The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Beresford
good-will of General Buller, who at once granted all my requests, and
if I found it necessary to order first and report afterwards,
sanctioned my requisitions.
I had with me in my hut for a time F. H. Pollen, who could dive and
swim better than the Dongola men, using like them a blown-up goatskin.
The constant immersion {234} brought on an attack of dysentery. I kept
him in bed, taking away his clothes so that he could not get up, and
doctored him till he recovered.
At this time I acted as doctor to the men under me. Every case of
sickness was reported to me at once. If the patient suffered from
diarrhoea I exhibited castor oil. A petty officer having been thus
treated, said he felt easier. I asked him if he would like another
dose, and he said he would like it. The same night he died. I sent
his body on a camel to the nearest medical officer, who found seventeen
date-stones in his stomach. I had the sorry consolation of knowing
that the poor fellow must have died in any event.
On the 17th November, Lord Wolseley, returning from Dongola, arrived
suddenly at Wady Halfa, where he remained for twenty-four hours,
afterwards returning to Dongola. All we knew was that he had come to
press matters forward. History relates how that on the 17th November,
Wolseley received a letter from Gordon dated 4th November, in which
Gordon wrote: "We can hold out forty days with ease; after that it will
be difficult." In reply Wolseley telegraphed from Wady Halfa: "Yours
of 4th just received 17th; the first I have had from you. I shall be
at Kasr Dongola in four days." Wolseley at the same time informed Lord
Hartington that while the news would not affect his plans, it seemed to
show that Gordon's relief could not be accomplished without fighting.
Lord Wolseley made no announcement on the subject at the time, merely
telling General Buller and myself that we were to stay where we were
for the present. Our impression was that Wolseley had abandoned the
idea of making a dash across the desert from Korti to Metemmeh.
At that date, 17th November, we had more than 200 boats ready to embark
troops at Gernai, from which twenty to thirty boats were being
dispatched daily. Nearly 200 boats had already gone, carrying
detachments of the Essex, Stafford, and Cornwall Regiments, the
Engineers, and Commissariat. About 200 more boats had still to pass
the {235} Cataract. I was very pleased with the work and behaviour of
the 2nd battalion of the Egyptian Army, which was working the portage.
I expressed my satisfaction to them, and gave every man a quarter of a
pound of native tobacco, whereupon they declared with one voice that,
"if God was willing, they would go to hell with my Excellency."
At about this time I received a private intimation from Lord Wolseley
that, when the general advance began, he intended to place me in
command of a naval brigade.
By 22nd November, 549 boats had been passed through the Second
Cataract, 166 of which had been hauled through the Bab-el-Kebir, the
rest portaged. Of the whole number of boats, only three were smashed;
and very few received any damage. Accidents were few, although the
work was dangerous. On 21st November a _voyageur_ was drowned. Three
_voyageurs_ went overboard, and two were saved by catching hold of a
rope. The third scorned the rope, relying upon his ability to swim,
and was never seen again. Up to that date five men altogether had been
drowned, two soldiers, two Canadians, and one native. Later, another
native, and he an Esneh swimmer, was drowned. The river was
extraordinarily fatal. Not one man who went under upon falling
overboard was saved. The natives always used to do their best to keep
on the surface.
Lord Wolseley was so good as warmly to commend the work done on the
Second Cataract; and Sir Redvers Buller, who at first declared the
portage scheme to be impossible of execution, generously expressed his
appreciation of its success.
Having shot a little alligator, I skinned it myself. The Arab
camel-man in my service, who spoke French, argued with me in that
language for a long time that an alligator had no tongue, but fed by
suction, like a snipe. As I had cut out the tongue of my little
alligator, I knew it had one; but my Arabian naturalist refused to be
persuaded.
At this time and afterwards while I was in Egypt, my servant,
interpreter and cook was the excellent José Salvatro, {236} a Maltese.
If he happened to be absent, I conveyed my instructions to the natives
through my French-speaking camel-man, in French. Between my French and
his French and his Arabic, I used to wonder how the meaning filtered
through; but I have a note in my diary that "it comes all right, the
natives are cheery fellows and work capitally with me, and a good smack
upon the 'sit-upon' of a lazy one keeps the whole lot going."
Towards the end of November I was living alone in my hut on the
Bab-el-Kebir, attended only by a bluejacket and the faithful José, who
ceased not from scrubbing and washing, so that I was never a day
without clean things, an inestimable comfort in that climate. Here I
was haunted by an Arab maniac who dwelt in some indiscoverable antre of
the rocks. At night I heard him howling to himself. In the daytime,
he ran here and there, his only garment being the dust he cast upon his
shaven head, crying upon Allah. He ate sand and offal, a diet which
left him hungry, for he would come to my tent for food, which I gave
him. He seemed to know me in a vague way. I gave him some calico to
cover his nakedness withal, but he tore the stuff into fragments and
ate them. One day he rushed into my tent, clawed some mutton-broth out
of the cooking-pot with his horrible hands and crammed it boiling hot
into his mouth. I was obliged forcibly to eject him lest he should
take the whole; but I had no stomach for the rest. My fear was lest he
should burst in at night and I should be obliged in self-defence to
shoot him. Eventually, José lost patience, seized a huge wood-axe, and
chased the maniac for a mile. The poor wretch ran like a hare and
vanished into his hole in the rocks.
