nly broken by occasional
peaks of rock. The eternal Nile flowed swiftly by the tents and
shelters, and disappeared mysteriously in the gloom of the gorge; and on
the further bank there rose a great mountain--Jebel Royan--from the top
of which it was said that men might see Khartoum.

The whole army broke camp at Royan on the 28th of August at four o'clock
in the afternoon, and marched to Wady el Abid six miles further south.
We now moved on a broad front, which could immediately be converted into
a fighting formation. This was the first time that it had been possible
to see the whole force--infantry, cavalry, and guns--on the march at
once. In the clear air the amazing detail of the picture was striking.
There were six brigades of infantry, composed of twenty-four battalions;
yet every battalion showed that it was made up of tiny figures, all
perfectly defined on the plain. A Soudanese brigade had been sent on to
hold the ground with pickets until the troops had constructed a zeriba.
But a single Dervish horseman managed to evade these and, just as
the light faded, rode up to the Warwickshire Regiment and flung his
broad-bladed spear in token of defiance. So great was the astonishment
which this unexpected apparition created that the bold man actually made
good his escape uninjured.

On the 29th the forces remained halted opposite Um Teref, and only the
Egyptian cavalry went out to reconnoitre. They searched the country for
eight or nine miles, and Colonel Broadwood returned in the afternoon,
having found a convenient camping-ground, but nothing else. During the
day the news of two river disasters arrived--the first to ourselves, the
second to our foes. On the 28th the gunboat Zafir was steaming from
the Atbara to Wad Hamed, intending thereafter to ascend the Shabluka
Cataract. Suddenly--overtaken now, as on the eve of the advance on
Dongola, by misfortune--she sprang a leak, and, in spite of every effort
to run her ashore, foundered by the head in deep water near Metemma.
The officers on board--among whom was Keppel, the commander of the whole
flotilla--had scarcely time to leap from the wreck, and with difficulty
made their way to the shore, where they were afterwards found very cold
and hungry. The Sirdar received the news at Royan. His calculations
were disturbed by the loss of a powerful vessel; but he had allowed
for accidents, and in consequence accepted the misfortune very
phlegmatically. The days of struggling