had marched so many days, gave place to ridges and hummocks of sand,
gravel, and rock.

So we waited impatiently at Um Terif for the flotilla with the fifteen
days' supplies on board. Meanwhile the axes of an army of soldier
wood-choppers were clanging upon the hard timber, which was being
felled for firewood. The ruin of agriculture had meant the growth of
bush, and there was an abundance of useful mimosa and sunt growing on
the alluvial lands by the river.

I ought to reproach myself, but I don't, for not having written of the
aggravating southern gale with its accompaniment of drifts of horrid
dust and sand as the "terrible khamseen" or sirocco. Travellers' tales
about having to bury yourself in the sand, or at least swathe head and
body in folds of cloth, in order to avoid being choked with grit, I
know. The real thing is bad enough without resorting to poetic or
journalistic licence, though some will do that anyhow. It is
sufficiently trying to grow hot and perspire so freely that the
driving dust, the scavenger drift of chaos and the ages, caught by the
moisture, courses down the features and trickles from the hands in so
many miniature turbid streamlets. During a dust-storm everybody has
the appearance of a toiling hodman. Feminine relations would have wept
had they seen and recognised their soldier lads in that sorry state.
Even the dashing officers and men of the Grenadier Guards ceased to be
objects of admiration, and the War Office would have howled with
exquisite torture at sight of their hair and clothes. Speak of
wrapping clothes around head or body to keep out the dust? It is sheer
nonsense to prate so. Why it is hard enough to gape and gasp and catch
a mouthful of sanded breath, without that added worry. There is
nothing for it, but to grin and bear it and get through with the
swallowing of that proverbial peck of dust in a life-time, as quickly
and quietly as possible.

The fighting gunboats or armed flotilla consisted of the "Sultan,"
Lieutenant Cowan, R.N.; "Sheik," Lieutenant Sparks, R.N.; "Melik,"
Major Gordon, R.E.; "Fatah," Lieutenant Beatty, R.N.; "Nazir,"
Lieutenant Hon. Hood, R.N.; "El Hafir" ("El Teb"), Lieutenant Stavely,
R.N.; "Tamai," Lieutenant Talbot, R.N.; "Metemmeh," Lieutenant
Stevenson, R.E.; and "Abu Klea," Captain Newcombe, R.E. On the loss of
the "Zafir," Commander Keppel, R.N., transferred his flag to the
"Sultan," one of the new twin-screw gunboats.

CHAPTER IX.

AD