16 KHARTOUM CAMPAIGN.

British battalions at their full strength, and some of them mustered nearly one thousand strong. As the percentage of sick was continuous, and the rate increased as the campaign progressed, the actual roll of men “fit for duty” grew less as we neared Omdurman. Of course, ‘* youths,” and all the ‘* weedy ones,” were in the first instance rejected by the army doctors, and were never permitted to go to the front.

Men over 25 years of aye were preferred, and it so happened that both the Grenadier Guards and the

Northumberland Fusiliers had a high average of relatively old soldiers, and consequently few sick. From the end of April until the end of May, dull hot days in the Soudan, leave was granted to officers to run down to Alexandria and have a “blow ” at San Stefano, by the sea-side. There were quite a number of deaths in the brigade shortly after the men got into camp, the customary reaction having set in on account of the exposure and strain precedent to the victory of the Atbara. To reduce the numbers quartered at Darmali, the Lincolns and Warwicks, on the roth of April, were marched a mile farther north along the Nile, to Es Selim, where they formed a separate encampment, the Camerons and Seaforths remaining at the first-named place. ‘The averaye daily number of sick in the brigade at that period was 100 to 150. On one occasion there were 190 men reported unfit for duty.

Most of the cases were not of a serious nature, and the patients speedily recovered and returned to their places in the ranks. There was no lack of stores and even dainties at the camps, for supplies were carried up by