102... °° KHARTOUM CAMPAIGN.

train. The Sirdar inspected the column, and saw «them started fairly on the way to Wad _ Bishari. “Major-General Gatacre, as usual, rode out with them to the bivouac, and then galloped back to camp.

The troops were in great glee at setting off. The men marched briskly, their officers tramping beside them. On the whole, the track was tolerable, mostly compact sand and gravel. In some places, however, it was rough and full of loose stones, and the sand lay deep and soft in several khors and wadies that had to be crossed. The worst bit was in the second day’s march into E] Hejir, where a détour had to be made to avoid the Shabluka Hills.

At 5 in the afternoon of the 25th of August the 1st British brigade, Major-General Wauchope’s men, also left for El Hejir vzé Bishari' The ‘“ Rifles” or, rather, half the battalion, marched with them. Owing to various causes, the ‘‘ Rifles” were not all assembled with the British division until the army reached E] Hejir.

In the end, the second half of the battalion of that crack corps was transported by water direct to El Heir.

They had quite a grievous mishap at Wad Hamid. The upper part of a barge, on which many of the men’s kits and coats were stored, collapsed, and most of the articles fell into the river and were lost. Wauchope’s brigade marched forward in five parallel columns, with intervals for deploying between each. The men turned towards the west to get clear of the cultivable belt, for the track afforded easier going along the margin of the desert. Behind the brigade, protected by the usual rear-guard, were six Maxims, the medical