ck bush out upon the comparatively
open, pebbly, and rocky ground, which sloped to a narrow strip of
soft, wet loam fringing the river. About 1 p.m., when still fully one
mile north of the hill of Sheikh el Taib, the army halted and a camp
was made. Access to the Nile was very difficult, for overflowed, boggy
land interposed. Roads, however, were made with cut bush, and the
animals were led over them to be watered. During the army's march the
Lancers scoured the country far in front. They managed to get into
touch with some dervish patrols whilst scouting. The opposing troopers
looked at each other from relatively open ground, and standing
separated by only a few hundred yards. One Baggara horseman came
within 150 yards of our men. The Lancers, keen to engage with steel,
did not attempt to fire upon their intrusive foemen, but innocently
tried instead to bag them. Several times our troopers advanced to the
charge, but the enemy, when the Lancers sought to put hands upon them,
were gone. That day the Baggara horsemen were met with in far greater
numbers than previously. By instructions, the Lancers rushed one of
the many small villages, or groups of native mud-dwellings and beehive
straw huts that dotted the sparse bush-land a mile or more inland from
the river beyond Sheikh el Taib. Several of the enemy hastened away,
and in one of the huts a man in dervish dress was found awaiting the
troops. He turned out to be a secret agent of Colonel Wingate's
Intelligence Department. The spy in question was a Shaggieh, named
Eshanni, and but thirty hours out from Omdurman. I was led to
understand that he gave much valuable information as to the position
and strength of the Khalifa's force and the state of affairs in
Omdurman. We were told that the Khalifa meant to attack us at or near
Kerreri. There was an old-time prophecy of the Persian Sheikh
Morghani, whose tomb is near Kassala, that the English soldiers would
one day fight at Kerreri. Mahomed Achmed and Abdullah had further
added to the prediction that there they were to be attacked and
defeated by the dervishes under the Khalifa. Kerreri plain, therefore,
had become a sort of holy place of pilgrimage to the Mahdists. It was
called the "death place of all the infidels," and thither at least
once a year repaired the Khalifa and his following to look over the
coming battle-ground and render thanks in anticipation for the
wholesale slaughter of the unbelievers and the triumph of