r asking his assistance to take and hold
El Obeid. As if that were not enough in the way of shutting the door
behind the Khalifa, sheikhs came down from the Blue Nile provinces,
seeking protection. Help was given to them, and bodies of friendlies
were got together to seize Senaar and other important places. The Nile
was running very swift and full in August, the current moving at fully
six miles an hour past Dakhala. In July the Atbara, which had again
begun slowly to flow, suddenly rose, the muddy water roaring along in
a series of terraced wave-walls. Its 300-yards wide bed, where it
joined the Nile, was within a few minutes choked with the tawny flood
up to nearly the top of the 30-foot banks on either side. Bursting
into the Nile the sea of soup seemed to push its way in a well-defined
stream nearly across the 1200-yards broad bosom of the Father of
Waters.

The first half of the 2nd Battalion of the Rifle Brigade arrived on
the 2nd of August at Dakhala, during a blustering dust-storm. For all
that, black and travel-stained, they were glad to detrain, and to plod
through the sand, and breast the laden atmosphere, in order to get
into camp hard by the Atbara. The following day the remainder of the
battalion marched in under somewhat pleasanter conditions. Everybody
turned out to cheer the smart, soldierlike detachments. On the 6th
inst. the first half of the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards arrived,
and later on the remainder. The Sirdar and Generals Rundle and
Gatacre, and the staffs went to greet them. A finer and more stalwart
body of troops was never seen in the Soudan. Native opinion was more
than favourable respecting them, and I heard observations on all sides
that the Khalifa had no men he could set against them. The Sirdar and
General Gatacre also expressed themselves much pleased with the
appearance of the Grenadiers, who looked like seasoned soldiers and
came in without a sick man in their ranks.

CHAPTER V.

DAKHALA CAMP: GOSSIP AND DUTY.

Dirt is the essence of savagery, and there is a superfluity of both in
the Soudan. I have no desperate wish so to describe the vileness of
the surroundings of the correspondents' camp at Dakhala that even
casual thinkers will sniff at it. The place was bad enough in all
conscience, and, mayhap, therein I have said all that is necessary. As
for the worry of our lives, squatted as we were in the least agreeable
quarter of the big rectangular fort, long will the