322 Seven Y'cars in the Soudan.

and the wind beat the compass all round. Again we started, each encouraging his neighbour. Poor men ! they slept and walked, while all the nourishment they could get was a few cakes of doora which they cheerfully sAvallowed. With the hope of coming to an end at last, we marched till the evening was far advanced. The rain had ceased, I gave orders to sound a halt, and we rested till midnight. Meanwhile I had sent out other scouts to jfind if the rebels had halted, thinking that in such weather they must have encamped. Xeither Suleiman nor his chiefs, embarrassed as they were by convoys of slaves, and having a greater number of men, could possibly march quicker than we. In two more days I should be in the neighbourhood of Tual, a position which commands the road to Jebel ]\Iara.

We started again the next morning, and in the evening, having crossed the Wadi Ibra, we stopped in a thick wood, where we learned from a scout I had sent out the day before, that Suleiman was in the village of Gara, and Abdulgassim at Tual. At the same time I learnt that Chief Eabi, having disagreed with Suleiman about going to Jebel Mara, had abandoned the former, and was taking his eight hundred men to Dar Benda in the iViam-JSTiam. This news was welcome, for there Avould be eight hundred men less to fight.

We spent the night in camp at about four hours' distance from the enemy. !N"o fires were lit, every precaution taken, and profound silence maintained.

At midnight the usual rain commenced, but very fine, so that, although wet, we could sleep for a few hours. At 2.30 a.m. we began the march, as I wished to reach my position at dawn. At 6 a.m. in a violent shower of rain, we arrived at Gara, Everyone there was asleep. There was neither sentinel nor scout to give the alarm. The village was completely surrounded by thick bushes as high as a man. I posted my men in the wood, with