had his headquarters.

From Sarras the army seemed to have chosen a double line of advance. The
railway reconstruction followed the old track which had been prepared
through the desert in 1885. The convoy route wound along by the river.
Both were protected from attack. The 7th Egyptians guarded Railhead,
while the chain of small posts secured the road by the Nile to Akasha.
The advanced base grew during the months of April and May into a strong
position. Only once did the Arabs venture to approach within artillery
range. A small body of horse and camel men made a sort of haphazard
reconnaissance, and, being seen from the outpost line, were fired on at
a great distance by a field-gun. They fell back immediately, but it was
believed that the range was too great for the projectile to have harmed
them; and it was not until two days later that the discovery on the
spot of a swollen, blistering corpse, clad in bright jibba, apprised the
delighted gunners of the effect of their fire. Warned by this lucky shot
the Dervishes came no more, or came unseen.

The Sirdar, accompanied by Colonel Bundle, his Chief of Staff, had left
Cairo on the 22nd of March, and after a short stay at Assuan reached
Wady Halfa on the 29th. Here he remained during the month of April,
superintending and pressing the extension of the railroad and the
accumulation of supplies. On the 1st of May he arrived at Akasha, with
a squadron of cavalry, under Major Burn-Murdoch, as his escort. It
happened that a convoy had come in the previous day, so that there were
two extra cavalry squadrons at the advanced post. Almost at the same
moment that Sir H. Kitchener entered the camp, a party of friendly Arabs
came in with the news that they had been surprised some four miles to
the eastward by a score of Dervish camel-men, and had only succeeded in
escaping with the loss of two of their number. In the belief that the
enemy in the immediate vicinity were not in force, the Sirdar ordered
the three squadrons of Egyptian cavalry, supported by the XIth
Soudanese, to go out and reconnoitre towards Firket and endeavour to cut
off any hostile patrols that might be found.

At ten o'clock Major Burn-Murdoch started with four British officers and
240 lances. After moving for seven or eight miles among the hills
which surround Akasha, the cavalry passed through a long, sandy defile,
flanked on either side by rocky peaks and impracticable ravines. As the
head of the column was a