THE JAALIN'S CHANCE.

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wags carrying bundles; the Egyptian L's stem was the Fifteenth, and its foot, stretching inland towards the loot, the Jaalin.

Bimbashi Peake, of the Artillery, let off two rounds of shrapnel over the scallywags, and the fight was over. Instantly the plain was quite black with the baggage the dervishes dropped-bundles of clothes, angarebs, chairs, big war-drums, helmets, spears, gibbas, bags of dhurra, donkeys, horses, women, children. Every dervish was making for Omdurman as hard as his legs would let him.

Now came the Jaalin's chance. The Jaalin used to be a flourishing tribe, and inhabited the island of Meroe-the country between the Atbara and the Blue. Nile. A few years ago the tribe had a difference of opinion with the Khalifa: there are not many Jaalin now, and what there are inhabit where they can. The survivors are anxious to redress the balance by removing a corresponding proportion of Baggara, and they began. After a time they came to Hickman Bey, panting, but only half happy. "It is very good, O thou Excellency," they cried; "we're killing them splendidly. They're all out in the desert, only we can't get at them to kill them enough. Can't we have some of the donkeys to pursue on?" said his Excellency.

'Take the lot,"

So the island of Meroe beheld the novel sight of Baggara cavalry, on brood mares with foals at foot,

fleeing for their lives before Jaalin on donkeys. Most of the five-and-twenty horsemen got away to tell the news to the Khalifa; by this time probably their right hands and right feet were off. The footmen the Jaalin pursued till ten at night, and slew to the tune of 160; also there were 645 prisoners, mostly women. They got a tremendous reception from the women at Fort Atbara when they reached it, and joined in it themselves quite unaffectedly. By now they are probably the wives of such black soldiers as are allowed to marry; as like as not many of them actually had husbands, brothers, sons, fathers in one Sudanese battalion or another. A Sudan lady's married life is full of incident in these days; it might move the envy of Fargo, North Dakota. But when all is said and done, a black soldier with a life engagement at 15s. a-month minimum, with rations and allowances, is a brilliant catch than any Baggara that ever came out of Darfur.

It was a raid that for neatness and thoroughness might teach a lesson to Osman Digna himself. What Osman and Mahmud said when they heard their men's women were gone, and that their own retreat along the Nile could be harried for a hundred miles as far as Shabluka, I do not pretend to know. I should be sorry to meet any of the ends they must have invoked upon all the Sirdar's relatives.

And when we got back, and the camels seesawed

THE COOK'S GRIEVANCE.

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in with the sanduks, the cook, for all his new wealth, was very angry. "You have brought no currypowder, O thou Effendim," he said. "You didn't say you wanted any curry-powder," the Mess-President defended himself. "Yes I did," said the cook, sternly; "I said we were short of all vegetables."

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XV.

REST AND RECONNAISSANCES.

THE force remained in camp at Ras el Hudi till April 3. Mahmud's exact position was still undetermined, his intentions yet more so. It was a queer state of things-two armies within twenty miles of each other, both presumably wishful to fight, both liable to run short of provisions, yet neither attacking and neither quite sure where the other was. But the Sirdar had always the winning hand. While he sat on the Atbara Mahmud was stale-mated. It may be supposed that he came down the Nile to fight: very well, here was the Sirdar ready to fight and beat him. Osman Digna probably had raiding in his head. But he could not raid Berber while the Sirdar was the Atbara that would have meant seventy miles across the desert, with wells choked up-though he may not have known this-and the Sirdar always liable to attack him on flank or to get to Berber before him. One day we had a report that he had started on a journey the other way, towards Adarama; but, if he

below him on

MAHMUD STALE-MATED.

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ever went at all, it was probably to dig up grain: there was nothing worth raiding about Adarama. Finally, now that Shendi was destroyed, to go back meant ruin; the blacks, irritated by the loss of their women, would desert; the gunboats would harry the retreat as far as Shabluka; it was even possible that the whole Anglo-Egyptian force would get to the Nile before they did. And if he stayed where he was, then in the end he must either fight or starve.

Mahmud was stale-mated, no doubt, whatever course he took; only in the meantime he took none. He did not move, he did not fight, and he did not starve. And we were still not quite sure where he was. The army stayed a fortnight in Ras Hudi camp, reconnoitring daily, with an enemy within twenty miles, whose precise position it did not know. It hardly seems to speak well for the cavalry. Yet it would be most unjust to blame them: the truth is that the Egyptian cavalry was hopelessly outnumbered and outmatched. Broadwood Bey had eight squadronssay 800 lances-with eight Maxims and one horse battery. There were also two companies of camelcorps, but these were generally wanted for convoys. Against this Mahmud, as he said afterwards himself, had 4000 Baggara horse.

Furthermore, it cannot be said that the Egyptian cavalry were above criticism. They were enormously improved, as will shortly be seen: ever since the Dongola campaign they had come on greatly, but it is