ides other cannon and Maxims, were
likewise on time. Very smartly the batteries and Maxims were stowed
aboard native craft, which were taken in tow by gunboats to Wad Hamid.
Detachments of gunners accompanied the pieces and carriages, but the
majority of the artillerymen were ferried to the west bank, whence
they marched overland to the new camp. It was at Wad Habeshi that the
army was first actually marshalled as a concrete force, and forthwith
took the field. Not a moment was lost by day or night in moving men
and supplies onward. The little paddle steamer captured from the
dervishes during the 1896 Dongola Expedition, which had been repaired
and sent to Dakhala, was continually carrying troops and stores from
the east to the west bank. As the Nile was running at the rate of six
miles an hour in its wide bed, the "El Tahara," as the craft was
called, had to make a big circuit to effect a passage. The "El Tahara"
was one of the boats General Gordon built at Khartoum but never lived
to launch. As she was a new craft, the Mahdi changed her name, calling
her "The Maid," instead of "Khartoum," as it had been intended to dub
her. She was an excellent vessel, with fine engines much too powerful
for her frame.

[Illustration: WOOD STATION (EN ROUTE TO OMDURMAN).]

Both Surgeon-General Taylor, on behalf of the British division, and
Surgeon-Colonel Gallwey, for the Egyptian troops, completed their
arrangements for succouring the sick and wounded upon the march from
Shabluka to the attack upon Omdurman. Adequate provision was made for
field hospitals, floating hospitals and relief stations, for medical
officers, and attendants, with cradlets and stretchers, to follow each
military unit into action. For the British infantry it meant,
substantially, that behind each battalion a medical officer and two
non-commissioned officers should march, accompanied by six camels
bearing cacolets, and men with nine stretchers. A somewhat modified
scheme was got out for the cavalry and artillery, as well as for the
other Khedivial troops. In the anticipated action before Omdurman,
temporary operating stations were to be set up, out of ordinary
rifle-range, and native craft, which had been fitted up with cots,
were to be brought as near the scene as practicable to receive the
wounded.

An attempt made to lay a cable from Dakhala to the west bank was not
over successful. It was found that the great sag, caused by the
current, carried the cable