314 KHARTOUM CAMPAIGN.

prevent the transport of war material, or conveyance of reinforcements, except by accredited Khedivial officers.

The Sirdar in a note informed Major Marchand that he had prohibited the transport of all war material upon the Nile. Thereafter the Sirdar resumed the journey downstream. The long and fertile island of Abba—it extends for 20 miles—was passed without seeing anything of the fugitive Khalifa and his followers. It was to Abba island the Mahdi went, and it was there the rebellion first broke out. Subsequently it was ascertained that Abdullah and Osman Digna with their retainers sought shelter in the heavy woods opposite Abba island, and they were stated to be in hiding there at the end of December 1898. The Sirdar and headquarters got back to Omdurman on the 25th of September.

Popular feeling ran very high at home when it was ascertained that, despite repeated notification, the French had tried to grasp the fruits of the British victory over the dervishes. A Liberal statesman had, years before, declared, that any attempt on the part of France to occupy the Upper Nile valley lands would be regarded as an unfriendly act by this country. Conservative statesmen had endorsed that official pronouncement ; yet, in face of these declarations, the thing had been done with every evidence of a fine contempt for British feeling and self-respect. The enemies of England in Egypt and elsewhere were sniggering. Our diplomatic and military chiefs were making unusual efforts to keep the Marchand affair a profound secret. At every stage down the Nile from Omdurman to Cairo, the Camerons and all-who had