the Sirdar's army who got through to Metemmeh. Of those still less
went in and left with the force that fought at Abu Klea and Abu Kru.
Of the very numerous body of correspondents there were but two. I
regretted that there were not several score or more of old officers
and men who went through the terrible Bayuda Desert campaign. Most of
them would have sacrificed much to have been in at the death of
Mahdism.

[Illustration: SLATIN PASHA (ON FOOT).]

Metemmeh had been made a slaughter-pen by the dervishes under Mahmoud.
It was truly an awful Golgotha. Dead animals lay about in all
directions in thousands, without and within the long, straggling,
deserted town. I rode up and looked at the remains of the little fort
and the loopholed walls on the south end of Metemmeh, close to which I
had ridden on 21st January 1885, and got hotly fired at for my pains.
Then I walked over the ruins of the Guards' triangular fort at Gubat.
The place was still capable of defence, and the trenches and
rifle-pits were much as we left them on 13th February with General
Buller. As for the graves, they were intact. The big earthwork we all
helped to raise near the river was covered with water, except a corner
of the western parapet. It was, however, partly thrown down, and the
ditch and slopes were overgrown with grass and bushes. Then I rode
away to Abu Kru battle-field and had a look at what remained of the
zereba, the little detached fort I had asked might be built, and the
graves of our dead. Some of these had been rifled. Heaps of dead
animal bones lay about, for we lost many camels that 19th January
1885. The enemy had gathered up and buried all their own dead. So
overgrown was the place that it was barely recognisable. I stood,
however, again where Stewart received his fatal wound, where Cameron,
of the _Standard_, and St Leger Herbert lay with soldier comrades,
and I wandered round to where Lord Charles Beresford worked the
Gardners against the dervishes outside Metemmeh, whilst I found the
range for him through my glasses, by watching the spatter of the
bullets upon the sand. That night my thoughts were full of bygone
scenes and doings in the most heroic campaign of modern history,
Stewart's magnificent ride from Korti to Metemmeh. There came back to
me the pain felt on the receipt of the evil news of Gordon's death,
brought to us by Stuart Wortley, and of the slaughter at Khartoum, all
of which might so easily have been averted but