The earliest freight which the railway carried to Kosheh was the first of the new stern-wheel gunboats.  Train after train arrived with its load of steel and iron, or with the cumbrous sections of the hull, and a warship in pieces—­engines, armaments, fittings and stores—­soon lay stacked by the side of the river.  An improvised dockyard, equipped with powerful twenty-ton shears and other appliances, was established, and the work—­ complicated as a Chinese puzzle—­of fitting and riveting together the hundreds of various parts proceeded swiftly.  Gradually the strange heaps of parts began to evolve a mighty engine of war.  The new gunboats were in every way remarkable.  The old vessels had been 90 feet long.  These were 140 feet.  Their breadth was 24 feet.  They steamed twelve miles an hour.  They had a command of 30 feet.  Their decks were all protected by steel plates, and prepared by loopholed shields for musketry.  Their armament was formidable.  Each carried one twelve-pounder quick-firing gun forward, two six-pounder quick-firing guns in the central battery, and four Maxim guns.  Every modern improvement—­such as ammunition hoists, telegraphs, search-lights, and steam-winches—­was added.  Yet with all this they drew only thirty-nine inches of water.

The contract specified that these vessels should be delivered at Alexandria by the 5th of September, but, by exertions, the first boat, the Zafir, reached Egypt on the 23rd of July, having been made in eight weeks, and in time to have assisted in the advance on Dongola.  The vessels and machinery had been constructed and erected in the works in London; they were then marked, numbered, and taken to pieces, and after being shipped to Alexandria and transported to the front were finally put together at Kosheh.  Although in a journey of 4,000 miles they were seven times transhipped, not a single important piece was lost.

The convenience of Kosheh on the clear waterway, and the dirty condition of Firket, were in themselves sufficient reasons for the change of camp; but another and graver cause lay behind.  During the month of June an epidemic of cholera began to creep up the Nile from Cairo.  On the 29th there were some cases at Assuan.  On the 30th it reached Wady Halfa.  In consequence of this the North Staffordshire Regiment marched into camp at Gemai.  Their three months’ occupation of the town had not improved their health or their spirits.  During the sixteen-mile march along the railway track to Gemai the first fatal case occurred, and thereafter the sickness clung to the regiment until the middle of August, causing continual deaths.