The whale-boats designed to transport the expedition were then arriving in large numbers. The total number was 800. They were similar to the man-of-war 30-foot whaler, but fuller in the body to enable them to carry more weight. Each boat was 30 feet long, with six feet six inches beam, and two feet six inches draught, fitted for 12 oars, and two masts with lug sails, and capable of carrying 10 soldiers, two boatmen (Canadian voyageurs), 1000 rations and ammunition.
There was a story current when the boats were struggling up the Nile, that one of them, manned by a sergeant and eight soldiers, but without a voyageur on board, having run athwart a rock and upset, a soldier observed to the sergeant that "the cove who sent nine men in a boat with 1000 rations must have been this here journey before!"
There were also to be provided eight steam pinnaces, two stern-wheel paddle boats, and a number of hired Egyptian Government steamers. The whale-boats as they arrived were sent, first, by rail and river to Assiout. Thence they were towed to Assouan, where is the First Cataract. Here they were either railed on trucks, or hauled through the rapids to Shellal, eight miles up. From Shellal to Wady Halfa, 200 miles farther, was plain sailing. At Wady Halfa is the Second Cataract and the formidable rapid of Bab-el-Kebir, or the "Great Gate."
Early in September I was ordered by Lord Wolseley to go up the Nile, overhauling the arrangements for the water transport, right up to Wady Halfa, which would be the temporary military base, I went by train from Cairo to Assiout, the hottest journey I had ever endured. India was nothing to it. The desert gathered itself up to destroy me. Any little spot upon my person which was not deep in desert was a fly-bazaar. But at Assiout a cold shower-bath paid for all. Here I investigated the transport arrangements made by Captain Boardman, and found them excellent. I may say at once that the whole of Captain Boardman's work was admirable, and that his management throughout the campaign was marked by the greatest good feeling, tact, and patience.
I left Assiout in one of Messrs. Cook's steamers, the Fersaat, which had the appearance of a boat and the manners of a kangaroo. She was loosely concocted of iron and leaked at every rivet; she squealed and grunted; her boiler roared like a camel; she bounded as she went. Her Reis (captain and pilot) was a sorrowful old Mohammedan, whose only method of finding out if the shoals and sands were still in the same place was by running upon them; and his manner of getting off them was to cry "Allah Kerim!" ("God is great!") and to beat his poor old forehead on the deck. In the meantime one of his Arabs, tastefully attired in a long blue night-gown, an enormous pair of drawers, and decorated elastic-sided boots, stripped and jumped overboard and pushed the boat, and while he pushed he chanted a dirge. As the boat began to move, he made sounds which suggested that he was about to be violently sick but could not quite manage it satisfactorily, although encouraged thereto by the loud objurgations of the two stokers. When he clambered back on deck, he put on the decorated boots and walked about in them till he was dry enough to dress; while the Reis gave thanks to his Maker, and the two stokers, men who knew nothing and feared nothing, piled wood on the furnaces and drove the boat along again.
If anyone walked from port to starboard or touched the helm, the boat rolled over, and until the next roll maintained a list of ten degrees, so that I was frequently shot off the locker upon which I was trying to sleep, landing upon the top of José, my Maltese interpreter, and followed by field-glasses, filter, sword and boots. The mosquito-curtains carried away, and the mosquitoes instantly attacked in force, driving me nearly mad with loss of blood, irritation, and rage. My only comfort was a pneumatic life-belt, which had been sent to me by Lady Charles, and which I used as a pillow.
So we struggled along against the stream for the 330 miles to Assouan; and the weather was not too hot, and the nights were cool, and the banks were fringed with date-palms, and every night the sun sank from the intense blue of the zenith, laced with long-drawn clouds of rose, to the lucent green low in the west, and the sand turned to gold colour and rose, until the sun dropped suddenly out of sight and all turned grey like ashes. Then a cold little wind sprang up out of the desert and the night deepened into the velvet dark flashing with a myriad stars.
On 23rd September I came to Assouan: reorganised the postal service to bring two mails a week by steam-launch: made arrangements for the rapid working of the water transport generally, ready for the time of pressure, and sent an urgent request for flexible wire hawsers, as I was sure they would be urgently required.