half-front somewhat resembled the slow swing of a door on its hinges. If I may take the liberty of speaking of my own impressions, the feeling which that wonderful scene evoked was one of intense fascination, mingled with a certain kind of curiosity, and of surprise that the most renowned regiment in the British army should be handled in this manner by naked barbarians. There was one man in particular who riveted my attention. He stood out, alone, at some little distance from his comrades, who, with obstinate slowness, were retiring with their faces to the enemy. The easy, graceful attitude of that handsome Highlander, as with left leg extended, head turned slightly rightwards, and levelled rifle, he picked out his victims! Six yards in front of him a tall Arab, with upraised arm, was poising his spear, about to throw or rush. A puff of blue smoke, and the Arab, bounding into the air, fell forward on his face, as if he had been shot through the heart. In a moment or two down went another by a bullet from the same weapon. Unfortunately it was not every Highlander or 'Old Sixty-fifth' man who could use his rifle or ply his bayonet. There was no elbow-room. The number and weight of the Arabs was so great, and the fatal 'rush' through the heavy curtain of smoke so sudden, that our brave fellows were sorely puzzled how to act even in bare self-defence. A 65th officer very appropriately compared the appearance presented by his own part of the yielding line to that of the scramble in a game of football. A good instance in point occurred in the company of the 42nd commanded by Captain Scott-Stevenson. This officer was suddenly seized about the legs by some Arabs who were crawling or sprawling on the ground. One of them dragged at the frogs of his kilt, and then at his 'sporran.' The trick of kicking one's enemy hardly enters into the training of a British officer or soldier, but in such a crisis one need not be squeamish about formalities, and Stevenson, who is as strong as a horse, kicked out like one, and made a quick clearance. It happens. that Captain Scott-Stevenson is one of the best boxers in the army, and now he found some use for the noble art. His claymore was too long a weapon for such close quarters, but he sent its steel basket' crashing upon the nose and inquiring eyes of one assailant, and then with his left fist he capsized a second. In this way were the Highlanders swept back.

But, even before this occurred, the 65th were driven in from the front and right flank. One half at least of the square was being crushed inwards and rearwards upon the line of marines, who, hitherto, stood as steady as a stone wall. Numbers of the men of the 65th were knocked off their legs in the Arab rush. The colonel, with four of his officers-Ford, Dalgetty, Ethelstone, Smythe-were thrown down. Soldiers and savages alike went trampling over them. Gallant Ford was killed; Dalgetty fainted from loss of blood, and was rescued by one of his men; the others escaped by miracle. If Stevenson of the 42nd is

known as a first-rate boxer, Colonel Byam of the York and Lancaster regiment is equally well known—and especially, perhaps, in India— as a first-rate revolver-shooter. As he lay on the ground he was assailed by four or five spearmen. Crack! crack! crack! went Byam's weapon, dropping, or sufficiently maiming, an Arab at each touch of the trigger. The colonel rose up, and, while the main body of his regiment was breaking into pieces, some thirty of his men rallied round him. There they stood, those true heroes, back to back, repelling, with bayonet thrust, the repeated onslaughts of the Arabs who encircled them. Fifteen of Colonel Byam's men fell where they stood their names are given in one of General Graham's despatches. All the thirty were very old soldiers-among the oldest in the regiment-and every man of the fifteen who perished bore three or four badges. This, however, was not the only example of a group isolating itself from the retiring mass. The Highlanders formed one. or two such groups. The same thing happened in Tuson's splendid battalion, and these groups materially assisted to bring about the general rally which very soon followed. But for the anachronism of rifles and bayonets, these and other episodes of the fight might very well be compared to Homer's battles. Some of the Arabs, having hurled their spears at the English soldiers, took to stone-throwing. Colonel Green of the Black Watch was struck. Colonel Byam had his helmet knocked off, and was half-stunned by a boulder. Having lost. his hat, he went bareheaded for the next hour and more, defying sunstroke.

