174 UGANDA AND THE EGYPTIAN SOUDAN.

deep ; when we crossed it, the right bank was thirty feet above the water-level, the left bank being half this height, and in the harif the river overflows that bank for about two miles. Some three hours were occupied in transporting our goods and donkeys across the river by means of a small ferry-boat, and during this delay we went to see the fort which Gessi Pasha had made here in the late war. It was a strong earthwork redoubt, and had been very rapidly constructed ; for, although it was large enough to protect all his troops, it had taken only fifteen hours to complete, and this, too, at night. From this place the rockets of the government troops set Kutchuk Ali on fire. Suleiman Bey shelled this trench from the opposite bank of the river ; one shell cut in two the pole of Gessi's tent, and his horse was killed under him. The fighting on the banks of the Djour was very fierce ; firing being kept up almost incessantly day and night for three days. Suleiman's troops were well drilled, and fought with desperate courage, lying hidden by the reeds on the river's brink. They lay flat on the back and loaded over the breast, then sprang up and fired from the knee, falling backward almost instantaneously to reload ; so that it was very difficult for the government forces to make any impression on them, and to force the passage of the river.

Although Suleiman had been sanguine of success, he was compelled at last to make such a precipitate