pleasantly until the regiment was released from quarantine on 12th November, when the real forward movement for the relief of General Gordon commenced, so far as the Black Watch was concerned. Embarking at Philae, famed for its ancient island temple, in steamers and barges, the voyage of two hundred and {94} fifty miles was safely accomplished to Wady Halfa, after which, avoiding the second cataract of the Nile, the journey to Sarras was made overland. Here there was considerable detention waiting the arrival of a large flotilla of 800 whale boats--which had been commissioned from England by Lord Wolseley for transporting the troops up the river. Regiment after regiment were here embarked to fight the cataracts, the rapids, and the shallows of the mysterious river whose source had for ages been hidden in the dark recesses of the African Continent. Surely no stranger or more gigantic armed force ever floated on its waters either before or since the days of Egypt's ancient greatness! [Sidenote: The Nile Expedition] As it was, the British soldier--'capable of going anywhere and doing anything'--had for the nonce to convert himself into a boatman; and that he had much to learn in this capacity may be gathered from one of the jokes familiar to the expeditionary force, to the effect that one day a man at the helm, on receiving the order 'put your helm down,' immediately proceeded to place the tiller in the bottom of the boat, and innocently awaited further orders! The boats provided were about thirty feet long, seven feet beam, and with a draught of two and a half feet. As the boats were destined each to be self-supporting, they had, when finally loaded, supplies of ammunition, ordnance, and commissariat stores for fourteen men for one hundred days. But it was not unusual for the boats to be carrying practically one hundred and twenty days' rations and other stores, and reserve ammunition for fourteen men, with a crew of eight men in each boat. Great caution and skill were necessary in an expedition so full of novelty and danger, and if accidents did happen, it is no matter of surprise, {95} considering that it was through an almost entirely unknown country and among hostile tribes their course lay. With a falling river, too, the dangers and difficulties were increased, for boats were frequently striking sunken rocks, and springing leaks, which necessitated their being hauled up on the river bank, unloaded of their tons of stores, and then repaired by the soldiers themselves, for there was no one else to do it. In some places there was barely room for a loaded camel to pass between the perpendicular rocks; in others, where the path was wider, the rocks had been prepared for defence by loop-holed stone sconces. There was no order or regularity in the formation of the rocks. 'They seemed,' said one eye-witness, 'to have been upheaved in a mass, in some great volcanic convulsion, and to have fallen one upon another in every direction.'