246 Seven Years in tlu Soudan.

but seeing fresli troops approaching, who might have occupied the seriba during our absence, we desisted.

In this flight the rebels lost ten flags, much ammunition, and many guns, while some thousand dead men lay around our ramparts. Among these were about a hundred Arabs and several chiefs.

About foui* hundred of the enemy's wounded were carried to Dem Suleiman at the beeinninof of the battle, where almost all died for want of surgical assistance. Many desertions also took place in the rebel army ; the chiefs Fekd Bekir and Mohammet Diab left Suleiman's camp and retired to their respective villages. A great number of Xiam-Xiam deserted, taking their arms with them ; altogether we supposed the enemy's loss to be about four thousand men. When they attacked us they were eleven thousand, five thousand of whom belonged to Suleiman, and six thousand to the seribe, which joined him after the rebellion had broken out.

But for the treachery of El-Arbab, we might have ended the campaign that very day, but with such an inferior force we could not risk a pursuit that might have proved fatal. The rebels had been so sure of T\inning, that each soldier carried a cord with which to bind us as prisoners. I will not deny that, had they attacked us unprepared, we must have been beaten. They were all soldiers inured to war during the campaign in Darfour, and, blinded by their late victory over Idris Bey, when they had massacred the Government troops, they rushed to attack us with incredible audacity. The best European soldiers could not have shown a greater contempt of death.

Our own losses were ninety-three killed and wounded. Our men had never before fought against an enemy armed with guns ; the only battles in which they had been engaged were against savages with arrows and lances.