28 EGYPT AND THE SOUDAN.

■3 laden with stores or with troops, who were to await at that station the means of transport. Long strings of camels too were sent forth to supplement the insufficient work of the railway. Wady Haifa had become a place of commercial importance, and the Greek merchants had opened stores there for the sale of tinned provisions and other possibly less wholesome delicacies, as well as for articles of clothing of strange make and purpose; but they were not allowed to sell drink. The expedition was intended to be organized on strictly temperance principles, and this was carried out as far as possible. It was only when there were reasons for believing that the health of the men would seriously suffer by total abstinence from stimulants, considering the vicissitudes of the climate, the privations that they had to undergo, and the almost unremitting labour that they had to perform, that rations of rum were served out on certain days to the troops so engaged.

The most important event which had happened with regard to the expedition was the passage of the great cataract by the steamer already referred to. Commander Hammill had then surveyed all the cataracts of the Nile as far as Hannek — within a day's march of Dongola — and the commander-in-chief and indeed all the officers were striving to push forward the troops to that place, and it was pretty certain that if the Nassif-Khcir steamer could get on, the rest of the Nile fleet could follow. Of course her paddles could not work in the great fall where she had to be hauled, and a strong wire-hawser was slun and fastened below water-line in the bows, and arranged for raising the head against the rush of water when any great strain was placed on the head hawsers, and for providing for the use of strong guide-ropes both forward and aft. There were all kinds of oear and tackle on board; the Gardner gun had been removed from its platform and lay on deck abaft the engine-room; two or three men who could not swim were put ashore, and life-buoys, in the shape of inflated skins, were stowed on deck ready for use. As we have already seen, there was an army of soldiers, sailors, and labourers waiting for the steamer and ready to help below the " first gate," the passage, about a hundred yards wide, between the east bank and the