The Whole Army Broke Camp At Royan On The 28th Of August At Four O'clock
In The Afternoon, And Marched To Wady El Abid Six Miles Further South.
We Now Moved On A Broad Front, Which Could Immediately Be Converted Into A
Fighting Formation.
This was the first time that it had been possible to
see the whole force - infantry, cavalry, and guns - on the march at once.
In the clear air the amazing detail of the picture was striking.
There were
six brigades of infantry, composed of twenty-four battalions; yet every
battalion showed that it was made up of tiny figures, all perfectly defined
on the plain. A Soudanese brigade had been sent on to hold the ground with
pickets until the troops had constructed a zeriba. But a single Dervish
horseman managed to evade these and, just as the light faded, rode up to
the Warwickshire Regiment and flung his broad-bladed spear in token of
defiance. So great was the astonishment which this unexpected apparition
created that the bold man actually made good his escape uninjured.
On the 29th the forces remained halted opposite Um Teref, and only the
Egyptian cavalry went out to reconnoitre. They searched the country for
eight or nine miles, and Colonel Broadwood returned in the afternoon,
having found a convenient camping-ground, but nothing else. During the day
the news of two river disasters arrived - the first to ourselves, the second
to our foes. On the 28th the gunboat Zafir was steaming from the Atbara to
Wad Hamed, intending thereafter to ascend the Shabluka Cataract.
Suddenly - overtaken now, as on the eve of the advance on Dongola,
by misfortune - she sprang a leak, and, in spite of every effort to run her
ashore, foundered by the head in deep water near Metemma.
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