idea that unless in square formation they could not stand against Arabs had been to a certain extent prevalent: to-day the troops had learnt that they could beat their enemy in hand-to-hand combats in the rocks, fighting in loose order.

CHAPTER X.

THE SHUKOOK PASS.

IIth Feb.

ON the morning of the 11th, the troops began to pass through the troublesome rapid commencing opposite our camp, and a wing of the Cornwalls, two companies of the Black Watch, and two of the Staffords all troops which had not been engaged on the previous day-reached the high Nile island at Kirbekan, and camped there, relieving the companies of the Black Watch who had bivouacked there the preceding night. The mounted troops covered the advance, and Butler reconnoitred to the entrance of, and some distance into, the Shukook pass, seeing no sign of any enemy. The other wing of the Cornwalls, the artil

lery and convoy, arrived in our camp opposite Dulka island, and the Gordons reached Castle Camp.

Now was the time when a strong force of cavalry would have been invaluable. Το push on after the enemy with cavalry, and at once seize and hold the upper end of the Shukook pass, before he could rally from his defeat, was the proper course to pursue. It could not be done with infantry, for the infantry were tied to their boats, and every man who marched a yard beyond his boat, had to be marched back again to it sooner or later. As for mounted troops, all that could be spared, after leaving the strictly necessary guards with the main camp, the artillery and convoy, were about sixty Hussars, and forty to fifty of the Egyptian camel corps; and to push on so small a force to encamp at the far side of this long and difficult pass without any infantry support, would have been to court disaster. The mounted troops, therefore, fell back to the bivouac at Kirbekan.