422 THE STORY OF THE KHEDIVATE.

conditions, through the valley of the Upper Nile, are shown by the fact that the Dervish army took nearly three months in reaching Abou Hamed. Very little intelligence as to the progress of the enemy was received at Cairo — a circumstance which, I take it, is due partly to the sympathies of the Soudanese population being on the side of the Dervishes, and even more to the popular dread of incurring the displeasure of the Khalifa. Still, the fact that the Dervishes were advancing upon Lower Egypt was known in Cairo soon after the expedition had started, and the British military authorities came at once to the conclusion that the Dervishes must not be allowed to advance north of Wady Haifa. The army of occupation was strengthened by the despatch of two additional battalions. Forts, which, since then, have fallen into ruins, were erected to defend Assouan.

It is strange to any one sojourning nowadays at that pleasant health resort, or inspecting the colossal dam now in the course of construction across the Nile by British enterprise and British capital, to reflect that, only sixteen years ago, the inhabitants of the town were watching day by day for the arrival of the victorious Dervishes, who were about, in the name of Islam, to drive the English out of Egypt.

Meanyhile, an army of some 5000 English and Egyptian troops, the former under the command of General Sir Frederick Stephenson, the latter under that of the Sirdar, Sir Francis Grenfell, had been collected round and about Wady Haifa, and were