6

It has been said above that the formation of isolated groups materially assisted to bring about the general rally, which took place in about twenty minutes, when the disjecta membra of the second brigade had been driven back three hundred yards. But a more potent aid to recovery now manifested itself—an aid without which General Davis's square might have been wiped out.' Suddenly, from the left flank of General Buller's square, came a volley of musketry, enfilading the victorious Arabs. Round by the left of General Davis's brigade came the cavalry, who, dismounting their men, poured another volley into the enemy's right flank. The Arabs were between two fires. The Highlanders, the 65th, and the marines reformed, and, after a brief interval of time, advanced once more, driving the Arabs before them over the old ground where many hundreds of their foes now lay dead. The Arabs attempted a second charge, but the attempt failed, and was short-lived. With the recapture of the guns, the second brigade wound up its share of the day's task.

The fortunes of General Buller's brigade were very different from those of General Davis's; and they may be very briefly described. Buller's square was halted at a distance of from four to five hundred yards from the slope of the plateau. Davis's was marched to within twenty yards of it. The narrowness of the space between the

slope and the second brigade enabled the Arabs to 'rush' the square before our men could find time to fire more than a few rounds; the breadth of the space between it and Buller's troops rendered it impossible for a 'rush' to reach the square in face of a well-directed fire. Scarcely an Arab who ran nearer than eighty yards to Buller's lines lived to tell the tale. There was no hurry, no flurry, in the handling of this brigade. The men formed up, shoulder to shoulder, in leisurely order when they saw the Arabs coming on. Their deliberate volleys sounded like the harsh grating roar of the sea on a shingly beach, and when the smoke drifted slowly away, the tawny plain reappeared, black with the bodies of the dead and the dying.

The good-humour of the Gordon Highlanders was as conspicuous as their steadiness. Now, lads, do what I tell you,' shouted Captain Woodward to his company, and you'll each have an extra pint when we return.' The lads laughed and cheered, and when they went back their captain scrupulously kept his promise. One of the neatest shots ever fired proceeded from a corner in the right flank of General Buller's square. A band of Arabs-some twenty-two or twenty-five of them-rushed to within seventy yards of the square. They halted behind a big, tall bush, as if to take breath, peering now and again. round the branches, as if to see what the English were about. A shell was fired; the tall, thick bush shook from top to bottom, and after the battle was over all the Arabs were found dead on the spot.

General Buller had not only to help Davis, he had also to help himself. The Arab attack comprised three separate lines of assault. The Arabs evidently had a definite, settled, comprehensive plan, nor is it difficult to imagine that it might to some considerable extent have proved successful. The probability is that they expected us to fight in a single square, as at El Teb. If General Graham had done so, and had also pushed his single square into the position in which the second brigade received the enemy's rush, the Arabs might have had a very fair chance of surrounding us on all sides. This, however, is speculation. General Graham's force marched in two squares, separated from each other by a very considerable space, and yet the Arabs did try to get round them both. For the main attack of the Arabs on the first brigade was delivered on the right flank, and right-half front, both of which were formed by the Gordon Highlanders. The left flank of General Davis's brigade, and the right of General Buller's were, of course, the two extreme lines of the infantry formation, which included the two squares. But the Arabs not only made a series of attacks on the second and first brigades; they also made a separate attempt, namely on the ereba, where, it will be remembered, the army rested, or tried to rest, the night before, and in which, when the march-out took place in the morning, a company or two were left to take care of the sick and wounded, and to guard the stores. The attempt, partial as it was,

on the zereba was speedily abandoned, no doubt in consequence of the failure which the rush on the first brigade met with. Along the whole length of the ravine faced by General Graham's army the Arabs were grouped, in the hope of destroying this force, as they had destroyed Baker Pasha's. Away in the front of General Buller's position a considerable body of Arabs was seen, which did not join in the fight at all. This body drew off when General Buller's brigade, advancing to the ravines, and leaving the second brigade behind in the field, plunged into them, marched across, completed the dispersion of the enemy, and wound up the proceedings of this memorable day by the peaceful occupation of Osman Digna's camp.

