200 The Victory of To ski [*895 



a massacre, for the Dervishes were in the last stage of exhaustion from 

 hunger and thirst, their camels dying, and their women and children. 

 The way they had come is still marked by the skeletons left on 'the 

 sand. They marched some five miles from the river, along the left 

 bank, sending the women and children at night to get water, the 

 English-Egyptian army meanwhile cruising comfortably parallel to 

 them in boats. They had forced the Berber inhabitants of the left 

 bank to cross over the river and take all eatable things with them, so 

 that Nejumi's army found nothing. Then, when the Dervishes were 

 quite worn out, the troops were landed and drove the dervishes into 

 a gully, where these made their final stand, and were all shot down. 

 Mohammed Towfik, who was there, says that of all the 4,000 who left 

 Dongola with Nejumi, only 300 combatants remained to fight at Toski. 

 The action at ... was a smaller affair than Toski, and, if I under- 

 stood rightly, one of cavalry on the Egyptian side. The left bank in 

 this part is a desolate region of drift sand with a few bushes, but at 

 Toski there is palm cultivation for a mile or two. The right bank, 

 where there is no sand, is mostly planted. 



" At four we came to Abu Simbel and stopped for a quarter of an 

 hour, so that we were able to land and look at the temple. Broadwood 

 showed me a pompous marble tablet le't into the rock outside, of which 

 he was ashamed. It recorded the gallant victory of General Grenfell 

 over ' the rebels.' The temple is very fine, and has the great merit of 

 being no ruin, but a perfectly habitable place cu't out of the rock, and 

 very little injured by time. There was a party outside it clearing away 

 the sand. There is a grave, too, where an English officer is buried who 

 happened to die on board a passing steamer — ' a rotten place,' Laurie 

 remarked, ' to bury an Englishman in.' The Berbers are a poor, 

 narrow-chested, feeble, half-starved people, reminding one much of 

 the natives of Sou'thern India. There can hardly be a greater contrast 

 than between them and the Egyptian fellahin. The Berbers are ex- 

 empted from recruiting, and should be exempted from taxation. They 

 live almost entirely on dates, and are much subject, it is said, to fever. 

 At night we passed a Governmen't steamer having on board the English 

 acting commandant of Wady Haifa, Lewis, a little talkative man of 

 whom Broadwood and Laurie, who are fine young fellows, made light. 

 We stopped to pay him a visit and then went on in the dark. 



" gth Nov. — Arrived at Wady Haifa, a beautiful cool morning, with 

 a strong north wind blowing over the plain. Wady Haifa has the ad- 

 vantage of being placed where the hills are low and stand back from 

 the river. Otherwise a quite uninteresting place — low military huts 

 fronting the river, with bits of trees and gardens about them, officers' 

 quarters and the res't. 



" I lunched at the Commandant's quarters with Lewis, who has 



