182 KHARTOUM CAMPAIGN.

forced some of them out of their true relative positions.

Macdonald had marched out due west. The dervishes,, like wolves upon the scent for prey, suddenly sprang from unexpected lairs. With swifter feet and fiercer courage than ever they dashed for the comparatively isolated brigade of Colonel Macdonald. Although I ' MACDONALD’s BRIGADE ADVANCING, was far away at the moment with the 1st or Lyttelton’s brigade, the shouts, the noise of the descending tornado reached me there. From behind the southern slope of Um Mutragan hills the Khalifa was charging Macdonald with an intact column of 12,000 men, the bannerbearers and mounted Emirs again in the forefront. A broad stream, running from the south and the east, of dervishes who had lain hidden sprang up and ran to strike in-upon the south-east corner of Macdonald's