THE CRY IS "STILL THEY COME. I99 while the current was running1 six miles an hour and the engines were going at speed. The entangled hawser broke the crank, which disabled the engines, and round swung the steamer's head in the current, upon which the Arabs let go the remaining hawser, and the steamer was about to be whirled down the cataracts unchecked by the anchor which was let go, but to which the Arabs had omitted to make fast the hawser. As the hawser of the second anchor snapped the situation looked desperate, and the Arabs, having done their worst, prepared to swim ashore; but Captain Bedford and Mr. Reid, who were on board, discovered some coils of telegraph wire, and directed the sailors to use these as anchors, or rather as grapnels, by which the)- were able to take hold of the rocks and eventually to bring the steamer up. The second steamer, Bcnonsicf, crossed in safety some days later, but on that occasion the sailors were standing by, ready each to lend a hand.

On the 26th Sir Redvers Buller left England for Egypt with his aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Lord F. Fitzgerald, King's Royal Rifle Corps, and Lieutenant-Colonel Alleyne of the Royal Artillery, who was appointed to special duty to superintend the fitting up of the boats which were being rapidly built for the passage of the Nile. Lieutenant-Colonel More, who had been serving as deputyadjutant quartermaster-general at headquarters, had already gone forward to take the duty of organizing the transport. On the following day (August 17th) several detachments left Aldershot for Portsmouth, where they were to embark on the troop freightship Goorkha for Alexandria. They were — Captain A. S. Stephenson, one serjeant, two corporals, and ninety-eight privates of I 1 st Royal Highlanders; ten officers, ten Serjeants, four buglers, and two hundred rank and file of the mounted infantry, with Lance-Serjeant Sheehan, 7th Hussars, as instructor in riding; 1 warrant officer, and thirty non-commissioned officers and men of the Commissariat and Transport Corps; Quarter-master II. Copping and J. Mullins, with ninety-six non-commissioned officers and men of the army hospital corps. Instructions were issued for every man to be prepared to enter the train with his kit-1 r b