could have held twenty men, some two. They must have spread over nearly a square mile, but they were quite rare and discontinuous; in the circle of the camp there was about twice as much firm ground as trench. Add that the whole could have been shelled from the Metemmeh ridge at half a mile or so, and that you could thence have seen almost every man in the place -well, if Omdurman was to be no harder nut than this.

Now turn back to Metemmeh-poor, blind-walled, dead Metemmeh. And first, between camp and town, stand a couple of crutched uprights and a cross-bar. You wonder what, for a moment, and then wonder that you wondered. A gallows! At the foot of it a few strands of the brown palm - fibre rope they use in this country, and one, two, four, six, eight human jaw-bones. Just the jaw bones, and again you wonder why; till you remember the story that when Sheikh Ibrahim, of the Jaalin, came here a week or two ago he found eight skulls under the gallows When he took them up

in a rope netting bag.

for burial the lower jaws still.

dropped off, and lie here

If the jaws could wag in speech again-but we must try not to be sentimental. If we are, we shall hardly stand the inside of Metemmeh. So blank and piteous and empty is the husk of it. These are not mere mud hovels, but town houses as the Sudan understands

houses-mud, certainly, but large, lofty rooms with

STILLNESS AND STENCH.

231

wide window-holes and what once were matting roofs. Two that I went into were even double-storied; no stairs, of course, but a sort of mud inclined plane outside the walls leading to the upper rooms. Another house had a broad mud-bank forming a divan round its chief room. Now the beams were cracked and broken, and the divan had been rained on through the broken roof; shreds of what once may have been hangings were dangling limply in the breeze. At the gateway of this house-once an arch, now a tumble of dry mud was a black handful of a

woman's hair.

In every courtyard you see the miserable emblems of panic and massacre. Ride through the gate-there lies a calabash tossed aside; a soiled, red, peak-toed slipper dropped from the foot that durst not stop to pick it up again; the broken sticks and decayed cords. of a new angareb that the butchers smashed because it was not worth taking away. And in every courtyard you see great patches of black ashes spreading up the wall. Those monuments are recent; they are the places where, only days ago, they burned the bones of the Jaalin. The dead camels and donkeys lie there yet, across every lane, dry, but still stinking. A parrot-beaked hairy tarantula scrambles across the path, a lizard's tail slides deeper into a hole; that is all the life of Metemmeh. Everything steeped in the shadeless sun, everything dry and silent, silent. The stillness and the stench merge together and soak

into your soul, exuding from every foot of this melancholy graveyard - the cenotaph of a whole tribe, fifteen years of the Sudan's history read in an hour. Sun, squalor, stink, and blood: that is Mahdism.

Press your bridle on the drooping pony's neck; turn and ride back to the river, the palms, and the lances. God send he stays to fight us.

XXX.

A CORRESPONDENT'S DIARY.

Wad Hamed, Aug. 22.-The concentration of the force here is all but complete.

The British regiments have all arrived, whole or in part, with the exception of the Rifles and the 21st Lancers, of whom two squadrons are marching by the road. They are expected at mid-day to

morrow.

With almost the full strength of the Egyptian army added, the force is the largest ever seen in the Sudan, the composition of every arm being at least half as strong again as at the Atbara.

The cavalry and the convoy are going very well now. The beasts and men are hardened by marching, which is an invaluable training. We came twentyfive miles to-day in one march without effort.

Wad Hamed, Aug. 23.-The camp here is both compact and commodious. Though there are but little short of 20,000 men, in a zareba barely more

than a mile long, nobody is crowded, and every where there is easy access to water.

The blacks are encamped at the south end in terraces of straw huts; next are the Egyptians under shelters extemporised from their blankets; at the north end the British are installed in tents. Their quarters are far more comfortable than at Atbara, though officers and men have to sleep in their boots for the sake of practice.

There is but little shade from the trees, but the camp is covered with tufts of coarse yellow grass, which keep down the dust.

The steamers lying along the shore, the guns, horses, mules, and camels, the bugle-calls, and the cries in English and Arabic, make up a little world full of life in the desert.

The concentration will not actually be effected here as General Hunter, with two Egyptian brigades, will march to-morrow to Hajir at the head of the Shabluka cataract, where there will be a new concentration within a few days. He will be followed in the evening by his other two brigades, which will march to various points up the river, and cut wood for the steamers ascending the rapids.

The Lancers will arrive here this evening, and the Rifles will come probably by boat early to-morrow. The force will then be complete. There was an imposing parade of the forces here this morning. The 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Egyptian Brigades and the