302 KHARTOUM CAMPAIGN.

small foraging expedition many weeks before our arrival on the scene. Starting in the steamers “Safieh” and ‘Tewfikieh,” they collected grain and cattle, shipping them down to Omdurman. Learning that Europeans had been seen at Fashoda, part of the force proceeded there, and engaged the French, attacking them by land and water. The date was the 25th of August. Behaving with great steadiness, and helped by Shilluks, after a stiff fight the dervishes were driven off, after losing a number of men, by Marchand’s little garrison. “If they had had cannon,” said the dervish skipper to me, “they fired so well that they would have sunk our steamers,” The dervish captains then ran their boats down stream to collect their followers and return to assault the position. About 100 miles north the ‘“Safieh” stopped to collect the raiders, who numbered about a thousand with four brass guns.

At six o'clock on the morning of the roth September, the Sirdar set out from Omdurman with his expeditionary force. The troops were embarked upon the gunboats ‘ Sultan,” ‘“ Sheik,” “ Fatah,” and barges towed by these vessels. Colonel Wingate, Major Lord Edward Cecil, Captain J. K. Watson, A.D.C., and other officers, accompanied the General on the stern-wheel steamer ‘‘ Dal,” which had for armament several Maxims. A Union Jack, as well as an Egyptian flag, was hoisted on the boat. Abundance of ammunition and two months’ provisions for the force were carried on the steamers and tows. The steamers went along very leisurely, going only by daylight. In