Troops and stores were steadily collected at Wady Halfa and along the Nile.  The new Camel Corps, consisting of four regiments, practised their drills and evolutions.  To pilot the boats up the Cataracts voyageurs were brought from Canada.  At length, when all preparations were complete, the expedition started.  The plan was simple.  A strong column of infantry in boats was to work up the river.  In case that should not arrive in time, the Camel Corps was to strike across the Bayuda Desert from Korti to Metemma.  Having arrived there, a small detachment was to be thrown into Khartoum by Gordon’s steamers to sustain the defence until the arrival of the main body in March or even April of 1885, when the town could be regularly relieved.

The dramatic character of the enterprise and its picturesque and original features fascinated the nation, and the advance was watched with breathless interest.  The fortunes of the River Column have been graphically described by one who played no small part in their attempt.  ‘The Campaign of the Cataracts’ [By Sir William Butler] is a record of hard and unceasing toil.  Day after day the long lines of soldiers hauled on the tow-ropes or pulled at the oars of the broad-bottomed boats.  Night after night they camped on the banks amid the grim desolation of the Monassir Desert.  Yet their monotonous labours were encouraged by the knowledge that as soon as the bend of the river at Abu Hamed was reached the strong north wind would carry them swiftly to Khartoum.  And it seemed a strange and bitter irony that the order to turn back and the news that all had been in vain was announced to the troops on the very day when they had cleared the cataracts and were moving forward at five times their former speed.

The Desert Column started from Korti on the 30th of December.  Their strength did not exceed 1,100 officers and men, but they were the flower of the army.  Dropping their communications, they set forth along the caravan route towards Metemma.  The knowledge which we have since gained of the resources of the Mahdists enables the peril of their desperate venture to be fully appreciated.  Although the Dervishes were neither so well armed nor trained as at a later date, they were nearly as numerous and equally devoid of fear.  Their tactics were more in accordance with modern conditions:  their fanaticism was at its height.  The British force, on the other hand, was equipped with weapons scarcely comparable with those employed in the concluding campaigns.  Instead of the powerful Lee-Metford rifle, with its smokeless powder, its magazine action, and its absence of recoil, they were armed with the Martini-Henry, which possessed none of these advantages.  In place of the deadly Maxim there was the Gardner gun—­the very gun that jammed at Tamai, and that jammed again at Abu Klea.  The artillery was also in every respect inferior to that now in general use.  Besides all this, the principles of fire-discipline and of scientific musketry were new, little understood, and hardly admitted.  Nevertheless, the Camel Corps went boldly forward, and engaged an enemy whose destruction ultimately required the strength of a better-armed and better-instructed army twelve times as strong.