The zeriba of the camp at Royan had been already made and much of the ground cleared by the energy of the Soudanese division, which had been the first to arrive.  An advanced depot was established at Royan island which was covered with white hospital tents, near which there was a forest of masts and sails.  The barges and boats containing the stores and kits awaited the troops, and they had only to bivouac along the river-bank and shelter themselves as quickly as possible from the fierce heat of the sun.  The dark hills of Shabluka, among and beneath which the camp and army nestled, lay behind us now.  To the south the country appeared a level plain covered with bush and only broken by occasional peaks of rock.  The eternal Nile flowed swiftly by the tents and shelters, and disappeared mysteriously in the gloom of the gorge; and on the further bank there rose a great mountain—­Jebel Royan—­from the top of which it was said that men might see Khartoum.

The whole army broke camp at Royan on the 28th of August at four o’clock in the afternoon, and marched to Wady el Abid six miles further south.  We now moved on a broad front, which could immediately be converted into a fighting formation.  This was the first time that it had been possible to see the whole force—­infantry, cavalry, and guns—­on the march at once.  In the clear air the amazing detail of the picture was striking.  There were six brigades of infantry, composed of twenty-four battalions; yet every battalion showed that it was made up of tiny figures, all perfectly defined on the plain.  A Soudanese brigade had been sent on to hold the ground with pickets until the troops had constructed a zeriba.  But a single Dervish horseman managed to evade these and, just as the light faded, rode up to the Warwickshire Regiment and flung his broad-bladed spear in token of defiance.  So great was the astonishment which this unexpected apparition created that the bold man actually made good his escape uninjured.

On the 29th the forces remained halted opposite Um Teref, and only the Egyptian cavalry went out to reconnoitre.  They searched the country for eight or nine miles, and Colonel Broadwood returned in the afternoon, having found a convenient camping-ground, but nothing else.  During the day the news of two river disasters arrived—­the first to ourselves, the second to our foes.  On the 28th the gunboat Zafir was steaming from the Atbara to Wad Hamed, intending thereafter to ascend the Shabluka Cataract.  Suddenly—­overtaken now, as on the eve of the advance on Dongola, by misfortune—­she sprang a leak, and, in spite of every effort to run her ashore, foundered by the head in deep water near Metemma.  The officers on board—­among whom was Keppel, the commander of the whole flotilla—­ had scarcely time to leap from the wreck, and with difficulty made their way to the shore, where they were afterwards found very cold and hungry.  The Sirdar received the news at Royan.  His calculations were disturbed by the loss of a powerful vessel; but he had allowed for accidents, and in consequence accepted the misfortune very phlegmatically.  The days of struggling warfare were over, and the General knew that he had a safe margin of strength.