FUTURE PLAN OF THE CAMPAIGN. 265 method of fighting adopted by the Arab followers of the Mahdi this desert expedition was regarded as a difficult and dangerous enterprise; but it had to be done, and to be done as quickly as possible if the sole end and intention of the expedition was to be accomplished. Barely stated, the future plan of the campaign was that the greater portion of the mounted troops under Sir Herbert Stewart was to advance across the desert from Korti to Metammeh, establishing fortified posts at the wells along the route. Sir Charles Wilson was to accompany the column, and on reaching Metammeh was, with a small escort of infantry, to proceed in Gordon's steamers to Khartum, and having communicated with Gordon to return to Metammeh to report the result to General Sir Herbert Stewart. Simultaneously with the despatch of the desert column, a force under command of General Earle was to be sent up the river to punish the murderers of Colonel Stewart and the consuls, and then to advance to Berber to co-operate with Stewart's force in an attack on the Mahdi before Khartum under the personal command of Lord Wolseley, who was to -have joined Stewart with the remainder of the mounted troops and a force of infantry. Second in command of this river column and chief staff-officer to Major-general Earle was Major-general Henry Brackenbury, C.B., who, up to the time of his arrival at Korti on the 24th of December, had been engaged as deputy-adjutant and quartermaster-general under Sir Redvers Buller, the chief of the staff. From the work of this department he was set free on Christmas-day, and was replaced by Colonel Wolseley, assistant adjutant-general, that he might devote his whole time to organizing the river column, and at the earliest possible moment take a battalion of infantry and a few cavalry to establish an advance post at Handab, above the cataract and near Duguiyet, the point where the desert road from Berber strikes the river. The five troops comprising the cavalry of the expedition were to be divided between the desert and the river column, half to go with each, and the same with the royal engineers (with their equipment), who had made the journey to Korti by their boats. The first battalion of the South Staffordshire Regiment, which had led the way up the