132 KHARTOUM CAMPAIGN.

gaged the enemy occasionally with rifles and Maxims.

But the enemy’s horse came out in strength, supported by footmen, and threatened them, so Broadwood's men had to fall back.

Four of the Sirdar’s gunboats, which had meanwhile steamed ahead, were briskly battering the Mahdist riverside forts. These works, like those abandoned to us at Shabluka Cataract and Kerreri, were strong, well-built earthen bastions, with flanking curtains. The central semicircular portion was pierced with three embrasures for ordnance, but so badly made as to admit of but a limited area of fire. Each curtain was loopholed for musketry. There was a deep, wide trench before the works, the parapet of which was about ten feet high, whilst the walls of earth were about three yards in thickness. Despite the skill shown in the construction and placing of the forts, the gunboats, by bringing their Maxims and quick-firing guns to bear, passed them unscathed. There were Krupp guns mounted in most of these works, but not a steamer was hit. Another event of even greater importance was meanwhile happening. From the first it had been planned that the Lyddite guns and, the 40-pounder Armstrong cannon should be employed to batter down or breach the Khalifa’s walls. The howitzers were sent on by one of the gunboats to be landed on Tuti Island, which is opposite Khartoum, for that purpose. But it was found the maps were wrong, and a better position was selected within suitable range on the solid land of the east bank. As for the 40-pounders it was found too inconvenient to tranship such heavy ordnance.