112 KHARTOUM CAMPAIGN.

mann, German, rode on with the native troops. It was a cool morning and the battalions headed by their bands playing all the while marched as if going to a review. The Soudan soldiers’ wives turned out again and mustered along the line of route just beyond the camp confines. As the battalions passed them, they shouted and gesticulated to their husbands, calling on them to behave like men and not turn back in battle. Yet probably over half of these same doughty black soldiers had been dervishes before they came over tous. ‘‘ Victory or death,” was the cry of these fiery Amazons to their warrior lovers. He would have been recreant indeed or a marvellously brave man that would have returned to one of them a confessed runaway from battle. It was not surprising that the Sirdar did not object to their presence in the field, and occasionally saw that they were helped with rations when food was not otherwise procurable.

The desertion of E] Hejir proceeded apace. In the afternoon of Sunday at four o’clock, when the fierce heat of day had declined, Major-General Gatacre’s division in its turn marched off to Um Terif. The brigades moved onward in parallel columns, with the artillery in the interval and the 21st Lancers covering the front, flanks and rear of the infantry. Tommy was jubilant and carolled, as he tramped, topical songs and patriotic ditties. He heeded not the boisterous south wind that ladened the atmosphere with dust till there was darkness as of a city fog. Battle-day and settling of old scores was near, and withal the end of the campaign, so he pounded along. It was a rough