I made a match with Colonel Brocklehurst, head of the Remount
Department, to ride my camel, the bold Bimbashi, against any one of
Brocklehurst's camels, for £25. The course was six miles long across
the desert, from Peel's Camp at the beginning of the Cataract to Sir
Evelyn Wood's flagstaff at Wady Halfa. Brocklehurst's rider was his
interpreter, {237} a lean rat of an Arab Sheikh, who was absolutely
certain he would win. His camel was the favourite of Wood's mess and
was reputed to be the best in Egypt. The betting was fifty to one
against me. But I had been riding Bimbashi 30 miles or so a day, and
we were both in fine hard condition.
The Sheikh started at a gallop. First his turban, then his goatskin
saddle-rug, carried away. Both rider and camel were blowing and
perspiring ere they had run three miles. For the first two and a half
miles I waited on the Sheikh, then came away and won in a canter half a
mile ahead. At the finish the troops lined up and made a course for
us. Thus I won my first camel race, owner up. No one was better
pleased than my old friend Colonel Brocklehurst.
Bimbashi (according to my journal) covered the six miles in a little
over eighteen minutes. That gallant steed had already been ridden the
nine miles from my camp to the starting-point; and when I rode him back
in the evening, he was so fresh that he ran away with me, grumbling
loudly, because he was offended at the sight of a dead donkey lying
wrong side up beside the railway.
I invented a saddle for camels, and I believe the pattern is still in
use. The saddle-tree is a triangular wooden framework, like the gable
of a roof. I covered the wood with oakum and canvas; abolished all
buckles, made the girths and stirrups of raw hide thongs, and put the
stirrups forward, instead of behind. Count Gleichen, in his
interesting book, _With the Camel Corps up the Nile_, relates how the
saddles and equipment served out to the Camel Corps gave the men
infinite trouble and discomfort. The unseasoned wood came to pieces,
the straps broke, the water-skins and water-bottles leaked; but one
instance of the departmental mismanagement which caused our men so much
unnecessary suffering.
By the end of November, the river was falling so swiftly that what was
smooth water yesterday was to-day a {238} frivolous series of
waterfalls with a twist in them. Every alteration in the river
involved a new device for haulage, and it would alter at three or four
places in a mile, and there were 11 miles of rapids. I was generally
able to judge by the look of the water when and where it would change
its course during the next few hours. In order to avoid the least
delay, new arrangements must be devised beforehand; and my mind was so
absorbed in these schemes, that I dreamed of them nightly. By that
time I had 1400 men working under me, whose work must be organised, and
stations allocated. The Bab-el-Kebir, that formidable rapid, was now a
grazing ground for goats.
I shifted my quarters from the Bab to Wady Halfa, as the difficulties
were now all at that end of the Cataract. Peel and Colbourne, in
command respectively of the next two reaches, found no day too long and
no work too hard.
In order to supervise the whole length of the operations as quickly as
possible, I kept one camel, Ballyhooly, at the Bab; the big white
donkey County Waterford half-way there; and Bimbashi the bold and
Beelzebub at Wady Halfa. Bimbashi could trot 16 miles in the hour. A
Bedouin Sheikh offered me £3$ for him. As I had bought him for £24 I
concluded that his vender had stolen him. I won more than his price in
the race with Colonel Brocklehurst's Sheikh. While at Wady Halfa I
rode him six miles out in the heavy sand against Sir Evelyn Wood and
his A.D.C., who rode horses, and Bimbashi beat the horses fair and
square.
Lord Wolseley sent me a telegram ordering me to form a naval brigade of
100 men and 10 officers. But as the bluejackets were of inestimable
service in getting the remainder of the boats through the Cataract, and
fitting them out at Gemai, where the soldiers embarked, he desired to
keep them where they were as long as possible. On 27th November, we
hoped to get all the boats through during the next five days. Up to
that date--the last for which I have a note--687 boats had been passed
through the Cataract, with {239} a loss of 4 only; about 27 men of all
sorts had been drowned; and 337 boats had left Gemai with troops and
stores.
On 6th December the last boat was passed through. On the same day, Sir
Evelyn Wood and Sir Redvers Buller received a telegram reporting a
block of boats at Ambigol and Dal Cataract; and I was ordered there at
a moment's notice.
On 27th September I had arrived at Wady Halfa; on 10th October I
schemed the portage; and for eight weeks since that date I had been
continuously hard at work passing the boats through the Second
Cataract; which the Arabs call "the belly of stone."
{240}
CHAPTER XXV
THE SOUDAN WAR (_Continued_)
III. UP THE CATARACTS AND ACROSS THE DESERT
"To Assiout, in a cloud of dust
We came, and it made us smile,
To see each other's features, till
We washed them in the Nile.
From there, by boat, to Assouan
We came, and every night
Made fast, for the boatmen wouldn't steam
Excepting in daylight."
_Songs of the Camel Corps_ (Sergt. H. EAGLE, R.M.C.C.)
On the 6th December, 1884, Peel and Colbourne, my two gallant comrades
who had done so splendid a work upon the Second Cataract, quitted the
Belly of Stone, embarking in two boats manned by Kroomen. The names of