The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Beresford

by Baron Charles William De la Poer Beresford Beresford

As the boats came through the Bab or across the portage, the voyageurs took charge of them and sailed them up to Gemai. Here they were overhauled and fully equipped, the soldiers were embarked, and away they went up river.

By the 6th November, 60 boats had left Gemai with the Sussex regiment on board. The river was then falling so swiftly that a new course for the boats must be found almost every day. Hitherto the boats had been passed through the Cataract almost without a scratch or the loss of a single article of gear. Now the rocks began to show through the surf in the Bab.

A boat was smashed. We caught her lower down; and with 200 men portaged her over a rocky hill, across the neck of land formed by the curve of the Bab, then laid her keel upwards across two other boats, and so floated, took her up to Gemai dockyard. I was the more pleased with this piece of salvage, because everyone said it was impossible to save the boat. The last nine boats, after being emptied of all gear, were hauled clean over the rocks by main force. They came prettily lipping through the boiling torrent from rock to rock, taking the blows upon keel and bilge pieces, so that they were scarcely damaged.

Early in October, foreseeing that, as the water fell, the Bab-el-Kebir would become impracticable, I had designed a scheme for a portage. The alternative would have been to entrain the boats from Wady Halfa to Sarras, an expedient which, as the whole of the train service was required to carry provisions, would have involved immense delay.

My plan was to haul the boats up to the entrance of the Bab and then to carry them across the neck of land formed by the curve of the Bab, a distance of 2488 yards, which required 400 men, who should be divided into sections of 40 to each boat. The boat was hauled on shore, her masts, oars, and poles laid on the ground to serve as bearers; the boat was laid on these keel uppermost, and was then lifted and carried, the masts, oars, and poles resting on the men's shoulders, and other men supporting the boat by resting thwarts and gunwale on their shoulders. My scheme was at first received with incredulity by all except Lord Wolseley. But I made a trial trip with 30 men, and had the boat across the portage, including six stoppages for rest, and in the water with all her gear without a scratch, in an hour and twenty minutes. The passage of Bab-el-Kebir, low as the water had become, would have taken at least six hours, with great risk of disaster.

Now, having hauled the last nine boats through, over the rocks, the portage scheme came into operation; and on the 6th November I closed the Bab, and used the portage, by means of which alone it was made possible to continue the supply of boats at the same rate. Thenceforward we were able to put the boats through quicker than they were supplied.

Many of the boats were poisonous to handle, as their matting was infested with scorpions.

My dwelling was at first a tent at Wady Halfa, and afterwards a hut on the bank beside the Bab-el-Kebir. It stood within six feet of the roaring river, in a grove of mimosa. The camels lunched daily upon the long sharp thorns of the mimosa, apparently relishing these spines as a form of Worcester sauce.

Rising at daylight, every day I covered some thirty miles up and down the shore of the Cataract, superintending operations from dawn till dark. I rode one of my camels, Bimbashi or Ballyhooly or Beelzebub, or my donkey, County Waterford, so named because the second time I contested him I lost my seat: a political allegory. Being short of both officers and men, my presence was required everywhere at once. By haulage and portage a perpetual procession of whaleboats and nuggars was kept moving up to the dockyard at Gemai.

From Wady Halfa to the Bab the Cataract was divided into reaches, a post being stationed at each. At the first reach were Peel of the 2nd Life Guards and 200 Dongola men; at the Naval Camp, on the second reach, were Lieutenant Colbourne and 350 Dongola men; at Palm Tree Camp, in the third reach, were an Egyptian officer and 100 Dongola men; for the portage at Bab-el-Kebir I had 500 men of the 2nd Egyptian battalion under their colonel, and another of their officers, Shakespeare of the Marines, who had been with me in the Thunderer. All along the Cataract were stationed small parties of carpenters and sailmakers in order that damages should be repaired on the spot. Living with me was Colonel Grant, who was in command of all the Dongola men. Later, the Canadian voyageurs camped beside my hut.