the knowledge that they were fully occupied, the knowledge also of a detachment at Salahieh, and the certainty that the enemy would be informed of all his movements by spies. His experience of an Egyptian sun also told him that although British troops could fight and conquer in the heat of the day, the rough task before them would be better and more easily achieved in the cool dark hours of the early morning.

After Sir Garnet had explained to all his generals and brigadiers the plan of attack, and given each a sketch of the intended operations, he was seen with his staff reconnoitering the position, but the enemy's cavalry issuing from Tel-el-Kebir put an end to the reconnaissance, and he was back to camp by seven A.M.

The pontoons were now all to the front, to enable Graham's force to cross or recross the canal at will in the work of turning Arabi's lines. During the day the advanced guard was pushed forward four miles, while the Indian infantry followed for two miles, and when the evening of the 12th of September came, all knew that the hour of battle was drawing nigh.

The orders were issued for a general advance; they were brief, but significant. By half-past six all tents were struck and packed, and all baggage was piled up along the railway. No bugles or trumpets were allowed to sound after sunset. No fires were permitted; and the utmost silence was ordered to be maintained. throughout the operations of the night. At half-past one in the morning Sir Garnet Wolseley gave the order to advance, and the 1st and 2d divisions moved off. The total strength advancing to the attack was given in the "Times" at 11,000 bayonets, 2,000 sabers, and 60 guns-"about half that of the enemy, excluding the Salahieh detachment."

In moving over the desert at night there were no landmarks to guide the movements, and their course was directed by the stars, which was well and correctly effected, and the leading brigades of each division both reached the enemy's works within a couple of minutes of each other. There were a few temporary halts, to enable the regiments to maintain touch and cohesion of order, and to allow the guns and wagons, the jarring wheels of which seemed. to sound strangely loud, to keep up with the columns.

When dawn was nigh the troops were within 1,000 yards of the enemy, and then a final halt was made for a brief space to enable the fighting line to be perfected, and last preparations to be made.

"The attack began on the left," says the correspondent of the "Standard," "and nothing finer could be imagined than the advance of the Highland Brigade. Swiftly and silently the Highlanders moved forward to the attack. No word was spoken, no shot was fired until within 300 yards of the enemy's works (a distance since lessened to 200 yards), nor up to that time did a sound in the Egyptian lines betoken that they were aware of the presence of their assailants. Then suddenly a terrific fire flashed along the line of sand heaps, and a storm of bullets swept over the heads of the advancing troops. A wild cheer broke from the Highlanders in response; the pipes struck shrilly up, bayonets were fixed, and at the double this splendid body of men went steadily forward. The first line of intrenchments was carried; but from another line of intrenchments, which could scarcely be seen in the dim light, another burst of musketry broke out. For a few minutes the Highlanders poured in a heavy fire in exchange, but it was probably as innocuous as that of the unseen enemy, whose bullets whistled overhead. The brigade again moved rapidly forward. Soon a portion of the force had passed between the enemy's redoubts, and opened a flanking fire upon him."

A front attack could not succeed, it would appear; the ditch was too deep, the ramparts too high. Filing off on each side, the Highland Light Infantry endeavored to force a way in at the flanks of the works, and here one of the bloodiest struggles of the day ensued-a long and stern hand to hand fight, which was not ended till Sir Edward Hamley had re-enforced that regiment the old 74th-by part of the Cornwall regiment and the 60th Rifles.

On the other flank of the brigade the Black Watch was compelled to tarry in its wild rush, in order to storm a redoubt, the heavy guns of which, in the now breaking morning light, had begun to play heavily on Graham's brigade and our advancing artillery; and thus it came to pass that, from both flanks of Alison's brigade being delayed, the charge straight to their front of the Gor

don and Cameron Highlanders caused them to become the apex of a wedge thrust into the heart of the Egyptian army.

The best fighting by the troops of the latter took place here, when their First Guard Regiments fell back silently and sullenly before the Highlanders, even while the latter were under a flank fire.

Meanwhile, fighting had begun vigorously on the other flank. Dawn was faintly stealing over the eastern sky, when the crest of a ridge some 500 yards in front of the Egyptian left became covered with moving objects, that told darkly against the pale light. It was the brigade of Graham coming on. A single shot from the Egyptian lines rang out, and after that the storm of the battle burst forth.

