ghty wounded. About one thousand of the Dervishes were killed,
including their chief Emir and some forty of the others, while five
hundred were taken prisoners. It was a great victory, and a very
important one; but it can hardly be said that it was glorious, as we
outnumbered them by three to one. Still, it was a heavy blow to the
Dervishes, and the fact that the Khalifa was obliged to send troops
down to the Nile, to check an advance that had proved so formidable,
must have greatly relieved the pressure on the Italians at Kassala.

"There was a pause, here. It was certain that we should have to meet a
much stronger force before we got to Dongola. Well as the Egyptian
troops had fought, it was thought advisable to give them a stronger
backing.

"The heat was now tremendous, and cholera had broken out. We moved to
Koshyeh, and there encamped. The only change we had was a terrific
storm, which almost washed us away. In the middle of August, we managed
to get the gunboats up through the cataract, and were in hopes of
advancing, when another storm carried away twenty miles of the railway,
which by this time had come up as far as the cataract."

At Ginnis, twenty miles from Ferket, they passed the ground where, on
the 31st of December, 1885, on the retirement of General Wolseley's
expedition, Generals Grenfel and Stevenson, with a force of Egyptian
troops and three British regiments, encountered the Dervish army which
the Khalifa had despatched under the Emir Nejumi, and defeated it. It
was notable as being the first battle in which the newly raised
Egyptian army met the Mahdists, and showed that, trained and
disciplined by British officers, the Egyptian fellah was capable of
standing against the Dervish of the desert.

From this point the railway left the Nile and, for thirty miles,
crossed the desert. Another twenty miles, and they reached Fareeg.

"It was here," the officer said, "that the North Staffordshires came up
and joined the Egyptians. The Dervishes had fallen back before we
advanced, after a halt at Sadeah, which we sha'n't see, as the railway
cuts across, to Abu Fetmeh. We bivouacked five miles from their camp,
and turned out at three next morning. The orders were passed by mouth,
and we got off as silently as an army of ghosts.

"I shall never forget our disgust when a small cavalry force, sent on
ahead to reconnoitre, reported that the Dervishes had abandoned the
place during the night, and had crossed t