by contrast with the sombre vegetation of the Nile.  Between the trees fly gay parrots and many other bright birds.  The river itself above Ras-el-Hudi is, during March and April, only a dry bed of white sand about 400 yards broad, but dotted with deep and beautifully clear pools, in which peculiarly brilliant fish and crocodiles, deprived of their stream, are crowded together.  The atmosphere is more damp than by the Nile, and produces, in the terrible heat of the summer, profuse and exhausting perspiration.  The natives dislike the water of the Atbara, and declare that it does not quench the thirst like that of the great river.  It has, indeed, a slightly bitter taste, which is a strong contrast with the sweet waters of the Nile.  Nevertheless the British soldiers, with characteristic contrariness, declared their preference for it.  Outside the bush the ground undulated gently, but the surface was either stony and uneven or else cracked and fissured by the annual overflow.  Both these conditions made it hard for cavalry, and still more for artillery, to move freely; and the difficulties were complicated by frequent holes and small khors full of long grass.

Amid such scenes the squadrons moved cautiously forward.  Having made the ground good for fifteen miles from Hudi, Colonel Broadwood halted his force at Abadar, an old fort, and sent one squadron under Captain Le Gallais seven miles further.  At two o’clock this squadron returned, having met a few of the enemy’s scouts, but no formed bodies.  While the force watered by turns at the river Captain Baring’s squadron was extended in a line of outposts about a mile and a quarter to the south-east.  But the reconnoitring squadron had been followed homeward by several hundred Dervish horsemen.  Creeping along through the dense bush by the bank and evading the vedettes, these suddenly fell on the picket line and drove in all the outposts.  In this affair eight troopers were killed and seven wounded.  Thirteen horses were also lost, as, having rid themselves of their riders on the broken ground, they galloped off after the Arab mares on which the Dervishes were mostly mounted.

The news of an attack on Adarama was received on this same afternoon.  It appeared that the Arabs had been repulsed by the Abyssinian irregulars raised by Colonel Parsons.  Glowing details were forthcoming, but I do not propose to recount the Homeric struggles of the ‘friendlies.’  Little in them is worthy of remembrance; much seeks oblivion.

For more than a week the Anglo-Egyptian force remained halted at Ras-el-Hudi, waiting for privation to demoralise Mahmud’s army or to exasperate him into making an attack.  Every morning the cavalry rode out towards the enemy’s camp.  All day long they skirmished with or watched the Baggara horse, and at night they returned wearily to camp.  Each morning the army awoke full of the hopes of battle, waited during the long hours, and finally retired to sleep