146 WITH KITCHENER IN THE SOUDAN ‘‘You have done well indeed!” he said. “It was a dangerous enterprise, and had I not known your courage and that of your men, I should not have ventured to send you forward. You have fully justified my confidence in you. In the first place I will go and see the house you have occupied.

I shall leave you still in possession of it, but I do not intend that you should hold it. In case Mahmud comes down upon you, at once embark in boats and cross to the islands. It will be some time before I can gather here a force strong enough to hold the town against attack. Indeed it will probably be some weeks, for until the railway is finished to Abu Hamed, I can only get up stores sufficient for the men here ; certainly we have no transport that could keep up the supply for the whole force. However, all this will be settled by the Sirdar, who will very shortly be with us.”

It was now the 6th of September, and the same afternoon two gun-boats were sent up to Ed Darner, an important position lying a mile or two beyond the junction of Atbara river with the Mile. On the opposite bank of the Nile they found encamped the Dervishes who had retired from Berber. The guns opened fire upon them, and they retired inland, leaving behind them fourteen large boats laden with grain. These were at once sent down to Berber, where they were most welcome, and a portion of the grain was distributed among the almost starving population, nearly five thousand in number, principally women and children. Supplies soon began to arrive from below, being brought up in native craft from Abu Hamed as far as the cataract, then unloaded and carried up past the rapids on camels, then again placed in boats and so brought to Berber. Macdonald’s brigade started a fortnight after the occupation, their place at Abu Hamed having been taken by a brigade from Kassinger, each battalion having towed up boats carrying two months’ supply of provisions.

A fort was now erected at the junction of the two rivers, and occupied by a small force under an English officer. Two