e and fight by night or by day,
Hasten the hour of the Dervishes' doom,
Gordon avenge in old England's way.

"Grousing" is Tommy Atkins for grumbling, which is an Englishman's
birthright. As for no rum, subsequently the men were allowed two tots
a week; Wednesdays and Saturdays were, I think, the days of issue.
Less than half a gill was each man's share. I am inclined to believe
had there been a daily issue of the same quantity of rum it had been
better, and the young soldiers might have escaped with less fever.

Dakhala had undergone many changes since March. It was bigger in every
respect, but no better as a camping-ground. Truth to tell, it was so
bad as to be well-nigh intolerable. The correspondents' quarters were
exceptionally vile, the location being the worst possible within the
lines. We had no option, and so had to pitch our tents behind the
noozle in a ten-acre waste of dirtiest, lightest loam, which swished
around in clouds by day and night, making us grimy as coal-heavers,
powdering everything, even our food and drink, with gritty dust and
covering us in our blankets inches deep. The river breeze was barred
from us, and the green and fresher banks of the Atbara and the Nile,
beyond the fort, were for other than correspondents' camps. Many rows
of mud huts had been built in the interior. As for the sun-dried brick
parapets and ramparts of the fortifications, these were already
crumbling to ruin or being cast down for use in newer structures. The
lofty wooden lookout staging, called the Eiffel Tower, had been
removed, and its timbers converted to other purposes. On the
completion of the railway to Dakhala, Abadia had become but a
secondary workshop centre. Newer and larger shipbuilding yards and
engine works were erected by the Atbara. Under Lieutenant Bond, R.N.,
and Mr Haig gunboats, steamers, barges and sailing craft were put in
thorough order, native artisans toiling day and night. The clang of
hammermen, riveters, carpenters and caulkers resounded along the river
front. The Dakhala noozle was an immense depot, stuffed full of grain,
provisions, ammunition boxes, ropes, wires, iron, medical stores and
other material, like one of the great London docks. As usual the
indefatigable Greek trader had adventured upon the scene. North of the
fortified lines, with the help of the natives he had run up a mud
town. It consisted of a double row of one-storeyed houses, between
which ran a street of nearly