and the constructors here gained the experience which was afterwards of value on the great Desert Railway from Wady Halfa to the Atbara.  Battalions of troops were distributed along the line and ordered to begin to make the embankments.  Track-laying commenced south of Kosheh on the 9th of October, and the whole work was carried forward with feverish energy.  As it progressed, and before it was completed, the reach of the river from the Third Cataract to Kenna ceased to be navigable.  The army were now dependent for their existence on the partly finished railway, from the head of which supplies were conveyed by an elaborate system of camel transport.  Every week the line grew, Railhead moved forward, and the strain upon the pack animals diminished.  But the problem of feeding the field army without interfering with the railway construction was one of extraordinary intricacy and difficulty.  The carrying capacity of the line was strictly limited.  The worn-out engines frequently broke down.  On many occasions only three were in working order, and the other five undergoing ‘heavy repairs’ which might secure them another short span of usefulness.  Three times the construction had to be suspended to allow the army to be revictualled.  Every difficulty was, however, overcome.  By the beginning of May the line to Kenna was finished, and the whole of the Railway Battalion, its subalterns and its director, turned their attention to a greater enterprise.

In the first week in December the Sirdar returned from England with instructions or permission to continue the advance towards Khartoum, and the momentous question of the route to be followed arose.  It may at first seem that the plain course was to continue to work along the Nile, connecting its navigable reaches by sections of railway.  But from Merawi to Abu Hamed the river is broken by continual cataracts, and the broken ground of both banks made a railway nearly an impossibility.  The movements of the French expeditions towards the Upper Nile counselled speed.  The poverty of Egypt compelled economy.  The Nile route, though sure, would be slow and very expensive.  A short cut must be found.  Three daring and ambitious schemes presented themselves:  (1) the line followed by the Desert Column in 1884 from Korti to Metemma; (2) the celebrated, if not notorious, route from Suakin to Berber; (3) across the Nubian desert from Korosko or Wady Halfa to Abu Hamed.

The question involved the whole strategy of the war.  No more important decision was ever taken by Sir Herbert Kitchener, whether in office or in action.  The request for a British division, the attack On Mahmud’s zeriba, the great left wheel towards Omdurman during that battle, the treatment of the Marchand expedition, were matters of lesser resolve than the selection of the line of advance.  The known strength of the Khalifa made it evident that a powerful force would be required for the destruction of his army and the capture of his capital.  The use of railway