Here A Convenient
Watering-Place, Not Commanded By The Opposite Bank, And The Shade Of Eight
Or Ten Thorny Bushes Afforded The First Suitable Bivouac.
At 3.30 P.M. on
the 30th the march was continued eight and a half miles to a spot some
little distance beyond Shebabit.
The pace was slow, and the route stony
and difficult. It was after dark when the halting-place was reached.
Several of the men strayed from the column, wandered in the gloom, and
reached the bivouac exhausted. General Hunter had proposed to push on the
next day to Hosh-el-Geref, but the fatigues of his troops in the two night
marches had already been severe, and as, after Abu Haraz, the track twisted
away from the river so that there was no water for five miles, he resolved
to halt for the day and rest. Hosh-el-Geref was therefore not reached until
the 1st of August - a day later than had been expected; but the rest had
proved of such benefit to the troops that the subsequent acceleration of
progress fully compensated for the delay. The column moved on again at
midnight and halted at daybreak at Salmi. In the small hours of the next
morning the march was resumed. The road by the Nile was found too difficult
for the Maxim guns, which were on wheels, and these had to make a detour
of twenty-eight miles into the desert while the infantry moved ten miles
along the river.
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