As on previous occasions, the Sirdar now waited some time until the railway could be brought up to the points lately conquered.  More gunboats were also constructed for the final stage of the expedition.  The dash at Omdurman and Khartum promised to tax to the uttermost the strength of the army; but another brigade of British troops, commanded by Colonel Lyttelton, soon joined the expedition, bringing its effective strength up to 23,000 men.  General Gatacre received the command of the British division.  Ten gunboats, five transport steamers, and eight barges promised to secure complete command of the river banks and to provide means for transporting the army and all needful stores to the western bank of the Nile whenever the Sirdar judged it to be advisable.  The midsummer rains in the equatorial districts now made their influence felt, and in the middle of August the Nile covered the sandbanks and rocks that made navigation dangerous at the time of “low Nile.”  In the last week of that month all was ready for the long and carefully prepared advance.  The infantry travelled in steamers or barges as far as the foot of the Shabluka, or Sixth Cataract, and this method of advance left the Dervishes in some doubt by which bank the final advance would be made.

By an unexpected piece of good fortune the Dervishes had evacuated the rocky heights of the Shabluka gorge.  This was matter for rejoicing.  There the Nile, which above and below is a mile wide, narrows to a channel of little more than a hundred yards in width.  It is the natural defence of Khartum on the north.  The strategy of the Khalifa was here again inexplicable, as also was his abandonment of the ridge at Kerreri, some seven miles north of Omdurman.  Mr. Bennett Burleigh in his account of the campaign states that the Khalifa had repaired thither once a year to give thanks for the triumph about to be gained there.

At last on September 1, on topping the Kerreri ridge, the invaders caught their first glimpse of Omdurman.  Already the gunboats were steaming up to the Mahdist capital to throw in their first shells.  They speedily dismounted several guns, and one of the shells tore away a large portion of the gaudy cupola that covered the Mahdi’s tomb.  Apart from this portent, nothing of moment was done on that day; but it seems probable that the bombardment led the Khalifa to hazard an attack on the invaders in the desert on the side away from the Nile.  Nearer to the Sirdar’s main force the skirmishing of the 21st Lancers, new to war but eager to “win their spurs,” was answered by angry but impotent charges of the Khalifa’s horse and foot, until at sunset both sides retired for the night’s rest.

The Anglo-Egyptian force made a zariba around the village of el-Gennuaia on the river bank; and there, in full expectation of a night attack, they sought what slumber was to be had.  What with a panic rush of Sudanese servants and the stampede of an angry camel, the night wore away uneasily; but there was no charge of Dervishes such as might have carried death to the heart of that small zariba.  It is said that the Sirdar had passed the hint to some trusty spies to pretend to be deserters and warn the enemy that he was going to attack them by night.  If this be so, spies have never done better service.