00 men. General Gatacre received the command of the
British division. Ten gunboats, five transport steamers, and eight
barges promised to secure complete command of the river banks and to
provide means for transporting the army and all needful stores to the
western bank of the Nile whenever the Sirdar judged it to be advisable.
The midsummer rains in the equatorial districts now made their influence
felt, and in the middle of August the Nile covered the sandbanks and
rocks that made navigation dangerous at the time of "low Nile." In the
last week of that month all was ready for the long and carefully
prepared advance. The infantry travelled in steamers or barges as far as
the foot of the Shabluka, or Sixth Cataract, and this method of advance
left the Dervishes in some doubt by which bank the final advance
would be made.

By an unexpected piece of good fortune the Dervishes had evacuated the
rocky heights of the Shabluka gorge. This was matter for rejoicing.
There the Nile, which above and below is a mile wide, narrows to a
channel of little more than a hundred yards in width. It is the natural
defence of Khartum on the north. The strategy of the Khalifa was here
again inexplicable, as also was his abandonment of the ridge at Kerreri,
some seven miles north of Omdurman. Mr. Bennett Burleigh in his account
of the campaign states that the Khalifa had repaired thither once a year
to give thanks for the triumph about to be gained there.

At last on September 1, on topping the Kerreri ridge, the invaders
caught their first glimpse of Omdurman. Already the gunboats were
steaming up to the Mahdist capital to throw in their first shells. They
speedily dismounted several guns, and one of the shells tore away a
large portion of the gaudy cupola that covered the Mahdi's tomb. Apart
from this portent, nothing of moment was done on that day; but it seems
probable that the bombardment led the Khalifa to hazard an attack on the
invaders in the desert on the side away from the Nile. Nearer to the
Sirdar's main force the skirmishing of the 21st Lancers, new to war but
eager to "win their spurs," was answered by angry but impotent charges
of the Khalifa's horse and foot, until at sunset both sides retired for
the night's rest.

The Anglo-Egyptian force made a zariba around the village of el-Gennuaia
on the river bank; and there, in full expectation of a night attack,
they sought what slumber was to be had. What with a panic rush of
Su