you would be in a good close rally at football. It is a
thousand times better after all than mooning about Windsor, or being
mewed on board a ship at Suakim. However, I shall be precious glad when
the others arrive, and we have done with this fatigue work. The men's
hands are pretty well cut to pieces getting up and carrying those sharp
rocks, and I am heartily tired of acting as a sort of amateur mason."

On the 11th of January a convoy of a thousand camels with stores and
ammunition arrived, and the next day the troops were delighted at seeing
the main body approaching. In addition to the Mounted Infantry and Heavy
Camel Corps, 400 men of the Sussex Regiment came up on the camels. They
were intended to garrison the forts and protect the wells when the rest
of the force moved forward, but a hundred of them were to go forward
with the troops. With the new-comers were 30 sailors with a Gardner gun,
30 men of the Royal Artillery with three 7-pounder guns, 45 of the
Medical and Commissariat Staff, and 120 native drivers for the baggage
camels. As the Heavy Camel Regiment numbered 380 and the Guards 367, the
Mounted Infantry 360, and there were 90 men of the 19th Hussars and 100
of the Sussex, the total force which was to advance was about 1500 men,
90 horses, and 2200 camels.

All the men with the exception of the natives, who were on foot, were
mounted on camels, the Hussars of course excepted, as they rode sturdy
little Egyptian horses, which, although little larger than ponies, were
capable of enduring an amount of fatigue, hardship, and privation, that
would in the course of a few days have rendered English horses useless.

Those who had left Gakdul but ten days before were astonished at the
change which the labours of the Guards' Camel Corps had effected in it,
and great commendation was given them by the general for the zeal with
which they had worked.

Large as was the number of animals to be watered, the work was conducted
with far greater speed and ease than had been the case on their former
arrival. The arrangements were all excellent, and in a comparatively
short time the whole were watered and fed. The troops, however, were
dismayed at the change which had come over the camels. These animals are
capable of enduring great fatigue and scarcity of water and food, but
the authorities had acted as if there were no limits whatever to those
powers, and for a fortnight the camels had been kept at work with only
thr