The head of the column turned in towards the river about three p.m. on the 16th, at Makaberab, or, as the natives call it, Omdabiya—i.e., the place of hyenas. For over a mile, men and animals had to make their way through halfa-grass scrub, and then over bare alluvial land, deeply sun-cracked and scored in all directions. The ground was cris-crossed like a chessboard, the lines being a foot to two feet apart, and four to six inches wide, and several feet in depth. There were numberless spills through these pitfalls. One camel snapped his leg, and many mules and horses were strained and lamed. It was indeed fat land, and had formerly grown cotton. The cracks, as we found later, were full of scorpions. During that night's bivouac, and in the early morning, very many men and animals were stung by these venomous pests. Only one soldier succumbed from a scorpion sting during the campaign. The pain of the wound is as an intense burning or wounding, and continues troublesome for hours. Ammonia was freely used by the doctors when the stings were severe, but where whisky could be got, that was preferred.
21st Lancers—Advance Guard.
We were early astir on the 17th inst., but it was not until daylight or 5.30 a.m. that it was safe for the column to pick its way out of the field of cracks. Why the spot was selected, except as an earthly trial, I am unable to state, officially or otherwise. Hard by, on either hand, there was solid and most passable ground for bivouacking. We had a good many stragglers on the 16th inst., most of whom came rather late tumbling and grumbling to supper and bed on the rough dank ground. Others lost their way and wandered to the Nile, where they were guided by natives, and later were lucky to get a lift to the front upon gunboats. Two men of the 21st Lancers left upon the desert with a sick comrade down with sunstroke, watched him die, and, scraping a grave, buried him where he expired. Lieutenant Winston Churchill, who was detained until late at Dakhala, in trying to follow us, lost his way, and had to pass the night alone upon the desert. He sat holding his horse till daybreak, and then, burning with thirst, made his way to the Nile. Subsequently he hired a native guide and was enabled to come up with the column on the afternoon of the 17th. Spending the night alone upon the desert has been many times my lot in Soudan campaigns.
During Wednesday's march, 17th August, we crossed the low shoulders of many rocky ridges. They are called "jebels" (hills), but most of them, including Jebel Egeda, which we passed, are little, if any, higher than Primrose-Hill, London, though it is not a conical, but a long, barn-roofed range. Near there I saw an enormous native cemetery. It extended to perhaps fifty acres, the pebble-covered mounds over the graves dotting the bare desert and the sides of the hills. I have an impression that there are ancient funeral mounds near there, and that the burying-place of Aliab is older than the invasion of the Arab Jaalin. There were fragments of sculptured stones, granite, and blocks of sandstone, and I noticed one broken memorial slab covered with Greek characters. Farther on we had to turn aside to avoid wadies and khors, up which the Nile had flowed. We were able to water the animals at some of those places. The mules and horses buried their noses in the flood and drank greedily, and the camels also had a fine, long-necked thirst. We were ourselves too parched to care about the impurities of the Nile, and soldiers and officers swallowed great draughts of the soupy stuff.
Late in the afternoon of the 17th the column turned to the river to bivouac at Kitaib, a twenty-two miles journey for the day. Too late it was found that the ration depôt there, from which the column was to draw fresh supplies, was upon the farther side of a newly-made inlet. The column had to repack, and turn west to round the creek. We reached Kitaib No. 2 about six p.m. Part of the battery mules and transport, however, got leave to remain at the first halting-place, as they stood in no need of supplies, and I unpacked by myself, bivouacking under a clump of tall mimosa trees hard by a vast deserted village and a long grove of date palms. I believe that over a score of men lost the road that night and ultimately wandered to the river and got to the front by steamer. There were several cases of heat exhaustion and sunstroke, but happily few of a serious nature. Two troopers, who floundered through the marshy land, got taken aboard a gunboat when they were utterly prostrate. Others, whose horses went lame or had to be killed, were ordered down to the Nile to secure passage on as best they could. In the darkness, as I was eating my evening meal by candle-light, two Lancers shouted and rode up. They had the too common but true story to tell of having missed the track. I found supper and breakfast for them, and started them off with their troop at eight o'clock next morning, the 18th August, for the column left Kitaib at a late hour. My servants were glad of the soldiers' arrival, for they were terribly afraid of robbers, the district being infested with marauding natives. During the night several fugitives from Omdurman passed us going north. Eighteen Shaggieh, who had escaped in a sail-boat, were but four days out from Khartoum. They professed to be delighted to get away. The Khalifa, they said, had ordered every sail-boat to go south of Khartoum. Taking advantage of a thunderstorm, they headed down stream and got away. According to them, the dervishes were killing all the Jaalin who were suspected of trying to escape north, and the Shaggieh and other northern tribesmen stood in little better plight. All natives, other than blacks and Baggara, who could get away from Omdurman were running off, as they believed the fall of the dervish rule was assured. The Khalifa's son, Osman, whose title was Sheikh Ed-Din, wanted to make terms. For months the youth had been in disgrace, but his father had reinstated him in the position of Commander-in-Chief of the Forces. Osman openly declared that fighting against the Sirdar and the English was hopeless, and that it was wiser to try and treat with us. Khalifa Abdullah and his brother Yacoub, however, would not hear of treating for peace, urging that their own people in that event would kill them. The only possible course was war to the death. From an excellent source I learned that the dervishes were well supplied with guns and ammunition, and that the Khalifa had about five millions sterling of treasure laid by.
From Kitaib can be seen the dozen pyramids of Meroe, part of the kingdom of the famous Queen of Sheba. To right and left upon the opposite bank are catacombs, ruins of old temples, towns and forts of a bygone civilisation. The country on both sides of the Nile in that region has spacious alluvial belts, big as the Fayoum and as susceptible to the arts of the cultivator. Such hills as there are rise for the most part abruptly from flat land capable of limitless irrigation. To anticipate somewhat: the region, south of Abu Hamed, up to and even beyond Khartoum, has all the natural advantages of Lower Egypt and something more. Berber is but 245 miles from Suakin. The Nubian kingdom of antiquity, or that of the Queen of Sheba, must have been of enormous extent, marvellous fertility and great richness. Ethiopia may yet fulfil the prophecy. From Kitaib we marched about eighteen miles to Maguia, passing through a forest of mimosa bush, the track but rarely branching out amongst the halfa-grass upon the more open country. About three p.m. the column turned in towards a side stream and settled down near the village of Maguia. The wind rose as usual at night, yet for all that the bivouac was fairly good, and there was plenty of grazing. Next day, the 19th, we managed to make an early start, getting away about 5.30 a.m. The distance to be traversed was but fourteen or sixteen miles, and the column reached the halting-place, Magawiya, about two p.m. We made our way over broken, cracked ground to the river's edge, and there bivouacked under the shade of a magnificent forest of stately date palms. The ripening fruit had been extensively plucked by thieving natives, but there was enough left for our men. It was a most picturesque scene for a camp, but an unwholesome place for all that. It was given out that the column was to rest a day at Magawiya, as the place was a wood and food supply depôt. During the course of the evening the sternwheeler "Kaibur" came in, and a sick officer, Lieutenant Russell, and about a score or more of men were sent back upon her to Dakhala, or Atbara camp. It merits record that a party of Egyptian gunners carried upon a native bed or angreeb a sick British artilleryman from Maguia to Magawiya, from bivouac to bivouac. That was something like good comradeship and esprit de corps.
