ick, of whom they used to say that he was
'twice a V.C. without a gazette'; Polwhele, the railway subaltern, whose
strange knowledge of the Egyptian soldiers had won their stranger love;
Trask, an heroic doctor, indifferent alike to pestilence or bullets; Mr.
Vallom, the chief superintendent of engines at Halfa; Farmer, a young
officer already on his fourth campaign; Mr. Nicholson, the London
engineer; long, quaint, kind-hearted 'Roddy' Owen--all filled graves in
Halfa cemetery or at the foot of Firket mountain. At length the epidemic
was stamped out, and by the middle of August it had practically ceased
to be a serious danger. But the necessity of enforcing quarantine
and other precautions had hampered movement up and down the line of
communications, and so delayed the progress of the preparations for an
advance.

Other unexpected hindrances arose. Sir H. Kitchener had clearly
recognised that the railway, equipped as it then was, would be at the
best a doubtful means for the continual supply of a large force many
miles ahead of it. He therefore organised an auxiliary boat service and
passed gyassas and nuggurs [native sailing craft] freely up the Second
Cataract. During the summer months, in the Soudan, a strong north
wind prevails, which not only drives the sailing-boats up against the
stream--sometimes at the rate of twenty miles a day--but also gratefully
cools the air. This year, for forty consecutive days, at the critical
period of the campaign, the wind blew hot and adverse from the south.
The whole auxiliary boat service was thus practically arrested. But in
spite of these aggravating obstacles the preparations for the advance
were forced onwards, and it soon became necessary for the gunboats and
steamers to be brought on to the upper reach of the river.

The Second Cataract has a total descent of sixty feet, and is about
nine miles long. For this distance the Nile flows down a rugged stairway
formed by successive ledges of black granite. The flood river deeply
submerges these steps, and rushes along above them with tremendous
force, but with a smooth though swirling surface. As the Nile subsides,
the steps begin to show, until the river tumbles violently from ledge to
ledge, its whole surface for miles churned to the white foam of broken
water, and thickly studded with black rocks. At the Second Cataract,
moreover, the only deep channel of the Nile is choked between narrow
limits, and the stream struggles furi