78 THE WAR IN THE SOUDAN.

“ 17th. Steady wind and good time made. “ 18th. Head wind and tow along the banks nearly all day. We passed the old town of Handak. It is very compact looking, is situated on a hill close to the river bank, and has every appearance of being well fortified.

“ Coming on towards the evening the captain and six boats got ahead of us, and at sunset we fancied we could see their camp on the east bank a long way off. The sergeant in charge of the men in my boat was anxious to catch up with the rest, so we concluded to push on, but while towing away in the dusk we get stuck in a shallow muddy place, and all hands had to wade out, shove the boat off and row along the east bank in the heavy current. Here the bank was so steep we could not land. The men were getting quite wearied out towing and rowing. We made two or three attempts to land, but did not succeed. There was no moon and not even a dog to bay at it. No sound broke the air, the night was close, heavy and gloomy, and the men were silent and low spirited. A phosphoric glimmering every now and then in the stream had rather a startling effect, the men fancying that it was a boat drifting down with someone in it with a light, which he was trying to hide, and I rather fancy that some of them had a sort of superstitious feeling, and on the whole they were not very ‘ comfortable.’ We rowed on until we managed to reach a landing place. 1 wanted them to pitch camp, but no, they concluded to send one of the lads ahead to see if the light we had been steer¬ ing for was the advanced party’s camp fire. Well, he was gone about twenty minutes, when he came back on the run, with no more puff in him than there would be in a slit bellows, and as frightened as a man could well be I believe. He alarmed all hands by telling them to get out their rifles and ammunition, as there were 500 natives encamped near the light we had been moving on and that they had two Gatling '~uns with them he was sure as he had seen the brass shining in the fire light. To make matters worse while he was gone we had noticed camp fires on the west bank, an unusual thing, as it was against orders. Well, I think that I may safely boast that I had the smartest crew that ever manned a boat for the time being,—in boat, out oars, off shore, and pulling like the ‘deil mon,’ in less time than I can describe it for the ‘lights along the other shore ’ until the bowman gave warning that the water was shoaling fast, and soon we were stuck on a sand-bank in the middle of the river. Then they all agreed to let their voyageur have his way and get them out of the scrape their foolish conduct had got them into. The boat was shoved off and we ran down stream for about half a mile, pitched camp on a small island, lighted our fires and had our kettles ‘ singing songs of harmony glee ’ in double quick time. A good supper soon drove all gloomy forebodings away, the laugh, the jest, the song went round for an hour, our tent spread out on the ground and one man detailed for guard while the rest lay down,