2lS EGYPT AND THE SOUDAN.

were brought against them, and they have been referred to more than once in the present narrative. It was at Korti, the chief town of Shaikeyeh, that, as we have just noted, General Lord Wolseley formed his camp, and it was determined that from Korti a double expedition should be despatched, the desert column commanded by General Sir Herbert Stewart to cross the Bayuda district to Metammeh, and a Nile column commanded by General Earle to proceed to Abu Hamed and thence towards Berber, with a view to co-operating with the desert column, for the relief of Gordon at Khartum.

When it is considered that the Nile journey had to be made by these forces chiefly in the so-called whale-boats, each of the 800 boats carrying its own provisions, clothing, appliances, arms, ammunition, and 1200 days' rations, or 100 days' food for the twelve men who formed the crew, it may be very well believed that the task was a stupendous one, and that the ten soldiers had their work to do in "tracking" the boats from the land, or rowing and towing, or hauling them across the rapids, no less than the two sailors, one of whom was the Canadian voyageur, who had to direct the navigation of the vessel. Of course there were numbers of natives engaged to help in the towing and hauling, and at Wady Haifa a large force of men were kept at work, so that the boats were rapidly passed beyond the second cataract in detachments; the labour having been greatly aided by the construction, by Lord Charles Beresford, of a portage nearly 2500 yards in length, the boats being passed along by parties of men thirtyfive strong, who with the help of rollers and levers were able to get the heavy boats across the portage and to avoid some of the more serious difficulties of the cataracts. The duty wTas extremely heavy in that climate, but from the very first our men began to work with a will and a cheerful determination to overcome obstacles which characterized them during the whole campaign, and makes the story of the British expedition in the Soudan one of the most remarkable records of courage and endurance to be found in the history of the world.

So actively was the business of transport carried on that, apart