIN 217 boats then returned and took up a position off E] Genuaia opposite to the zeriba.

During the battle on the morning of 2nd September, the gunboats were posted at both ends of the zeriba, and made themselves extremely useful. As was mentioned above, the fire of these boats lying off Kerreri .

village practically saved the Camel Corps from annihilation. Throughout the rest of the fight, too, a galling shell fire was kept up on the Dervish forces advancing from the northwest and, more especially, from the south, over the sandy ridge between Surgham and the Nile.

Meanwhile the howitzer battery had again © opened fire at daybreak, and continued its work of destruction amongst the buildings of Omdurman. The effect of the Lyddite shells was so terrible that the Khalifa seems to have abandoned his plan of falling back behind the walls of his capital. This was a most fortunate thing, so far as we were concerned, for if, after the fearful slaughter of his troops in the first half of the engagement, the Khalifa had retreated with ten or hfteen thousand men inside the tortuous streets