6

In an

The reader will now be in a position to understand the cause of the repulse sustained by General Davis's square. He will see that the fault was not the men's, nor the individual officers'. order issued at Suakin on Sunday, March 16, the General observed that the naval brigade for a brief moment lost their guns, but through no fault of their own.' The same words apply to the conduct of the Highlanders and the 65th, and, indeed, is implied in a subsequent order in which Sir Gerald Graham assumed responsibility for what had happened. The story of the break-up is brief and simple. The front line doubled, while the flanks and rear followed only in quick time. The lid was taken off the box. The Arabs made for the gaps, which, however, very few of them succeeded in entering. What they did do, was to crush in the front (the 'lid') and the sides; and this the extreme shortness of the space over which they charged enabled them to do. The front line charged over a space of about a hundred yards, and halted, as already said, twenty yards from the edge of the slope. As Colonel Green and his officers expressed it, We charged at nothing;' but they saw their comrades on the right— that is the 65th-and the blue-jackets 'blazing away.' In a minute or two the Arabs plunged through the smoke upon the right flank and right front face and corner of the square, and then upon the Highlanders on the left half front. Machine-guns in good hands can make dreadful havoc at ranges of from 300 to 2,000 yards; but in the hands even of the blue-jackets they speedily became useless at a range of twenty. So in the fearful rush, the blue-jackets, who had no supports, were swept away, but not before they had locked their guns, thus preventing them from being turned upon ourselves by the Arabs. There was no such thing as a stampede. Speaking of the 42nd Highlanders in particular-for I stood close to a group of them, and certainly within fifteen yards of the nearest Arab-all I can say is that they fought like demons; they retreated backwards; they never turned an inch except to thrust at the Arabs who were trying to surround them. Confused and broken as the British recoil was, it would have been far worse with troops of less sterling quality than the 1st Royal Highlanders and the York and Lancasters. No other

troops could have emerged with fewer disasters from the mad onset of those savages. To show how the same event may be interpreted by different minds, it may be mentioned that an Arab prisoner expressed to my fellow-correspondent, Mr. Cameron of the Standard, his opinion that our recoil was a deliberate trick to get the Arabs drawn in between three fires. Mr. Cameron's friend was as much impressed by the cunning as by the gallantry of the English.

The battles of Tamai and El Teb present as many contrasting features as the respective localities in which they were fought. At El Teb, cavalry (to a very small extent, however, by the Arabs), infantry, and artillery were employed, and that, too, most effectively on either side. Though our enemies were barbarians, our fight with them was a pretty series of evolutions, conducted pretty much on the usual lines of civilised and scientific warfare. But at Tamai the most interesting part of the performance consisted of a series of Homeric scrimmages; the other part, of a series of cautious, deliberate, carefully aimed volleys. General Buller's brigade stood as quietly and collectedly as if it were engaged in an ordinary parade. At Tamai there was no artillery duel, as there was at El Teb; nor did the cavalry charge. While they were drawn up away to General Davis's left, in echeloned squadrons of brigade, it was thought. that they might charge; and the hussars afterwards regretted they had not the opportunity. But a charge could hardly be effected at any time, except at the risk of masking the infantry fire, and of rushing uncomfortably near to the ravines. What the hussars did was to dismount and pour in volleys on their own account.

The cavalry service in this campaign may have already suggested to the reader's mind some notions respecting the conduct of future African wars. Clearly, English cavalry should not be employed—if any other can be found-on such expeditions. Indian cavalry regiments are most admirably fitted for the work. A regiment like the 13th Bengal Lancers, for example, which distinguished itself so highly during the Egyptian campaign, would, by charging at the right moment, have wrought havoc among the Arabs at El Teb. In many respects there are no finer cavalry in the world than the Indian sowars, the crack regiments of which are raised exclusively from races and tribes of born warriors. An English cavalry man is, ordinarily, more muscular, 'stronger,' in the common, rough sense of the term, than the Sikh, or Pathan (Indo-Afghan of the Punjab frontier). But he has a great many more wants; while in a hot country like the Soudan-hot at most seasons of the year-the Sikh or Pathan would beat him in enduring the discomforts of thirst and of exposure to the sun. Of the two, the Indian would be the last to suffer from the ordinary ailments of campaigning, such as fever, diarrhoea, and dysentery. There is a great difference in the case of infantry. But here, also, native Indian infantry might be employed with advantage. No one