On the 22nd of October Colonel Lewis, with two companies of the Camel Corps and three squadrons of cavalry, started from Omdurman with the object of marching through the centre of the Ghezira and of re-establishing the Egyptian authority.  His progress was in every way successful.  The inhabitants were submissive, and resigned themselves with scarcely a regret to orderly government.  Very little lawlessness had followed the defeat of the Khalifa, and whatever plundering there had been was chiefly the work of the disbanded irregulars who had fought at Omdurman under Major Wortley’s command on the east bank of the Nile.  In every village Sheikhs were appointed in the name of the Khedive, and the officers of the cavalry column concerned themselves with many difficult disputes about land, crops, and women—­all of which they settled to their satisfaction.  Marching through Awamra, Haloosen, and Mesalamia, Colonel Lewis reached Karkoj on the 7th of November, almost at the same time that Ahmed Fedil arrived on the Dinder.

For the next six weeks the movements of the two forces resembled a game of hide-and-seek.  Ahmed Fedil, concealed in the dense forest and jungle of the east bank, raided the surrounding villages and worked his way gradually towards the Rosaires Cataract.  Colonel Lewis, perplexed by false and vague information, remained halted at Karkoj, despatched vain reconnaissances in the hopes of obtaining reliable news, revolved deep schemes to cut off the raiding parties, or patrolled the river in the gunboats.  And meanwhile sickness fell upon his force.  The malarial fever, which is everywhere prevalent on the Blue Nile in the autumn, was now at its height.  More than 30 per cent of every garrison and every post were affected.  The company holding Rosaires were stricken to a man, and only the two British officers remained fit for duty.  The cavalry force which had marched through the Ghezira suffered the most severely.  One after another every British officer was stricken down and lay burning but helpless beneath the palm-leaf shelters or tottered on to the friendly steamers that bore the worst cases north.  Of the 460 men who composed the force, ten had died and 420 were reported unfit for duty within a month of their arrival at Karkoj.

During the end of November the Sheikh Bakr, who had deserted the Dervishes after their retreat from Gedaref, arrived at Karkoj with 350 irregulars.  He claimed to have defeated his former chief many times, and produced a sack of heads as evidence of his success.  His loyalty being thus placed beyond doubt, he was sent to keep contact with the Dervishes and encouraged to the greatest efforts by the permission to appropriate whatever spoils of war he could capture.