124 | KHARTOUM CAMPAIGN.

were ordered out, and the camp for a time relapsed into darkness and silence. Headquarters and all other tents had been struck and packed. During the night there was shooting, the crack of the musketry sounding relatively near, but occasioning little annoyance.

The bullets were badly aimed if directed against the British quarters. Whether the firing was really meant _ for “sniping” by the dervishes, or was only a note of warning to their friends of our presence, was not easy to decide with any degree of certainty. There was no big roll of wounded to test the enemy’s intent by, and a later incipient alarm caused in another part of the camp in the small hours was possibly all a mistake.

One thing the dervishes did do. After the manner of hill-men, they lit beacon fires on the rocky ridges around us to warn the Khalifa of our whereabouts.

That night the camp lines had been drawn still closer than ever, only 260 yards’ front being given to each battalion. On the morning of 31st the troops were early astir. By 5.30 a.m. the main body, following the mounted troops, had faced to the right, and were marching to the westward so as to clear the bush and get out upon the open desert tracks leading to Omdurman. The ground the army passed over was broken, and there was scrub with several small khors to cross, so the force proceeded slowly and cautiously. Four of the gunboats steamed up the river, keeping abreast of our widely spread out cavalry. About six o'clock the Lancers had again ascended to the top of El Taib, a hill from which at that hour I was enabled to get a view of the dervish camp. It