12 KHARTOUM CAMPAIGN.

satiated with slaughtering the villagers—men, women and children—further glutted their fury by firing the

homesteads and cutting down the date palms, resulted in depopulating the country. Ignorant and fanatical in their religious frenzy to convert mankind to their new-found creed, the Mahdists held that the surest way to rid the world forthwith of all unbelievers lay in

making earth too intolerable to be lived in.

These native dwellings, when cleaned, were not uncomfortable abodes. As the flat roofs were thickly covered with mats and grass whilst, except the door- way, the openings in the mud-walls were small, they were even in the glare of noontide heat, pleasantly cool and shady. The troops found that straw huts or tukals afforded far better protection than the tents from the sun and from dust-storms. So it came about that, copying the example set by the fellaheen and black soldiers, ‘Tommy Atkins” also built himself shelters, and “ lean-to’s " of reeds, palm leaves and straw.

Drills and field exercises were relaxed, and the troops had time to rig up alfresco stages and theatres and to enjoy variety entertainments provided by comrades with talent for minstrelsy and the histrionic arts. Mean- while the preparations for the final campaign against

Mahdism were not slackened. Vast quantities of supplies and material of war were stored at Dakhala. Outposts were pushed forward and Shendy was occupied, whilst Metemmeh was held by friendly Jaalin tribesmen, who had suffered much at the Khalifa’s hands. The Bayuda desert route also had been.cleared of dervishes by these and by neighbouring