THE SIEGE. 18' several of his powder iQagazines. This completed the rout, for Snleiman being unable to stop the flames, his men turned and fled. Gessi was this time able to follow up his victory, and he took the rebels' position, flnding there hundreds of half-burnt bodies. We went over all the ground with him, hearing from his own lips his account of the siege, and seeing with our own eyes the evidences of the fierceness uf the struggle ; and he might well be pardoned for any feelings of pride with which he surveyed the field. Not many men could have sustained the hardships of that siege, for not only was the enemy recklessly brave and far superior in number, but Gessi's own troops were weakened by disease, and their spirits depressed by long and forced delays ; the fort was crowded with women and children, and towards the end famine stared them in the face. The troops had nothing but dhurra to subsist upon, and the Nyam Nyam irregulars could not be restrained from feeding on their fallen foes. Fever and small-pox broke out, and the dead lay long unburied. It is not for me to say on whom rests the blame of the delay in sending Gessi the supplies of ammunition, the want of which so long prolonged the siege ; but they are answerable for causing an amount of misery and sufi'ering, the remembrance of which might cause remorse to the heart even of an Egyptian official.

It must not be inferred, from my mentioning