248 KHARTOUM CAMPAIGN.

we were, forming square. At 4 a.m. we mounted and rode on, going until 8.30 am., when we got down to the river. There Slatin Pasha quitted us, returning to Omdurman. We halted for an hour, watered and fed our poor horses, and had a bite for ourselves.

Then we remounted and rode fifteen miles farther south. We had reached a point just thirty-five miles south of Omdurman. Our horses had been going almost continuously for four days previously, the forage was finished, and the animals exhausted, so we again halted. Supplies had been ordered forward to that spot, but the overflow prevented us from being able to get near enough the native boats to draw upon them for stores. We decided to bivouac there and take our chance of being able somehow to get at the boats. Next morning we were ordered back into Omdurman. Slatin Pasha had learned from fugitives and natives that the Khalifa was still twenty-five miles ahead of us. Abdullah had with him too Taaisha Baggara, and had procured fresh camels and horses, so was ‘going strong, too good for us to catch up. The riverside country people could not credit that we had defeated the Khalifa and taken Omdurman. On our way back we picked up six of Osman Digna’s Hadendowas. They said Osman was riding with the Khalifa, showing him the tracks and bypaths, with all of which he was familiar. We heard that neither Osman nor the Khalifa was wounded, and that Sheikh Ed Din was likewise untouched.”

It has been too readily accepted that the Black, although an incomparably fine infantry-man, would not