sooner or later a general action; not a fight like Firket, Hafir, or Abu Hamed, with the advantage of numbers on the side of the Egyptian troops, but an even battle.  For such a struggle British troops were necessary.  At this time it seemed most unlikely that they would be granted.  But if Berber was occupied, the war, until the arrival of British troops, would cease to be so largely a matter of calculation, and must pass almost entirely into the sphere of chance.  The whole situation was premature and unforeseen.  The Sirdar had already won success.  To halt was to halt in safety; to go on was to go on at hazard.  Most of the officers who had served long in the Egyptian army understood the question.  They waited the decision in suspense.

The Sirdar and the Consul-General unhesitatingly faced the responsibility together.  On the 3rd of September General Hunter received orders to occupy Berber.  He started at once with 350 men of the IXth Soudanese on board the gunboats Tamai, Zafir, Naser, and Fateh.  Shortly after daybreak on the 5th the Egyptian flag was hoisted over the town.  Having disembarked the infantry detachment, the flotilla steamed south to try to harass the retreating Emir.  They succeeded; for on the next day they caught him, moving along the bank in considerable disorder, and, opening a heavy fire, soon drove the mixed crowd of fugitives, horse and foot, away from the river into the desert.  The gunboats then returned to Berber, towing a dozen captured grain-boats.  Meanwhile the Sirdar had started for the front himself.  Riding swiftly with a small escort across the desert from Merawi, he crossed the Nile at the Baggara Cataract and reached Berber on the 10th of September.  Having inspected the immediate arrangements for defence, he withdrew to Abu Hamed, and there busily prepared to meet the developments which he well knew might follow at once, and must follow in the course of a few months.

CHAPTER X:  BERBER

The town of Berber stands at a little distance from the Nile, on the right bank of a channel which is full only when the river is in flood.  Between this occasional stream and the regular waterway there runs a long strip of rich alluvial soil, covered during the greater part of the year with the abundant crops which result from its annual submersion and the thick coating of Nile mud which it then receives.  The situation of Berber is fixed by this fertile tract, and the houses stretch for more than seven miles along it and the channel by which it is caused.  The town, as is usual on the Nile, is comparatively narrow, and in all its length it is only at one point broader than three-quarters of a mile.  Two wide streets run longitudinally north and south from end to end, and from these many narrow twisting alleys lead to the desert or the river.  The Berber of Egyptian days lies in ruins at the southern end of the main roads.  The new town built by the Dervishes stands