264 Seven Years in the Soudan.

knocked down the barricade, and obliged us to recommence the work. AVhile the men of the first cohinin entrenched our position as well as posible, the other troops lay down on the ground and fired at anjone of the en em J who attempted to leave their camp. Our cannon and congreves also did good service, so that at eleven a.m. the enemy's huts took fire, and the stores collected inside were destroyed. The besieged attempted a sortie against the barricade, but they were repulsed with great loss. In the afternoon the conflagration spread to their defences. The rebels tried to smother the flames with earth, while our troops never ceased to harass them with vollejs.

The despair of the slaA'e traders was great. Suffering from thirst, surrounded by fire, smoke, and suffocating heat, they tried to make a sortie cu m((stie, but were repulsed at least five times. Seeing all their efforts were vain, they finally withdrew to their ])osition. It was six o'clock in the evening. The spectacle of the immense burning palisades was indescribable. The confusion, the cries of the people who were dying of hunger and thirst, their fright and despair cannot be imagined. My poor men were also knocked up. They had been fighting without pause from seven a.m. till six p.m. under a scorching sun and without food. I therefore left the fire to do its work of destruction, reinforced the barricades, and withdrew into my entrenchments.

During the night the rebels fled in all directions, abandoning their dead and killing their wounded so that they might not fall into our hands. Suleiman, the famous chief, almost naked, mounted his horse, and Avitli a few faithful comrades fled towards the north, forsaking his routed troops.

Even if ni}' ])eople had been in a state to ])ursue the enemy it could have led to no practical result.