The Royal Horse Artillery shelled the enemy's extreme left, where the Egyptians are said to have been more prepared than they were for the attack on their right, and for a time held their ground, till the first jets of fire that spirted out in the darkness became one long blaze of musketry over the top of the parapets. Under the guidance of Major Hart, a staff officer, the Royal Irish were sent to turn the enemy's left, and with a wild yell, and all their national and characteristic valor, they went "straight at the works," carried them at the bayonet's point, and completely turned the flank of the position. Then crowded masses of the Egyptians began to rush across the open, suffering heavily from our fire, which mowed them down in hundreds.

Next to the Royal Irish came the old 87th Royal Irish Fusiliers, and next them the old 94th, now termed the 2d Battalion of the Connaught Rangers. These regiments advanced by regular rushes; but it would seem that the rest of the troops in the shadows of the plain had not been perceived, and thus the fire that at first opposed them was of that involuntary kind which tells of want of discipline; but ere long it became a steady fringe of fire sparkling out amid the gloom.

Here our troops had been seen fully by the enemy, who poured upon them a hail of bullets. Thick as bees, the Egyptian infantry clustered on the parapets of the redoubts, and were forced down the slopes of these into the deep trenches in front of them. Hundreds

of them, lying down, smote the head of the advancing brigade with their fire; but our soldiers deployed with splendid steadiness, and advanced by sections, making rushes that were short and sharp toward the enemy's position.

As they drew near the trenches, they gathered themselves in groups, and leaped down into the midst of the enemy; then a hand to hand fight ensued with butt-end and bayonet, and the Egyptians fell in scores; thus, when the second line came on, they found the trenches full of dead.

The first line of the Egyptian intrenchments, with all the redoubts, was now fully captured, but the stronger lay within, armed with twelve heavy guns, while line after line of shelter-trenches lay beyond. The troops, cheering with glorious enthusiasm, again went storming up the slopes without the hesitation of a second, won the inner parapets, and bayoneted the gunners before they had time to abandon their cannon.

About twenty minutes after, the first rush on the left and that on the right sufficed to put the carefully constructed intrenchments and the redoubts, with all their flank-firing and formidable artillery, in the hands of the victorious British troops. Those of the enemy who were able to fly, fled, followed by the withering and searching fire of the victors in the captured positions: and those other redoubts that were yet unattacked, and the shelter-trenches lay beyond; all these availed them not, as the dread of the cavalry and horse artillery sweeping round upon their flank and rear caused the Egyptians suddenly to abandon them.

From the moment that Graham's brigade on the right and the Highlanders on the left were through the inner line of redoubts, the actual resistance of the Egyptians ceased, and the battle was virtually won. Mingled together in bewildered mobs, hurried into wild and disastrous retreat, the Egyptian regiments had no rest given them-no chance of rallying even for one brief moment.

Arabi was put to flight. Tel-el-Kebir was taken. Egyptian losses were enormous, prisoners were plentiful. Through the latter it was learned that prior to the British advance spies reported to Arabi full particulars of the coming event. Midnight came, and the vedettes reported there were no signs of an advance as yet, and

this statement produced a certain slackness of watch among the soldiers of Arabi, who turned into their tents. An alarm was certainly given when an Arab pony in the British lines neighed a response to another half a mile distant, but still the men of Arabi thought nothing of it. Soon after this an artillery colonel reported that he heard the clank of accouterments at a distance. A picket that was ordered out to reconnoiter refused to do so, and a vedette who had lost his horse, thinking he could see it, crept out from the earthworks and saw the British army lying down!

He had barely time to report this circumstance when the roar of battle burst over all the trenches. Believing themselves to be invulnerable and impregnable, the enemy stood firm for a considerable time, blazing hard, till their rifle-barrels became heated with the fierce rapidity of their firing.

CHAPTER XLIV

BATTLE OF KASHGATE AND FALL OF KHARTOUM

THE WAR IN THE SOUDAN-THE MAHDI-DEFEAT OF HICKSNILE EXPEDITION AND DEATH OF GORDON

B

A.D. 1883-1884

ELED-ES-SOUDAN, or "the Land of the Blacks," is the name given by Arabian geographers to that part of the African continent which stretches to the south of the Sahara, from the Nile on the east to the Atlantic on the west. Khartoum (which signifies "the point") is the capital of this country, the sovereignty of which was first seized by Egypt in 1819, when Mehemet Ali, on becoming aware of the anarchy existing there, conceived the idea of introducing civilization, and of providing occupation for his troops at the same time. He according sent his son Ismail with a large force to invade the country. Ismail reached Khartoum, which is situated at the delta where the