74 THE WAR IN THE SOUDAN.

the Reel River Expedition, there were nearly 50 interruptions from rapids and falls over which those boats had to be carried. Within the space of three months a battalion of infantry, with a small force of artillery and engineers, traversed the double journey 1,200 miles in all, having in that time carried their boats, provisions, stores, and munitions, on 94 separate occasions, a total distance over rocks and through forest of 15 miles. It was a military feat which attracted at the time less attention than it deserved, because the great struggle between France and Germany was then at its height.

“ In this Red River enterprise lav the germ of the expedition now proposed along the Nile. If boats of a certain description manned by soldiers had suc¬ cessfully ascended the Winnipeg river with its fall of 2 ft. 8 in. to the mile, why, it was asked, should not similar craft carry troops up the Nile when the fall was not above 1 ft. to the mile ? There did not happen to be in Egypt any officer who, from personal experience with the American expedition, was in a position to explain to the authorities in Cairo the real nature of the craft proposed and of the methods of using them, and hence it was that the con¬ sideration of the Nile route was approached both by the naval and military authorities in Egypt from a point of view which regarded the employment of steamers of considerable size and native craft of from 10 to 20 tons weight as necessary to the operation. But any expedition involving the use of large craft made high Nile an indispensable factor to the success of the undertaking, and high water in the Nile could only be depended upon during the months of August and September. For the work proposed to be done by the small boats of the American type high Nile was altogether unnecessary, and so long as the river had 20 inches of water in its shallowest places so long could these beats make good their way. These different points of view from which the question of the Nile route was regarded at home and in Egypt caused some loss of time in the preliminary stages of decision, and it was only in the