WHAT SHOULD BE DONE NEXT t 73 and though many of the rush huts and roofs had been burned to clear the ground, and thus much useful shelter for the sick and wounded destroyed, the troops were soon in position, the village in the centre occupied by the Sussex Regiment, the wounded, and the commissariat, the camels and hussars between the village and the river, the guards in front, the heavies on the left, and the mounted infantrv on the rio-ht.

The position was secure, and rest and food were absolutely necessary, for in effect the men had been on arduous duty from the evening of the 16th to this, the night of the 20th, and on the 19th the square which marched to the Xile had been for nearly nine hours under fire and had engaged in a severe fight though not at close quarters. For the whole four days they had been making great exertions under a tropical sun, with little food and insufficient water, and scarcely any rest. More than a tenth of their entire number had been killed or wounded, and yet when they bivouacked at Abu-Kru (all but the garrison left at the small post) they were full of go and spirit, for they had been victorious; and though they needed rest, and no reinforcements would be sent till they were able to send a message to Lord YVolseley at Korti, they looked forward with a kind of alacrity to the moment when they would attack the enemy at Metammeh, for before this was done no such message would be sent.

The camels had been without water for six or seven days, and had been kept to about a third of their usual allowance of food, and for some part of the time were so tied down that they probably got nothing for about thirty-seven hours on one occasion and four-and -twenty hours on another; while their work was continuous and exhausting; when tliev were laden and on th : march. The hussars' horses were equally used up, and were past doing duty as cavalry, and this and the fact of there being a hundred wounded men in hospital, had much to do with the question whether a portion of the original programme of the expedition should or could be carried out by an attack on Metammeh.

Sir Charles Wilson thought that the attempt should be ma< because of the political effect that might be produced by apparent