st history, its superiority in
everything to all other regiments in the division, and his confidence
in his men to maintain such a standard of excellence. In many
expeditions it has happened that shots have been fired at nothing,
night after night, thus disturbing the whole force; such bad habits
must be firmly checked."

Before leaving Cairo I had the opportunity of witnessing a trial of
the new siege guns that were to be used in levelling the walls and
defences of Omdurman. To the eastward of Abbassieh barracks, near the
rifle ranges, 150 feet of stone wall had been erected. It was a
replica of part of the structure which the Khalifa had built around
the tomb of the Mahdi, his own grounds, that of his body-guard, and
the more important buildings situated in the centre of the dervish
capital.

The stout rectangular wall at Omdurman stood with its narrowest side
facing the Nile, and its longest sides ran inland from the river for
about a mile. It was twelve feet in height, and even more in places,
ten feet in thickness at the base, tapering to six feet at the top. It
was a well-made structure, laid in mortar and faced on either side
with dressed limestone blocks.

Shortly after six a.m. on the morning of 22nd July, a large number of
officers assembled at the Abbassieh ranges to watch the result of the
experiments of the sham bombardment. Lieutenant-General Sir Francis
Grenfell and staff, Major-General Lyttelton, and many others were
present. It was arranged that the new 5-inch howitzer battery, with
the "Lyddite" or high explosive shells, was to make the first attempt
to breach or throw down the wall. There were six of these new
howitzers, and they were worked by the 37th Field Battery, commanded
by Major Elmslie. Except that the bore was larger, there was little to
distinguish the pieces from the 15-lb. Maxim-Nordenfeldt automatic
recoil guns used at the battle of the Atbara. The latter cannon,
however, only used cordite, whereas the 5-inch howitzer shells are
filled with a picric compound resembling M. Turpin's melinite. For
over ten years Russia has had 100-lb. howitzer batteries in the field,
firing high explosives. It was the Sirdar who insisted upon the
necessity of being supplied with these light and handy cannon. Neither
the velocity nor the range of their shell-fire is great, but it is
enough--4000 yards or thereby--for all practical purposes, and is
fairly accurate. The explosion of the picric shells was v