on
southwards with less of disfavour.

Again the new stride forward had to be prepared for by careful
preparations at the base. The question of route also caused delay. It
proved to be desirable to begin a new railway from Wady Haifa across the
desert to Abu Hamed at the northern tip of the deep bend which the Nile
makes below Berber. To drive a line into a desert in order to attack an
enemy holding a good position beyond seemed a piece of fool-hardiness.
Nevertheless it was done, and at the average rate of about 1 1/4 miles a
day. In due course General Hunter pushed on and captured Abu Hamed, the
inhabitants of which showed little fight, being thoroughly weary of
Dervish tyranny (August 6, 1897).

The arrival of gunboats after a long struggle with the rapids below Abu
Hamed gave Hunter's little force a much-needed support; and before he
could advance further, news reached him that the Dervishes had abandoned
Berber. This step caused general surprise, and it has never been fully
explained. Some have averred that a panic seized the wives of the
Dervish garrison at Berber, and that when they rushed out of the town
southwards their husbands followed them[413]. Certain it is that family
feelings, which the Dervishes so readily outraged in others, played a
leading part in many of their movements. Whatever the cause may have
been, the abandonment of Berber greatly facilitated the work of Sir
Herbert Kitchener. A strong force soon mustered at that town, and the
route to the Red Sea was reopened by a friendly arrangement with the
local sheikhs.

[Footnote 413: _The Downfall of the Dervishes_, by E.N. Bennett, M.A.,
p. 23.]

The next important barrier to the advance was the river Atbara. Here the
Dervishes had a force some 18,000 strong; but before long the Sirdar
received timely reinforcement of a British brigade, consisting of the
Cameron and Seaforth Highlanders and the Lincolnshire and Warwickshire
regiments, under General Gatacre. Various considerations led the Sirdar
to wait until he could strike a telling blow. What was most to be
dreaded was the adoption of Parthian tactics by the enemy. Fortunately
they had constructed a zariba (a camp surrounded by thorn-bushes) on the
north bank of the Atbara at a point twenty miles above its confluence
with the Nile. At last, on April 7, 1898, after trying to tempt the
enemy to a battle in the open, the Sirdar moved forward his 14,000 men
in the hope of rushing the position soon