They
were seen and charged by about twenty-five dervish horsemen. Luckily,
heavy, boggy land intervened, and Lieut. Wood and Major Wortley
dropped the leading horsemen, when some of the Jaalin rallied and came
to their assistance. The rout of the Baggara was completed, the
dervish horsemen leaving eleven dead upon the field.

On Sunday morning, 4th September, the Press were invited by
Headquarters to go over by steamer to Khartoum. We were told that an
official ceremony which we ought not to miss was about to take place.
There were an unusual number of correspondents. The previous
restrictions and military objections to their presence had been made
ridiculous by the widest throwing open of the door to all. The Sirdar
and Headquarters embarked upon the "Melik." We found that
representative detachments from all the commands in the army were
being ferried over in boats and giassas towed by the steamers. From
every British battalion there were present eighty-one officers and
men. The 21st Lancers were represented by ten officers and twenty-four
non-commissioned officers and men. Two officers and seven men were
sent by each battery of artillery, and two officers and five men from
the Maxim batteries. There were also representative sections from the
Khedivial forces. As the steamers drew up alongside the stone-wall
quay before the ruined Government House where General Gordon made his
last stand, the soldiers were seen to be already in position. There
was but little space between the quay wall and the buildings, for the
debris of bricks and stone from the overturned structure nearly
blocked up the former open promenade facing the muddy Blue Nile. The
ruined walls and forts looked picturesque in their deep setting of
dark-green palms, mimosa, and tall orange-trees. Compared with
treeless, brown, arid Omdurman, Khartoum wore an air of romance and
loveliness that well became such historic ground. An odour of blossom
and fruit was wafted from the wild and spacious Mission and Government
House gardens, which even the dervishes had not been able to wreck
totally.

[Illustration: DISTANT VIEW, KHARTOUM (FROM BLUE NILE).]

Two flagstaffs had been erected upon the top of the one-storied wall
fronting the Blue Nile. The Sirdar ranged facing the building and the
flagstaffs. Behind him were the Headquarters Staff, the Generals of
division, and others. To his left, formed up at right angles, were the
representative detachments of the E