eld
in immediate readiness to reinforce the troops at the front. Other
battalions were sent to take the places of those moved south, so that
the Army of Occupation was not diminished.

The officer selected for the command of the British brigade was a man of
high character and ability. General Gatacre had already led a brigade in
the Chitral expedition, and, serving under Sir Robert Low and Sir Bindon
Blood had gained so good a reputation that after the storming of the
Malakand Pass and the subsequent action in the plain of Khar it was
thought desirable to transpose his brigade with that of General
Kinloch, and send Gatacre forward to Chitral. From the mountains of the
North-West Frontier the general was ordered to Bombay, and in a stubborn
struggle with the bubonic plague, which was then at its height, he
turned his attention from camps of war to camps of segregation. He left
India, leaving behind him golden opinions, just before the outbreak of
the great Frontier rising, and was appointed to a brigade at Aldershot.
Thence we now find him hurried to the Soudan--a spare, middle-sized
man, of great physical strength and energy, of marked capacity and
unquestioned courage, but disturbed by a restless irritation, to which
even the most inordinate activity afforded little relief, and which
often left him the exhausted victim of his own vitality.

By the end of January a powerful force lay encamped along the river
from Abu Hamed to the Atbara. Meanwhile the Dervishes made no forward
movement. Their army was collected at Kerreri; supplies were plentiful;
all preparations had been made. Yet they tarried. The burning question
of the command had arisen. A dispute that was never settled ensued. When
the whole army was regularly assembled, the Khalifa announced publicly
that he would lead the faithful in person; but at the same time he
arranged privately that many Emirs and notables should beg him not
to expose his sacred person. After proper solicitation, therefore, he
yielded to their appeals. Then he looked round for a subordinate. The
Khalifa Ali-Wad-Helu presented himself. In the Soudan every advantage
and honour accrues to the possessor of an army, and the rival chief
saw a chance of regaining his lost power. This consideration was
not, however, lost upon Abdullah. He accepted the offer with apparent
delight, but he professed himself unable to spare any rifles for the
army which Ali-Wad-Helu aspired to lead. 'Alas!' he cried