en for the
principal officers, and especially for General Hicks, on whom the entire
responsibility rested!

Major Herlth's diary stops abruptly on the 4th of November; he writes on
that day that Dr. Georges Bey was wounded the previous day and died
shortly afterwards. As far as I can remember, the Major then
continues:--"These are bad times; we are in a forest, and everyone very
depressed. The general orders the band to play, hoping that the music
may enliven us a little; but the bands soon stop, for the bullets are
flying from all directions, and camels, mules, and men keep dropping
down; we are all cramped up together, so the bullets cannot fail to
strike. We are faint and weary, and have no idea what to do. The general
gives the order to halt and make a zariba. It is Sunday, and my dear
brother's birthday. Would to God that I could sit down and talk to him
for an hour! The bullets are falling thicker...."

Here the writer suddenly breaks off; possibly a bullet had penetrated
his weary heart.

The ring of encircling Dervishes was gradually drawing in and enclosing
the ill-fated troops. The greatest destruction was done by Abu Anga's
men who may be said to have destroyed the army; hidden behind shrubs and
bushes, they fired incessantly at very close range into the midst of the
Egyptians. One of Abu Anga's men told me that he alone had fired one
hundred and fifty rounds. On that terrible Sunday General Hicks had to
abandon a number of guns, for he had no mules to carry them. Dire
confusion prevailed everywhere, the troops were suffering terribly from
thirst, discipline was gone, and the men could not even lay their guns
properly.

Klootz, whom the Khalifa Abdullah took with him, told me that he was
some way from the place where the actual fighting was going on, and that
the shells were striking the branches overhead. It would seem that the
army made three attempts to break through the Dervish lines, but failed,
and Klootz told me that the bodies were scattered in three large heaps
extending over a distance of nearly two miles. The largest heap was in
the forest of Shekan near Kashgeil, and it was here that the Dervishes
fell on the remainder of the force and the European officers, and killed
them with their lances on the 5th of November.

According to the evidence of the Dervishes themselves, the European
officers fought most heroically. General Hicks was one of the last to
fall; he had emptied his revolver, and,