While The Infantry Divisions Were Marching Round The Heights Of Shabluka
To The Camp Opposite Royan Island, The Steamers And Gunboats Ascended The
Stream And Passed Through The Gorge, Dragging Up With Them The Whole Fleet
Of Barges And Gyassas.
The northern end of the narrow passage had been
guarded by the five Dervish forts, which now stood deserted and dismantled.
They were well built, and formed nearly a straight line - four on one bank
and one on the other.
Each fort had three embrasures, and might,
when occupied, have been a formidable defence to the cataract.
Threshing up against the current, the gunboats and stern-wheelers
one after another entered the gorge. The Nile, which below is nearly a mile
across, narrows to a bare 200 yards. The pace of the stream becomes more
swift. Great swirls and eddies disturb its surface. High on either side
rise black, broken, and precipitous cliffs, looking like piles of gigantic
stones. Through and among them the flood-river pours with a loud roaring,
breaking into foam and rapids wherever the submerged rocks are near the
surface. Between the barren heights and the water is a strip of green
bushes and grass. The bright verdant colour seems the more brilliant by
contrast with the muddy water and the sombre rocks. It is a forbidding
passage. A few hundred riflemen scattered Afridiwise among the tops of
the hills, a few field-guns in the mud forts by the bank, and the door
would be shut.
The mounted forces marched from Wad Hamed at dawn on the 27th and,
striking out into the desert, skirted the rocky hills. Besides the 21st
Lancers and nine squadrons of Egyptian cavalry, the column included the
Camel Corps, 800 strong, and a battery of Horse Artillery; and it was a
fine sight to see all these horsemen and camel-men trotting swiftly across
the sand by squadrons and companies, with a great cloud of dust rising
from each and drifting away to the northward.
The zeriba of the camp at Royan had been already made and much of the
ground cleared by the energy of the Soudanese division, which had been the
first to arrive. An advanced depot was established at Royan island which
was covered with white hospital tents, near which there was a forest of
masts and sails. The barges and boats containing the stores and kits
awaited the troops, and they had only to bivouac along the river-bank and
shelter themselves as quickly as possible from the fierce heat of the sun.
The dark hills of Shabluka, among and beneath which the camp and army
nestled, lay behind us now. To the south the country appeared a level plain
covered with bush and only broken by occasional peaks of rock. The eternal
Nile flowed swiftly by the tents and shelters, and disappeared mysteriously
in the gloom of the gorge; and on the further bank there rose a great
mountain - Jebel Royan - from the top of which it was said that men
might see Khartoum.
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. The officers on
board - among whom was Keppel, the commander of the whole flotilla -
had scarcely time to leap from the wreck, and with difficulty made their
way to the shore, where they were afterwards found very cold and hungry.
The Sirdar received the news at Royan. His calculations were disturbed by
the loss of a powerful vessel; but he had allowed for accidents, and in
consequence accepted the misfortune very phlegmatically. The days of
struggling warfare were over, and the General knew that he had
a safe margin of strength.
The other catastrophe afflicted the Khalifa, and its tale was brought to
the advancing army by the Intelligence spies, who to the last - even when
the forces were closing - tried to pass between them. Not content with
building batteries along the banks, Abdullah, fearing the gunboats,
had resolved to mine the river. An old officer of the old Egyptian army,
long a prisoner in Omdurman, was brought from his chains and ordered to
construct mines. Two iron boilers were filled with gunpowder, and it was
arranged that these should be sunk in the Nile at convenient spots.
Buried in the powder of each was a loaded pistol with a string attached to
the trigger.
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