d copies of it not being now procurable, I venture to make use of
it, adding only here and there lines of new matter. I have reserved to
a later chapter the personal narratives of officers who were in the
action, and who have kindly supplied me with particulars of the part
borne by the gunboats, the cavalry, and Major Stuart-Wortley's
friendlies. With these I have coupled various details drawn from my
own observation. I found that through errors in transmission of the
messages, or mistakes in dealing with them, part of my copy had got
credited to other sources.

OMDURMAN, _2nd September 1898_.

The supreme and greatest victory ever achieved by British arms in the
Soudan has been won by the Sirdar's ever-victorious forces, after one
of the most picturesque battles of the century. At last! After fifteen
vexatious years spent in trying to get here, an Anglo-Egyptian army
has recovered Khartoum and occupied Omdurman. Gordon has been avenged
and justified. The dervishes have been overwhelmingly routed, Mahdism
has been "smashed," whilst the Khalifa's capital of Omdurman has been
stripped of its barbaric halo of sanctity and invulnerability.
Striking and dramatic as has been the manner in which the ending of
the curse of the Soudan has come about, the tale need lose none of its
force by being simply told. The grandeur of the plain story requires
no straining after catchwords. Of those who with Sir Herbert Stewart's
desert column toiled and fought to reach Metemmeh in January 1885,
less than a dozen are with the Sirdar's army, and of these but three,
including the writer, were correspondents. But to the narrative of the
battle which, at a stroke, has broken down the potent savage barriers
of blood and cruelty, and re-opened the heart of the great African
continent to the sweetening influences of civilised government.

Storm and cloud had passed. The moon rose early on the night of 1st
September. It shone brightly over and around our bivouac, south of
Kerreri village, or near Um Mutragan, according to the cartographers.
The north end of our camp lines approached the river just 500 yards
south of the ruined dervish redoubt of Kerreri. Sentinels were posted
along the irregular-shaped triangle, or, shall I call it, broken
semi-circle, within which the army lay. The sentries had a fair range
of view to their front. Men on the lookout also occupied the roofs of
the few native mud-huts at the