AFTER THE BATTLE 229 soldier in battle is to put his opponent out of action, and it is found by experience that the -ordinary bullet does not adequately secure this result when employed against barbarous or semi-barbarous enemies. A civilised combatant, when he is struck by a bullet—even if the wound be a comparatively slight one, say through the shoulder—almost invariably sits down on the ground; but the nervous system of the savage is a far less delicate organism, and nothing short of a crushing blow will check his wild onset. Even in the Martini-Henry days scores of Dervishes rushed upon the British troops at Abu Klea and elsewhere, with the blood spurting from seven or eight bullet wounds, and then cut and thrust with deadly effect until loss of blood told, and they fell dead in or about the square. One of the two British officers who lost their lives at the Atbara fight was killed by a large elephant bullet, the hollow base of which had been filled with a fulminate. This was an exp/oszve bullet, quite a distinct species from the missile described above.

The fire from our zeriba, which mowed the Dervishes down in rows and heaps, must have