he road,
and the Soudan military railway gained a doubtful reputation during the
Dongola expedition and in its early days. Nor were there wanting those
who employed their wits in scoffing at the undertaking and in pouring
thoughtless indignation on the engineers. Nevertheless the work went on
continually.

The initial difficulties of the task were aggravated by an unexpected
calamity. On the 26th of August the violent cyclonic rain-storm of which
some account has been given in the last chapter broke over the Dongola
province.

A writer on the earlier phases of the war [A. Hilliard Atteridge,
TOWARDS FREEDOM.] has forcibly explained why the consequences were so
serious:

'In a country where rain is an ordinary event the engineer lays his
railway line, not in the bottom of a valley, but at a higher level on
one slope or the other. Where he passes across branching side valleys,
he takes care to leave in all his embankments large culverts to carry
off flood-water. But here, in what was thought to be the rainless
Soudan, the line south of Sarras followed for mile after mile the bottom
of the long valley of Khor Ahrusa, and no provision had been made, or
had been thought necessary, for culverts in the embankments where minor
hollows were crossed. Thus, when the flood came, it was not merely that
the railway was cut through here and there by the rushing deluge. It was
covered deep in water, the ballast was swept away, and some of the banks
so destroyed that in places rails and sleepers were left hanging in the
air across a wide gap.'

Nearly fourteen miles of track were destroyed. The camp of the
construction gangs was wrecked and flooded. Some of the rifles of the
escort--for the conditions of war were never absent--were afterwards
recovered from a depth of three feet of sand. In one place, where the
embankment had partly withstood the deluge, a great lake several miles
square appeared. By extraordinary exertions the damage was repaired in a
week.

As soon as the line as far as Kosheh was completed, the advance towards
Dongola began. After the army had been victorious at Hafir the whole
province was cleared of Dervishes, and the Egyptian forces pushed on to
Merawi. Here they were dependent on river transport. But the Nile was
falling rapidly, and the army were soon in danger of being stranded by
the interruption of river traffic between the Third Cataract and Kenna.
The extension of the line from Kosheh to Kerma was th