m eight small round forts.
The gunboats, however, contented themselves with keeping at a range
at which their superior weapons enabled them to strike without being
struck, and so, while inflicting heavy loss on their enemies, sustained
no injury themselves. After four hours' methodical and remorseless
bombardment Commander Keppel considered the reconnaissance complete,
and gave the order to retire down stream. The Dervish gunners, elated
in spite of their losses by the spectacle of the retreating vessels,
redoubled their fire, and continued hurling shell after shell in
defiance down the river until their adversaries were far beyond their
range. As the gunboats floated northward their officers, looking back
towards Metemma, saw an even stranger scene than the impotent but
exulting forts. During the morning a few flags and figures had been
distinguished moving about the low range of sandhills near the town;
and as soon as the retirement of the flotilla began, the whole of the
Dervish army, at least 10,000 men, both horse and foot, and formed in
an array more than a mile in length, marched triumphantly into view,
singing, shouting, and waving their banners amid a great cloud of dust.
It was their only victory.

The loss on the gunboats was limited to the single Soudanese soldier,
who died of his wounds, and a few trifling damages. The Arab slaughter
is variously estimated, one account rating it at 1,000 men; but half
that number would probably be no exaggeration. The gunboats fired in
the two days' bombardment 650 shells and several thousand rounds of
Maxim-gun ammunition. They then returned to Berber, reporting fully on
the enemy's position and army.

As soon as Berber had been strongly occupied by the Egyptian troops,
Osman Digna realised that his position at Adarama was not only useless
but very dangerous. Mahmud had long been imperiously summoning him to
join the forces at Metemma; and although he hated the Kordofan general,
and resented his superior authority, the wary and cunning Osman decided
that in this case it would be convenient to obey and make a virtue of
necessity. Accordingly about the same time that the gunboats were making
their first reconnaissance and bombardment of Metemma, he withdrew with
his two thousand Hadendoa from Adarama, moved along the left bank of the
Atbara until the tongue of desert between the rivers became sufficiently
narrow for it to be crossed in a day, and so made his way by easy sta