254 KHARTOUM CAMPAIGN.

On Sunday morning, 4th September, the Press were invited by Headquarters to go over by steamer to Khartoum. We were told that an official ceremony which we ought not to miss was about to take place.

There were an unusual number of correspondents. The previous restrictions and military objections to their presence had been made ridiculous by the widest throwing open of the door to all. The Sirdar and Headquarters embarked upon the ‘“ Melik.” We found that representative detachments from all the commands in the army were being ferried over in boats and giassas towed by the steamers. From every British battalion there were present eighty-one officers and men. The 21st Lancers were represented by ten officers and twenty-four non-commissioned officers and men. Two officers and seven men were sent by each battery of artillery, and two officers and five men from the Maxim batteries. “There were also representative sections from the Khedivial forces. As the steamers drew up alongside the stone-wall quay before the ruined Government House where General Gordon made his last stand, the soldiers were seen to be already in position. There was but little space between the quay wall and the buildings, for the débris of bricks and stone from the overturned structure nearly blocked up the former open promenade facing the muddy Blue Nile. The ruined walls and forts looked picturesque in their deep setting of dark-green palms, mimosa, and tall orange-trees. Compared with treeless, brown, arid Omdurman, Khartoum wore an air of romance and loveliness that well became such