The dreary business commenced again on the morrow. A fair breeze, and sailing; a foul one or a calm, and rowing; running on banks, and pushing off; getting nearly wrecked half a dozen times in the rapids, and escaping. And so they progressed until at length the mighty river divided into two streams, that to the left the Blue Nile, that to the right the White, and the real Nile, and they found at the junction the city of Khartoum, dazzling in the glare of the sunshine, with the governor's house and the mosque rising above the flat roofs. Opposite the city, and on the west side of the Nile, there were a number of tents visible, and Harry asked the reis what place that was. "That is Um Durma, where the camp is," he replied. "And what is the camp for? It seems a very large one." "Yes, O traveller, it is large! Seven thousand foot soldiers, a thousand of them that fight on horseback; many cannon, many camels to carry powder, shot, provisions, water; thousands of those who fight not themselves, but load and lead the baggage camels, sell things to the soldiers, and live upon the camp. In all a large encampment, and must cost the Khedive much money." "Who commands the force, and what is it collected for?" asked Harry. "Hicks Pasha commands it; he is an Englishman, and his principal officers are also English; the men are Egyptians and Bashi-Bazooks." The reis paused. He was a Soudanese; and a smile played over his face as he added, "They are going to do wonderful things; to take El Obeid back again, to destroy the Soudan army, take the Mahdi, and carry him to Cairo in a cage, I believe. Oh! But they are great warriors, and the Mahdi's days are numbered." "Is El Obeid in the Mahdi's hands, then?" asked Harry; for the last time he had heard news of that part of the country it had been still held by the Egyptians; and Mahomet Achmet, or the Mahdi, as he professed himself to be, had been repulsed with such heavy loss when he attacked it as to oblige him to sheer off, this being his first defeat. But he had returned in the January of that year, and taken the place after a fortnight's siege. "Yes," said the sarcastic reis; "he holds it just for the present, till the warriors of Hicks Pasha find it convenient to walk across and take it from him." After the disappointment at Berber, Harry did not feel the same confidence in finding his man that he had previously done. He began to be disheartened, and to think luck was against him; and to settle the matter quickly was a more important matter than ever it had been. If El Obeid was taken by the Mahdi, the insurrection of the Soudanese against the Egyptian yoke must be a very serious thing, and the country would be in a disturbed state for a long time, so that the Nile route would be closed against travellers, and passage across the desert to the sea would be equally difficult. If then he caught his man and recovered the will, he would not be able to get out of the country with it.