In order to supervise the whole length of the operations as quickly as possible, I kept one camel, Ballyhooly, at the Bab; the big white donkey County Waterford half-way there; and Bimbashi the bold and Beelzebub at Wady Halfa. Bimbashi could trot 16 miles in the hour. A Bedouin Sheikh offered me £3$ for him. As I had bought him for £24 I concluded that his vender had stolen him. I won more than his price in the race with Colonel Brocklehurst's Sheikh. While at Wady Halfa I rode him six miles out in the heavy sand against Sir Evelyn Wood and his A.D.C., who rode horses, and Bimbashi beat the horses fair and square.
Lord Wolseley sent me a telegram ordering me to form a naval brigade of 100 men and 10 officers. But as the bluejackets were of inestimable service in getting the remainder of the boats through the Cataract, and fitting them out at Gemai, where the soldiers embarked, he desired to keep them where they were as long as possible. On 27th November, we hoped to get all the boats through during the next five days. Up to that date—the last for which I have a note—687 boats had been passed through the Cataract, with a loss of 4 only; about 27 men of all sorts had been drowned; and 337 boats had left Gemai with troops and stores.
On 6th December the last boat was passed through. On the same day, Sir Evelyn Wood and Sir Redvers Buller received a telegram reporting a block of boats at Ambigol and Dal Cataract; and I was ordered there at a moment's notice.
On 27th September I had arrived at Wady Halfa; on 10th October I schemed the portage; and for eight weeks since that date I had been continuously hard at work passing the boats through the Second Cataract; which the Arabs call "the belly of stone."
CHAPTER XXV
THE SOUDAN WAR (Continued)
III. UP THE CATARACTS AND ACROSS THE DESERT
"To Assiout, in a cloud of dust
We came, and it made us smile,
To see each other's features, till
We washed them in the Nile.
From there, by boat, to Assouan
We came, and every night
Made fast, for the boatmen wouldn't steam
Excepting in daylight."
Songs of the Camel Corps (Sergt. H. EAGLE, R.M.C.C.)
On the 6th December, 1884, Peel and Colbourne, my two gallant comrades who had done so splendid a work upon the Second Cataract, quitted the Belly of Stone, embarking in two boats manned by Kroomen. The names of these big black men were Africa, Ginger Red, Bottled Beer, Sampson, Two Glasses and Been-Very-Ill-Twice; and when they were excited, as they nearly always were, they took to the English tongue, and kept us laughing for a week. When the wind was fair and we sailed up against the rapids, the Kroo boys were terribly anxious, knowing that if the wind failed we should slide all the way back again.