SOME EXPERIENCES IN EGYPT. 57 
(160 miles in 8 days) while the guns and stores were towed up in 
barges by the gun-boats. 
Wad Hamed was the point of concentration for all the troops 
previous to the advance on Omdurman. The battery remained there 
several days and had an opportunity of practising the building of the 
straw huts, or " tokuls,” at which the Egyptian and Sudanese are so 
clever, but at which the men of the battery did not prove conspicuous¬ 
ly successful. Shelter from the sun for the men was also obtained 
by raising two sticks with a cross piece and throwing the blanket 
over them. In exhibiting some of the subsequent photographs, the 
lecturer muoh regretted that, owing to the impossibility of photo¬ 
graphing by night, many of the most striking scenes were lost. In the 
daytime everything looked prosaic, but at night, in the moonlight, the 
Zareba was a wonderful sight with all the troops lying down on the 
desert in rows, fully dressed and their rifles at their sides. 
From Wad Hamed the battery was carried forward in a barge to 
Suradab, which is only two marches from Omdurman, the animals 
marching with the 32nd battery on shore In this section of 
the journey lay the Shablukah cataract, and, when going up it, the 
battery had a very nasty time indeed with the water all over the barge. 
The expedient of lowering waterproof sheets over the bows and 
holding them there, proved effective, and averted the danger of being 
swamped. At Suradab the battery received orders, on the evening of 
August 31st, to advance the following morning at 5 a.m., to proceed 
with the gun-boats right up to Omdurman, to establish itself on the 
right bank, and immediately open fire on the place. A force of 
about 3,000 Friendlies, under Major Stuart Wortley, were on this 
bank and co-operated. There was considerable fighting with a 
Dervish force, which was found posted on this bank, but it was finally 
dispersed, and the battery was eventually landed on the opposite bank 
of the Nile to Omdurman and almost due east of it. The debarkation 
was effected with some difficulty, owing to the barge with the howitzers 
in it not being able to get close into the bank, and it was the worst 
landing place which had been met with during the whole of the 
battery's progress up the Nile, owing to the rushing current, and deep 
soft mud, which got on to the ropes and made them so slippery that 
the men could not hold them. Fire was opened when five guns had 
been got ashore, and effects soon became visible on the Mahdi's tomb, 
which stood some way back from the river. Next day, 2nd Septem¬ 
ber, the bombardment was continued from a point about f mile lower 
down the river, whence the wall of the citadel could be attacked, and 
this was breached in three places by the battery with a view of 
opening a road for the advancing troops. The citadel, some forts, 
barracks, and other public places, were also fired upon, and cleared of 
their occupants. 
The particulars of the battle of Omdurman and the re-occupation 
of Khartoum are now matters of history and there is no occasion 
to repeat them here, but the Lecturer remarked that in his view the 
main feature of the campaign was the very excellent mutual support 
