GORDON AND THE MAHDI. 120 sucked downanddrowned. r Altogether the taskwasnotan easy one, and so great was the labourentailedinrowing, and in tracking313 miles, and so indifferent was the food thatmanyof themen went intothe hospitalsbythe river side. Far upthe Nile one officerstatedthat he hadthus left 30 per cent, of his men, and the statistical doctor of the expedition ultimately reported that there was not a single soldierunder 23 years of age who hadpassed the first six months of the expedition without going into hospital.

Themen by no means went there readily,but human endurance has its limits. Aslong as it waspossible they battledagainst the manyobstacles in their way, with all the pluck andnerve characteristic of the British soldier. On they went up the Nile,rowing withmight andmain — not for the sake of the £100 offeredby the Commanderin-Chief (for £100 distributedamongabattalionof troops, meant onlya few paltry shillings a head)but for the glory of the thing,for the honourthat would accompany success, for the sake of being able to say, "we won the Wolseley prize."* Englishmen, it has been remarked, have such a coolcontempt for danger thatthey glory in making a sport ofit, or in getting sport out of it where.

that is possible ;and it wasin obedience to this feeling that, for the sheer fun of the thing, the expeditionary force resolved to make the passage of the Nile, about whichso much gloomy foreboding washazarded, a mere matter ofsportive adventure.

The men went onward pluckily, now rowing in fast time, now shoving theirboats off asand-bank,now poling away from a sunken rock, now pulling at a tow rope* on the stony shore. Sarras and its picturesque castlewere passed, the old fortifications and temples which crown the highbanks roundabout Samneh, wereleft behind; and then the boats sped towards Ambigol and Tangour, still amid wild and foaming eddies, shifting sands and ever varying channels,with a sparsely culti. vated region stretching on either side, and but a few palm-trees rising up here and there. Beyondthe Tangourcataract, however, the scenerybecame morepicturesque, the eye lightingupon a succession ofmud villages and forts, rockypoints, green banks andswirling rapids-ThenDal wasreachedandhere a range of volcanic rocks, with peaks piled in endless confusion, bounded both banks of the river. A semicircleof breakers overwhich the water boiled and foamed, extended for a couple of hundredyards and then came a number ofcraggy islandson which mud forts and houses were picturesquely grouped, fully one hundred feet above the stream. Beyond Dal the boats passed more ruins of fortresses,. huge sand-driftsoften forty feet high, and afew minute patches ofbeans plantedhereand there, wherever therecedingriver hadleft a littlesoil. Near thepalmy isle of Say, the templeof Tolib, the finestofitskind above the* second cataract,could be seenabout a quarter of a mile* from the shore, withitseightremainingcolumns risingup amida pileof ruins. Then the river, stillfringed with volcanic rocks, expandedto a greater width, the vegetationbecame more scanty, andthe desertgrew hilly, with plains two or threemiles broadextending between belts ofheights. On went the plucky oarsmenof theexpedition past Kaibar and its rapids, past Tumbos and its quarries— with a colossal statue twelve feet long lying whereit was cut out from the stone thousands of years ago— and at last the finalobstacle, the Hannek, or third greatcataract, could be heard roaringhalf amile away.

THE BATN-EL-HAJAR, OR BELLY OF STONE.

* The prize offered by theCommander-in-Chief was ultimately won by theRoyal Irish;the second best passagebeingmadeby theGordon. Highlanders;and the third by the West Kent.