EL HEJIR TO UM TERIF. IW make a few days’ stay at El Hejir, and get the army well in hand before going closer to the enemy.

The gunboats began embarking all their ammunition and commenced putting up their extra bullet proof protecting shields. But the Nile persisted in rising and again flooding part of our camp, interposing once more between the British and Egyptian lines a broad arm of water. So again the army was ordered to “move on.” Drills and sundry other plans for exercises fell through and special precautions were taken to guard camps and convoys from surprise as the army drew nearer to Omdurman.

On Sunday, 28th August, at 3.40 a.m., the bugles were sounding in the Egyptian portion of El Hejir camp.

It was nearly an hour later before réveille went in the British lines and the Lincolns made us think of our sins and forswear all sleep by playing their awakening air,“ Old Man Barry.” By 5 am., Major-General Hunter's division of four brigades, with bands playing, were streaming out of their zereba openings and taking the broad, well-worn tracks across the sand and gravel ridges towards Um Terif. Macdonald’s brigade was in the van, and was followed in order by Lewis’s, Maxwell’s, and Collinson’s, with the baggage of each brigade behind the command. The guns were upon the right of the division, the steamers covering the left. As for the cavalry and camelry, spread over a wide front, their duty was to search for the enemy and make sure the troops should have ample warning of the approach of any dervishes. The two military attachés, Major Calderari, Italian, and Captain Von Tied-