From Kosheh to Kerma, the first Dervish position, the distance by river is 127 miles.  A study of the map shows that by land marches this can be shortened by nearly forty-one miles; thirty miles being saved by cutting across the great loop of the Nile from Kosheh to Sadin Fanti, and eleven miles by avoiding the angle from Fereig to Abu Fatmeh.  From Kerma to Dongola, which latter town was the objective of the expedition, a further distance of thirty-five miles must be traversed, making a total of 120 miles by land or 161 by river.  The long desert march from Kosheh to Sadin Fanti was the only natural difficulty by land.  Although the river from Kosheh to Kerma is broken by continual rapids, it is, with one interval, freely navigable at half Nile.  The Amara Cataract, ten miles beyond Kosheh, is easily ascended by sailing boats with a fair wind, and by steamers without assistance.  From Amara to the Kaibar Cataract stretches a reach of sixty-five miles of open water.  The Kaibar Cataract is, during the flood, scarcely any hindrance to navigation; but at Hannek, about thirty miles further on, the three miles of islands, rocks, rapids, and broken water which are called the Third Cataract are, except at high Nile, a formidable barrier, Once this is passed, there is open water for more than 200 miles at all seasons to Merawi.  The banks of the river, except near Sadin Fanti, where the hills close in, are flat and low.  The Eastern bank is lined with a fringe of palm-trees and a thin strip of cultivation, which constitutes what is called ‘the fertile province of Dongola.’  On the other side the desert reaches the water’s edge.  Along the right bank of this part of the river the army was now to move.

The first act of the advance was the occupation of Absarat, and on the 23rd of August MacDonald’s brigade marched thither from Suarda, cutting across the desert to Sadin Fanti, and then following the bank of the Nile.  The occupation of Absarat covered the next movement.  On the 26th Lewis’s brigade was ordered to march across the loop from Kosheh to Sadin Fanti, and reinforce the brigade at Absarat.  The distance of thirty-seven miles was far too great to be accomplished without a system of watering-places.  This the Sirdar rapidly organised.  Water-depots were formed by carrying tanks and water-skins on camels to two points in the desert, and replenishing them by daily convoys.  But now a heavy calamity descended on the arrangements of the General and the hopes of the troops.

During the afternoon of the 25th the wind veered suddenly to the south, and thereupon a terrific storm of sand and rain, accompanied by thunder and lightning, burst over the whole of the Nubian desert, and swept along the line of communications from Suarda to Halfa.  On the next day a second deluge delayed the march of Lewis’s brigade.  But late on the 27th they started, with disastrous results.  Before they had reached the first watering-place a third tempest, preceded by its choking sandstorm, overtook them.  Nearly 300 men fell out during the early part of the night, and crawled and staggered back to Kosheh.  Before the column reached Sadin Fanti 1,700 more sank exhausted to the ground.  Out of one battalion 700 strong, only sixty men marched in.  Nine deaths and eighty serious cases of prostration occurred, and the movement of the brigade from Kosheh to Absarat was grimly called ‘The Death March.’